[agorabinary]

Elon nearly brought the newly merged X and Confinity to its knees during a critical period in its development by 1) insisting on the "X" brand when Paypal was more popular with users, and 2) insisting on Windows over Linux despite the protests of his tech team.

Soon after he was ousted and Thiel was made CEO. Interesting to see he's still pushing Windows.

Source: Paypal Wars by Eric Jackson

[jgalt212]

read this book too. The insistence on Windows blew my mind, given his "reputation" as an engineer.

[elcritch]

The argument (at the time) was that Windows C++ tools were better than anything on GNU/Linux of the time. Also, in most non-CS fields (aka "real" engineering fields ahem) Windows, for better or worse, is still heavily entrenched. I have mixed feelings on this, as I am a Unix junky but it requires a lot of arcane knowledge to be effective, which many folk don’t have the wherewithal to acquire.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> The argument (at the time) was that Windows C++ tools were better than anything on GNU/Linux of the time.

That's still true today and it will probably always be true unless Microsoft ports Visual Studio one day. It's not a super great reason to choose it as an operating platform though. :\

[adrianN]

There are many engineers who actually like Windows. Especially if they're not software engineers. A lot of industrial equipment runs some embedded Windows.

[d21d3q]

I would risk stating that all non software engineers have to like Windows because there is no software for them runnig on linux. All cad cam programs, ms Office, etc...

[joe5644774]

Thinking from first principle you can reason why Elon pushed for windows. Elon is a guy who wants to get done. On windows you get a linear output with time spend on it. On Linux the output is exponential. Relative to windows lot of time is required for entry on Linux.Since Elon is man of output he did not like to spent so much upfront time. Also he don't want to let go the control as he is micro manager.

[jacquesm]

This comment is complete gibberish.

[jgalt212]

you know what's non-linear and very stochastic on Windows? an OS update.

[rohit2412]

I don't think you know what you're talking about

[pretendscholar]

This has to be a parody of a techbro.

[joe5644774]

Okay I will give another try. Elon was doing PhD and discontinued while he founded his first company in 90's. Since computers was not his main interest he used windows to the get the work done because windows is easier to learn and start getting output. From then on elon was crazy busy to do lot of other things and never got time to learn Linux . At the same time Elon wants control over everything which means at any point in time he wants to understand what the software is doing and even be involved in making changes to it if required first hand. Now with this background obviously Elon went with windows because he don't have to learn Linux and can use his already learnt windows knowledge.