[jgunsch]

I'm a little shocked to hear this, but I've had a similar fish story with Microsoft!

I interned at Microsoft my junior year of college. Toward the end, I interviewed with Google and got a competing offer.

But during the negotiation process, the recruiters had Chris Jones (Windows Live VP at the time) call me to try talking me into joining Microsoft. He told me his story about how at the start of his career, when he was comparing offers from a few companies, Microsoft (relatively unknown at the time) sent him a salmon from Pike Place Market --- and that gesture convinced him to accept Microsoft's offer.

Two days later, a package of smoked salmon on ice from Pike Place Market showed up at my door in Tucson, AZ.

(I went to Google for non-salmon-related reasons, but sending me food mostly became a reminder that Google was offering free food as a perk!)

[lostlogin]

The series of Microsoft fish stories here is truely bizarre. Surely there is a more universally agreeable gift food?

[ubermonkey]

I think you may be missing how central absurdly high quality salmon is to the northwest.

It's the local Thing. Lots of places have that sort of strong geographic tie to an art or food or what-have-you; the only odd part here is that most local foods don't travel well -- but smoked salmon obviously can and does.

[deanCommie]

Who doesn't like Salmon?

[rhaps0dy]

Vegan applicants would not find it funny.

[OatsAndHoney]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/06/who-ar...

Vegans at most account for 3% of the population. In a corporate entity that large, it doesn’t matter if you miss a hire or not. So if a vegan was offended, I’m sure no one cared and was happy to offer the job to someone else.

[dharmab]

A large portion of MS employees are vegetarian because many Hindus are vegetarian. At MS Build they always have both vegetarian and Indian vegetarian options.

[jldugger]

Yea, but ... due to the visa situation the vast majority of those folks are not getting the maximal courtship, so to speak.

[CathedralBorrow]

If it doesn't matter if you miss a hire or not, why would you be going through the effort of buying a large fancy salmon and shipping it to the candidate? You could just not do that and not care about the ones you miss since they don't matter.

[mcv]

That's a very dismissive attitude to your hires, and it makes the salmon even more pointless.

If you want to make a point about how good the salmon is, invite them and treat them to the best salmon in town, instead of dumping a dead fish that nobody asked for on their doorstep.

[hkyeti]

Hey good idea, deliberately exclude people who don't eat meat. You know who might end up being CEO level material

[TomMarius]

"Don't send him the nice fish, he might be a vegetarian AND might be the next CEO"... Yeah, huh, I don't think that's the usual concern. I think many people wouldn't want to hire a person that takes offense from a misplaced but nice gesture, anyways - I would not.

[numpad0]

Maybe the failure rate had been acceptable, ain’t fix if it ain’t broke style.

I wonder if it has been the inspiration for Steve Jobs’ “Japanese are like dead fish washing up” quote, if Microsoft was sending dead fish left and right around California and he was sick of it.

[michelb]

I'm shocked that the package apparently didn't contain a message. I mean, why would send a fish without a persuasive note?

[TheOtherHobbes]

Because that wouldn't be simultaneously grandiose, cheap, and tone-deaf.

[StavrosK]

"There's more where that came from."