Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ohnomrbill 3718 days ago
I like your approach sometimes. When dealing with people, I find it best to take positive changes in behavior at face value. I'm sure people could hang their past behavior over their head and treat them as though nothing has changed, but that seems sociopathic. Judging people more harshly based on past behavior is a pretty good way to keep yourself from harm, though. If it weren't unfair to others I would consider doing it.

With companies, I have no need to weigh their positive behavior more heavily. No one's feelings are at risk of being hurt; no friendships are on the line. If a company burns me with bad practices, it's safe and prudent to hold their mistakes against them. It should take a very long time for companies to build back goodwill, once lost.
1 comments
bryanrasmussen 3718 days ago
well the thing is - Microsoft isn't a person, it's a company - as a general rule it is reasonable to assume that companies don't do anything out of the goodness of their hearts, when you also have a good deal of bad behavior in the past ( and 20 years ago can be the recent past for a company) it might make sense to keep an increase sense of skepticism.
link
ocdtrekkie 3718 days ago
Twenty years ago isn't "recent history" for anything in the tech industry. People who were at Microsoft back when they were "really evil" in the 90s have since WORKED AT GOOGLE (or any number of other companies you might be a fan of), and even left Google, since then.

Very few people who made decisions you may be holding over them today, actually work at Microsoft today. You can legitimately hold a decision against a person for a long time... they're still the same person, more than likely. But a company is an amalgamation of it's employees. And employees come and go.

link
sametmax 3718 days ago
In companies, this is not as important as the general policy and vision of the group. The entity is an autonomous system greater than its parts.
link
bryanrasmussen 3718 days ago
I'm not a fan of any company. But a company is an amalgamation of its employees, and employees when they come in absorb the company culture ( that's why everyone says the culture is important) and that's why you don't change the company culture unless a significant number of high level employees all leave at once.

and my second point is - Steve Ballmer left in 2014.

link
ohnomrbill 3718 days ago
That's exactly my point. With people, assume they can change for the better; with companies, judge them primarily by their bad actions.
link