Microsoft employees recall their early years
122 comments
·March 31, 2025Taniwha
jll29
Not just "incorporated", you would also have to have ported it to various computers that were sold (as MSFT did - and that Bill Gates' parents were lawyers with IBM contacts helped a lot).
NZ is a fantastic country, but is relatively remote from larger markets, and its own population isn't large enough for the economics of scale to apply only locally. So even if you had tried, you may have failed. As you rightly say, power of location. On the other hand, now, due to globalization, things are possible there, too - for example, the app market is not limited geographically.
BTW, you should consider uploading your old compiler's code on GitHub if you still have it; there is increased interest in "software archeology" now, given that so many emulators have been built.
Taniwha
I was more talking about owning the name in NZ (and maybe Oz)
The software source was on cards (developed on a simulator on a uni mainframe, much like Microsoft were developing their code), sadly the cards were left behind when I moved to the US a decade later
ErigmolCt
That's such a great story and such a classic case of being just ahead of the curve but in the wrong corner of the world.
Rodeoclash
I worked in a digital technology company in Wellington in the 90s and one of our key technologies that we sold was a hosted form on a secure (remember, this is the era that https was not common) website to collect credit card payments. We were a proto Stripe in the year 1999 but totally in the wrong place in the world to take advantage of it.
ska
May have been the wrong time too. 1999 was chock full of companies that failed to get traction and died during the dot-com collapse, but variants became much more successful 20 years later. Much of this was mostly waiting in infrastructure I suspect.
warmandsoft
[...] "Microsoft killed my company, and I hold a personal grudge. They are a company with vicious, predatory, anti-competitive business practices, and always have been. They also happen to make terrible products, and always have. I do not use any Microsoft products, and neither should you." - Jamie Zawinski
unclad5968
That guy hates MS because they included a web browser with their OS? Then he complains about being sent porn when he asks people to stop redistribution of his permissively licensed project while he shows me a hairy scrotum.
Seems a little irrational.
weard_beard
Stress is a minor form of torture.
Torture itself is irrational, but so are the things that humans will do or say when subjected to it.
rollcat
It's also almost 50 years since "An Open Letter to Hobbyists"[1]. It's amazing that in the last 30+ years, the "hobbyists" managed to turn the entire software industry by 180°, and that Microsoft themselves are reliant on that work.
Bill even specifically mentions musicians. By 1976, when blues was only ca 100 years old, most bands would play what we now call "covers", credit each original writer on the back of the record, and there was no shame or stigma around it. Art builds on art, and "stealing" is probably the most important part of the process[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
qoez
Devils advocate: Imagine how much richer developers would have been today if software wasn't copied as much as it is today. Companies would have to pay developers to write it (we probably wouldn't have as much overall growth but devs would be richer). AI also wouldn't have been able to replace us if it was more secretive and proprietary.
azemetre
Imagine how much public good can be done if the government had public software works project that did not need to rely on advertising to be useful while serving everyone (not just a boardroom of millionaires).
anon_e-moose
> Art builds on art, and "stealing" is probably the most important part of the process[2].
> [2]: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/
Nice try ChatGPT stealing from studio ghibli and Scarlett Johansson are still two egregious examples of what can kill artist's motivations. Why create or publish if credit is not given?
rollcat
True, virtually all companies harvesting LLM training datasets don't bother honouring even the most permissive licenses, like MIT or BSD - Microsoft leading the pack with Github and Copilot.
You're right to point out that the tide is shifting again. Perhaps at the end of this bubble, society and/or the behemoth companies will recognise the value and help build a more sustainable future for artists and creators. I'm cautiously optimistic.
robertlagrant
Downvote for low quality "nice try".
Ylpertnodi
>By 1976, when blues was only ca 100 years old, most bands would play what we now call "covers", credit each original writer on the back of the record, and there was no shame or stigma around it.
