[pacaro]

I'm certainly not saying that there was no ego on the team, but rather that (in comparison to the rest of MS over the 14 years I was there) engineers weren't as ego involved in technical decision making

I definitely recall seeing passionate discussions with engineers whose levels ranged from 62 to 69+ where the technical merit of the arguments was the gold standard, not what the most senior engineer said. In contrast, my experience working with partner and DE level engineers in other parts of MS was that of "what I say goes"

[unapologetic]

Nah, this was the sort of guy who decided to leave the team (not midori this was years later in a different org) and then figures it's okay to act like a jerk on the way out the door. Some (junior) engineer on another team made a bad suggestion. Wasn't enough to say no, he had to tear a strip off him. To the point the manager of the other team asked if they could talk about it (he refused).

Guy was passionate and smart and just a lousy leader.

[pacaro]

Okay, I guess I'm talking about the culture on the team as I experienced it, and culture definitely comes from the top in this case. I'm sure that some individuals behaved differently in other environments.