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Joel sounds like he's replacing Don Dodge.

I was not hired to replace Don Dodge. I was hired because the person who previously held my role moved internally.

I actually don't know much about Don Dodge - I haven't met him yet. All that I know is that he is well liked and respected.

I can only hope to earn a similar level of respect from the startup community.

were you hired, or were you moved internally?

Its cool that they have someone devoted to worrying about these issues.

I was hired: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelfranusic

Sounds like a better role though, not necessarily pushing Microsoft products.

two months from here he will realise that the VPs expect him to know from startups why they aren't using IIS.

So Microsoft VPs want to find out why people do not accept their products. Could be a good thing, if they would then insist on improvement of the products guided by the data that the "dev evangelist" provides. You, though, make it sound like it's a bad thing. Care to explain?

I've already started to have conversations inside Microsoft about why startups in the Silicon Valley don't want (or need) to use Microsoft products.

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