I do enjoy some Led Zeppelin, and I often enjoy the artists they didn't credit, even more.
pjmlp
And now most of those hobbists are going back to commercial licenses, because other hobbists don't pay them, and there are bills to pay.
zozbot234
> And now most of those hobbists are going back to commercial licenses
It seems to be specifically the "hobbyists" that are also taking VC investment money for their "hobby project". It's pretty clear what's driving these decisions: VC's are not okay with a bootstrapped, penny-pinching business focusing on specialized support or custom development (which is the successful RedHat model), they want an early chance at really outsized returns.
pjmlp
Back in the day that letter was relevant we used to sell little tools via ads on magazines like BYTE, Dr Dobbs Journal and co, occasionally get nice money out of it.
Also in the early BSD/Linux days, there were distributors like Walnut Creek, Amiga had Fish Disks, and so forth, some money could eventually go back to tool writers.
It isn't only about VC money.
hnthrowaway0315
https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/0...
This development environment looks interesting：why two shelves?
Also the place look like a cheap airline cabin. I thought all MSFT employees have their own offices back then. Maybe it's because that's the lab?
grork
This is a build or test lab, not the offices of developers. I visited multiple times in the period mentioned for the picture, and saw multiple of these. The one I saw most often was the NT build lab. When I started there in the mid-2000s, these labs were still used, although the build labs were a little less densely packed thanks to remote tools.
artursapek
Yep looks like the build lab described in the book Showstopper. I think there were even photos of this room in there.
kevstev
This picture without context gave me QA or build lab type vibes, and the caption in the story confirmed that. They had to test on all kinds of configurations and hardware, so this makes sense- tbh I am surprised its this small. Remote tools didn't really exist in those days, and even if they did, they are unlikely to work if the OS is having issues. So you run a test, find an issue, and if its hard to reproduce you might just have to bring the dev into the lab to get on the box to understand what happened.
It looks very similar to a QA Lab at a place I worked at in the early 2000s. They essentially commandeered a larger conference room and there were just (cpu) boxes everywhere.
muststopmyths
The caption says 1995, so this is most definitely one of the test labs. We used to have rows of shelves with PCs in various hardware configurations that were tested with daily builds.
Everyone did have their own offices in the early-mid 90s. By the late 90s we were sharing, depending on seniority (years in the company, not title, which was refreshing).
bustling-noose
While the majority of revenue of Microsoft is not Windows anymore, I think Windows defines the brand much like how iPhone and Mac define Apple even though that might be part of the revenue not all of it.
What I am curious about is what happens when the original product that makes the company popular starts to experience poor quality. Take Google for example, its search has been on a decline in the last decade or so and needless to say the company is experiencing problems as well in the last few years. While GCP and GSuite are significant, people have lost faith in Google which probably started with search.
Windows 11 and the iPhone seem to be heading towards same fate as Google search imo.
art0rz
The only people losing faith in Google (search) are power users such as us. Regular users haven't noticed the decline, and search may even have improved for them. We are not Google Search's target audience. We need to stop pretending all products are built for the power user niche.
TheOtherHobbes
Regular users have absolutely noticed the decline. A number of people I know have mentioned it to me unprompted. None of them are power users or even particularly tech-oriented.
kenjackson
A lot of non-power users are complementing Google search with ChatGPT. The main reason is that it will give an answer to more specific questions. Like “what are some quotes famous athletes have said about Usain Bolt”.
throwaway2037
> Like “what are some quotes famous athletes have said about Usain Bolt”.
surajrmal
I'm a so called power user and don't really understand why everyone says it's worse. Google is better than ever. The problem I've seen is folks using older techniques for searching that don't really make sense anymore.
ido
What are the newer searching techniques that make more sense?
tuyiown
I don't see how exact search string can lose its sense. But it does yield "no results", more often than before even if the string has to be publicly available somewhere, in a source I could make sense of.
I can see how google can be seen as better in some ways, but brushing all case where it's worse as irrelevant looks like an easy shortcut to shut down complains without caring if they might be legit.
owebmaster
> I've seen is folks using older techniques for searching that don't really make sense anymore.
