Mini-Microsoft

[doktorhladnjak]

For those who haven't heard of mini before, this site was like Blind but only for Microsoft 20 years ago.

The blogger was anonymous but claimed to be a partner, which is a high level at Microsoft. He openly criticized aspects of the culture and company's direction. Notably he thought the company had gotten too big and needed to have fewer employees (hence the mini Microsoft moniker).

Employees would share salaries, bonuses, and raises every year after reviews in a giant thread of anonymous comments.

[guiambros]

"He openly criticized aspects of the culture..."

He? I thought the author was anonymous and never came forward, so it'd be better to use gender neutral.

EDIT: given the downvotes, I'd imagine some folks have a disdain for precise language, and prefer instead to just perpetuate outdated stereotypes.

[jkuria]

Was the author ever identified?

[slater]

2014

[samcheng]

This is important. I was initially shocked to hear of a big round of layoffs at Microsoft, until I saw the date. Maybe we can add the year to the link?

[kthejoker2]

Definitely some ML models today capable of identifying writers from their textual idiosyncracies...

Although I guess some adversarial code will extend it, the days of being truly "Anonymous" (and therefore liberated to speak on topics like this) are probably almost over.

[1-6]

What am I reading here? Thanks in advance.

[alisonkisk]

A Microsoft manager ran a blog with inside scoops.

[mechnesium]

Should add (2014) to the title.

[kerng]

Was it Steven Sinofsky?