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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

What really struck me was how OK Microsoft seemed to be with her moonlighting for Valve, basically working for a competitor (albeit a small one) directly in a role that was also her role in Microsoft. Pretty much unheard of in FAANGs today. You can't so much as breathe on an external project today without FAANG claiming IP ownership over anything and everything you breathe on. Imagine working for Apple and telling your manager, "Hey, by the way, I'm going to be helping out a little with a small-potatoes competing mobile operating system project... You're cool with that, right?"

> I had another conversation with Microsoft execs about my role and the conflict with Valve, and again I was essentially told, “it’s fine, we’re OK, we like where you’re at, don’t worry.”

WOW!

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Gabe Newell was on the Windows 1.0 team.

An Easter egg of his was recently found in an old Windows 1.0 file.

https://www.techradar.com/news/almost-37-years-after-its-lau...

Doesn't say that Gaben did it?

Anyone planning to moonlight while working at a big company should consult a lawyer first, but Microsoft has very employee-friendly policies in general.

They still do (at least as of a few years ago, which was when I left).

Out of all tech companies I’ve seen, their moonlighting policy is by far the most permissible one. You fill out a short form, they review it fairly quickly, and then you get an official “you are good to go, this is your project, we aren’t going to have any claims against in the future”email.

I am yet to see anyone who got a rejection on that form (but I also don’t know anyone who would attempt to send the form for their personal project that would be a blatantly direct and significant competitor of a big moneymaker MSFT product).

Oof. What a sly way to imply the person doesn't have any real value to the company, MS truly be ruthless.

The way I took it was that she was producing a lot of value at Microsoft and they estimated the “threat value” was very low.

In this case they were wrong, but could anyone have known?

This was years before Steam. It was just a regular game studio, of which most are complete failures.

Funny, I just recently had a talk about this with a guy who is younger than Half-Life. ugh

Basically, at this point MS already had an understanding what games are a great driver for selling both the OS and apps, but the game market itself was too small to bother with more than being a publisher:

>> In the United States, Age of Empires debuted at #7 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for October 1997.[36] It secured places eighth and 13th the following two months, respectively.[37][38] By the end of 1997, Age of Empires totaled sales in the country above 178,000 units, for revenues in excess of $8 million. This performance made it the United States' most successful real-time strategy game during late 1997: a writer for PC Gamer US noted that its sales surpassed the combined totals of rivals Total Annihilation and Dark Reign over the same period, and were over four times greater than those of Myth: The Fallen Lords.[39]

Sure, AoE was a great success eventually ($120M revenue, by 2000) but it was a hit which surpassed many, many other games and but it took a lot of time; while this was still a summer of '97.

I read this as hubris from Microsoft -- they valued the author's work, but the expected value of a game company is negative so that's how they played their hand.

I don't know if I read that as hubris. What else could they do? If they say "no," and this truly is something she's interested in, they risk losing her completely.

I think it sounds like they were remarkably accommodating. I doubt you'd find many companies these days that would grant the same sort of deal.

Do you know a lot of people who report to directors at many Fortune 100 corporations? I'm sure if you are high up enough, and have specialized enough skills, many companies would grant the same deal because there are only a handful of people in the world that have been proven able to do that job. How many Bob Eigers are there?

> 'm sure if you are high up enough, and have specialized enough skills, many companies would grant the same deal because there are only a handful of people in the world that are able to do that job. How many Bob Eigers are there?

I think many people believe this, but how do they know? There are ~7 billion people on the planet. You mean to tell me that only a "handful" are capable of doing a particular job? And not even "CEO of billion dollar company" but "Director of a 200 person org who attends meetings and makes decisions." Really? Only a "handful" of the 7 billion people on earth can do this?

There's the raw talent, and then there's everything else: occupying powerful positions near the top of the hierarchy, the social network, the experience, the track record, the lessons learned from mistakes made, and so on.

There's only so much room at the top, and you need to spend time near the top to get everything else. Truth is, the everything else is a big part of the package.

It's really all about the room at the top. Every company is pyramid shaped, and not all of us can physically fit at the top of the pyramid. It's not about whether you can do the job, it's just that there's only a few slots up there, and a lot of us.

I truly believe I could do the job of my grand-boss 4 levels above me on the totem pole, and so could most of my peers. The reason I'm (or someone else is) not there comes down to things like timing, luck, who got where first, and just the reality that one person already being in that SVP position simply blocks everyone else from being there. I really think that a large number of leaf-node employees are massively under-employed compared to what they are capable of. I guess it's kind of a reverse-impostor syndrome.

alright. I edited my comment to say "proven able to do the job" instead.

That interpretation seems to contradict Microsoft's general attitude towards her:

> I’d worked for Microsoft for nine years by then. My career was in high gear. A year earlier I’d been honored with the Market Maker award as the marketer who “added the most to the (1600+-person) Consumer Division’s bottom line.”

I find your speculation about Microsoft's intent to be vapid and unnecessary. Those who are easy to work with and well-liked are allowed to do more. It's that simple. This dynamic is common in workplaces.

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