Like typing what you want to search in the search input and hit enter?
jajko
My wife is an opposite of power user and she now uses mostly chatgpt for anything more complex. The ease with fluent sentence search compared to trying to fit those few right terms that google search would understand, not overdo it, avoid over-SEO-ed pages... google search has been gamed for so long it became victim of its own success. It just has momentum but thats waning.
Plus often first results are pure ads, fuck that and fuck them. Maybe LLMs will one be gamed similarly, then we move to something else but right now its night and day even for common folks. Who cares knows it.
Just recent case - we were looking for a robot vacuum cleaner. Spent an hour battling shitty seoed crap sites in google search like nytimes with their paid very selective biased reviews, went over quite a few reliable ones, user reviews etc and came to my wife with list of preference vs cost vs reliability vs other aspects. She puts a short sentence in chatgpt and its the same freakin' list, in 20s.
alister
> we were looking for a robot vacuum cleaner
For this kind of product search, may I suggest Consumer Reports. It's one of the very few sites I'd consider unbiased since they (a) do testing with actual technicians and extensive laboratories, (b) anonymously buy all the products they test and they don't take gifts or manufacturers' sponsorships, (c) don't take advertising. They are funded by subscriptions, donations, and grants, and have been in existence for 89 years.
Specifically for robot vacuums, I looked just now and Consumer Reports has reviewed 46 different models from 14 manufacturers. (I knew about Roomba but had no idea that robot vacuums had become such a big category.) I'm putting the robot vacuum link below to give an overview. It's worth subscribing to evaluate options for a big purchase.
https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/vacuum-cleaners/r...
Ylpertnodi
Most people I know are now using deepseek. I don't even have to show them a filtered ad-free web, anymore (that most didn't even notice the lack of cruft).
tiffanyh
> While the majority of revenue of Microsoft is not Windows anymore
It’s hasn’t been for 25+ years (more than 50% of Microsoft existence).
1998 Revenue Breakdown
—————————————————————-
$7.04B Productivity Apps
$6.28B Windows
$4.72B OEM
$1.94B Consumer
throwaway2037
> Productivity Apps
> OEM
> Consumer
unregistereddev
Productivity apps would be MS Office, yes, as well as separately-purchased licenses for Publisher (and I'm sure there were several other apps at the time). I do not know whether this category would include Visual C++ or Visual Basic licenses, but I suspect it did.
I think you are correct on the OEM vs Consumer split. Long-forgotten memory: For awhile people would resell OEM software licenses online. OEM software licenses could only be sold as a bundle with PC hardware. But that limitation did not specify /what/ PC hardware or that it had to be an entire working system. So resellers would collect outdated 1MB SIMM memory cards or other small, cheap, outdated components and package them with the CDROM.
paxys
> how iPhone and Mac define Apple even though that might be part of the revenue not all of it
iPhone defines Apple, and that is justified considering the single product makes up 55% of the company's revenue.
RajT88
When I first heard that, I thought it was an insane factoid.
But then I realized that slowly over time, iPhones grew to get into the price range of full-on computers. And also, even the cheaper iPhones add in up sales when you sell over a billion of them.
pjmlp
Still, from all computing platforms that I have used since my humble Timex 2068 in 1986, Windows is where I have most fun, despite all the ongoing issues.
null
ErigmolCt
The flagship product may no longer be the main revenue driver, but it still defines the brand in people's minds
mc3301
How is iPhone headings towards a similar fate?
null
MPSFounder
The iphone has lacked innovation under Cook. Last 3 iterations (since 13) have been virtually identical. Also, the failure of Apple Intelligence (oversold promise) has seriously hurt the brand. I am an avid iphone user, and will likely continue to be for the next 3 years. But innovation is suffering. Anecdotally, the least talented ML engineers are currently at Apple (the best engineers I know in the field are at Google and OpenAI). I don't expect Apple to be innovating much in that regard, given a lack of talent (just look at Siri for instance).
mikepurvis
I'm a mostly-satisfied iPhone 13 mini user, but I'm considering moving back to Android for my next device. No one reason is the deal-breaker, but it's just a pile-up of stuff:
- My main compute platforms are now Linux and Windows, but even when I had a MacBook, I didn't really benefit much from whatever integration there was between the two.
