Carly Fiorina. She did the same thing to HP, very differently. Cut quality. Cut R&D. Cut support. Cut service. Slightly lower prices, while your reputation is still sky-high. Outsource anything that can be done cheaper not in-house. Scale back benefits and anything that costs money. Have layoffs anywhere that doesn't produce short-term revenue.

Profits soar. Share prices soar. A few years later, as reputation catches up with quality and support, as there are no new products in the R&D pipeline, and as you have no core competencies, and as your best employees leave, the company tanks.

You walk of with a ton of cash from early-year bonuses.

Any MBA program

Look in the corner offices of most other leading tech companies on the Fortune 500, who outperformed MSFT over the same period.

You, me, anyone really.