An interesting piece in The Guardian detailing what has gone wrong with Microsoft. Essentially, it has fallen victim, as every organisation does in the end, to Worstall's Law.
The question Eichenwald set out to answer was this: how did Microsoft change from being the lean, mean machine created by Bill Gates and Paul Allen into the sleepy behemoth it is today? In seeking an answer, he interviewed a lot of ex-Microsoft employees. They told a dismal tale of opportunities missed, innovations squashed and talented people demotivated by the corporate ethos of a maturing organisation.
What it basically came down to is this: in the start-up phase of a tech company, people are collaborative and technically innovative because a successful IPO means that they'll all get rich. But once the share price flattens out and the company grows, stock options become less valuable (or even worthless) and then the only way to get on is to play managerial games and organisational politics. Bureaucratisation takes hold and innovation takes second place. Eventually, the point is reached when everything is designed or decided by committee, and... well, you can guess the rest.
Worstall's Law is that (contrary to this quotation of it) in the end, every organisation will be run by those who stay awake in committee meetings. The "in the end" being the important part: plenty of organisations do great things when young and fresh. The problems come when they are run by those who have nothing better to do than actually pay attention to the internal politics of a bureaucracy.
Which is exactly what John Naughton is describing there. At some point the people who make lists using three different coloured pens gained control of Microsoft and the problems stem from that point.
Not that Naughton's observations, nor Worstall's Law, are entirely new in themselves. They're just repeats, rewordings, of the insights of the great C. Northcote Parkinson. As an entirely serious piece of advice anyone who wants to understand organisations must, just simply must, read and absorb "Parkinson's Law". His calculations showing how the Royal Navy added admirals and administrators as it shed ships explains how bureaucracy eventually stifles every organisation so well. And we could indeed use Microsoft as a more modern example of these very perils.