- I tried and did not like Apple Watch, and I'm upset at Apple's treatment of other wearable makers like Fitbit and now Pebble.
- I'm frustrated that my iPhone 13 is still not USB-C when basically everything else I carry around is.
- I don't like how the Epic/Apple case went, and I wish Apple had been made to allow competing stores on their devices (the EU got this one right).
- With Apple having discontinued the "mini" models, physical size is no longer a differentiator— the Galaxy series phones are basically indistinguishable from modern iPhone models.
firefax
>The iphone has lacked innovation under Cook. Last 3 iterations (since 13) have been virtually identical.
Why do things need "innovated" constantly? Why keep making the phone slimmer rather than replace the battery with something more efficient, maybe add back the headphone port?
The original iPhone was a great leap forward, UX wise, but much like with a pickup truck at a certain point you'd expect minor tweaks with the yearly models.
no_wizard
Apple has some serious talent working on this stuff but they aren’t willing to rip apart user privacy to do things quickly like other companies.
throwaway2037
> the failure of Apple Intelligence (oversold promise) has seriously hurt the brand
serial_dev
If it ain't broke, don't fix it?
I am a former Android user, but the quality of apps on iOS is just so much better. The apps "just work", and the integration with Mac, iPad, and watch is just simply so far ahead of anything Android offered, even if people think there is no innovation. IMO, it's so much better and the whole mobile space is stagnating, I think they will be fine even if they add features 3 years later.
rahkiin
It does what I need it to do.
As opposed to Google Search which does what I need it to do (and could do before) less and less
dontlaugh
I’m just upset they don’t make small phones anymore, but I don’t think that’s relevant to their revenue.
FirmwareBurner
> has seriously hurt the brand
You're forgetting the Apple Vision Pro flop.
scarface_74
Google’s product is ads and GCP is an insignificant player in the cloud space. When I was at AWS ProServe, we never took GCP as a serious competitor.
GSuite still hasn’t made any inroads into the enterprise of governments where the money is.
umeshunni
Google Cloud revenues were $48B in 2024 vs $109B for AWS. It's silly to call that insignificant.
asteroidburger
Doesn't that include Google Workspace though? Sure, a dollar is a dollar, but presumably a huge chunk of that money is Workspace, meaning it's not going towards raw compute.
trentlott
But if we represent it as a percentage we can pretend it's relatively not a big deal and minimize their stranglehold on society.
scarface_74
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cloud_Platform
Google Cloud Platform is a part of Google Cloud, which includes the Google Cloud Platform public cloud infrastructure, as well as Google Workspace (G Suite), enterprise versions of Android and ChromeOS, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for machine learning and enterprise mapping services. Since at least 2022,[9] Google's official materials have stated that "Google Cloud" is the new name for "Google Cloud Platform," which may cause naming confusion.
(Yes it’s a Wikipedia link. But if you go to the article it includes citations)
Microsoft does not include Office sales with its Azure revenue.
0xEF
"Remember when things were not insanely bloated and we all knew what we were collectively doing?" they all said, a wistful tear developing in each of their eyes, nobody daring to release theirs first.
Nah, Happy Anniversary, Microsoft. As much as we do not get along, you did do _some_ good in the world.
finnjohnsen2
I remember exactly that moment I first saw a Windows 95 bootup.
First the new _animated_ boot splash with the ms-logo, then the elegant start up piano sound, the amazing new start button with a menu with so perfectly organized applications, settings and a run input. It was like stepping into the future.
Windows 3.11 and dos 6.22 was normal yesterday, it worked, was cool and had all the stuff I loved to do - but after this day they felt dated and ancient.
Such moments are rare. Microsoft rocked so hard
nelblu
One of my favourite memories of Windows 95 was - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL1BLzn3qc. It felt absolutely futuristic watching a video from a CD at that time.
vishnugupta
I have similar vivid memories. I saw win 95 first in my room mate’s PC. I was completely blown away, like “what sorcery is this” level of mind blown.
exe34
> First the new _animated_ boot splash with the ms-logo, then the elegant start up piano sound, the amazing new start button with a menu with so perfectly organized applications, settings and a run input. It was like stepping into the future.
Sadly that future is now behind us. Nowadays I struggle to figure out what is a button, excuse me, clickable.
zozbot234
> It was like stepping into the future.
More like stepping into the past with things that the Mac, Amiga and NeXT machines could do out-of-the-box in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I mean, 8.3 file names? Seriously? Who thought that these could be "user friendly"?
bboreham
Windows 95 allowed long file names with arbitrary dots.
The path length (including full folder path and the file name) was limited to 260 characters.
ErigmolCt
What struck me most in this piece wasn't just the milestones or big product moments, but how human the journey was. From someone getting hired off a newsletter in a Honda Civic to negotiating with the Rolling Stones, or building a global business with zero prior international experience. It's a reminder that behind all the megacorp mythology, these were regular people taking huge risks.
nocarrier
I loved how the Windows 95 install CD had Weezer's Buddy Holly video on it. I remember finding it and thinking it was so cool they did that.
mtmail
And the trailer to Rob Roy. (Why do I even remember this??) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al8YJGwn9Y8
phendrenad2
There are so few books on early Microsoft, and they're all so fascinating. One I like is Microsoft: First Generation. One I think is humorous, but not that informative, is Barbarians Led by Bill Gates.
ahartmetz
Microserfs is pretty fun, though the details are fictional. What stuck in my mind is that they spent so much effort clawing their way to the top, and when they were there, they didn't know what to do anymore and lost their way. Microsoft was a mess for 15 years or so.
grork
Hard Drive, ostensibly about Bill Gates, was a great read when I was a kid. I recommend ‘Microserfs’ from Douglas Coupland as a fictional (but grounded) homage to the work in the 90s.
kristopolous
try Computer Wars: How the West Can Win in a Post-IBM World. By Charles H. Ferguson from 1993. The author is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ferguson_(filmmaker) this one
ozarker
I read Hard Drive by James Wallace and Jim Erickson a couple years ago. It was written between Windows 3.1 and 95. Super interesting to read Microsoft history from the perspective of that time period. I loved it.
piokoch
Maybe after all the whole story is not that fascinating?
Bill was coming from the wealthy family, his mum was IBM VP and gave his son a contract to sell operating system, even though there were better alternatives on the market. Ye good ol' story about corporate corruption that gave us such amazing products like Internet Explorer 6, Windows 98 Millenium Edition or Windows Vista.
We could've lived in a so much better World if we didn't have to deal for years with crappy Microsoft operating system and other MS products.
canucker2016
Bill Gates's mom and the chairman of IBM were on the executive committee of the same charity, the United Way.
from https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-...
She was later appointed to the board of the United Way of America; in 1983, she became the first woman to lead it. Right Time, Right Place
Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed with John R. Opel, a fellow committee member who was the chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation, the business that I.B.M. was doing with Microsoft.
Mr. Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other I.B.M. executives. A few weeks later, I.B.M. took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.
When I was at uni in NZ (mid 70s) me and my friends wrote a compiler for 6800s (an algol subset, it fit in 2k), we wrote it with copyrights for "uSoft" (that's a greek mu), in retrospect it was an obvious name at the time.
Later we discovered some other guys using the same name in the US (also with a mu) they had a basic interpreter, how lame! (we had a compiler) however we really didn't understand the advantages of being born in the right place .....
I really wish we'd incorporated, we could have sold the name for some silly amount of money