[kkshin]

One of Microsoft's biggest problems that contributes to their insular view is that they are located in Redmond. They're insulated from the rest of the highly competitive technology field (except for Amazon). This works out great for them when it comes to retaining talent in Redmond as employees are usually not willing to uproot their lifestyle to head to 'greener pastures'.

Contrast this to how Google handles compensation and employee retention. Granted, Google is a much smaller organization and can afford to be more nimble, but part of it has to do with with the fact that being in the valley means that its incredibly easy for talented, motivated engineers to move to the next hot startup once they're dissatisfied with their current job.

In Redmond, however, these options don't really exist and creates a culture of stagnation. People goto their jobs because they have and leave as soon as it is culturally acceptable.

I fear a lot of Microsoft's future as I just don't believe that they are able to recruit top young talent anymore. Not only is Microsoft not a "hip" place to work anymore, but their compensation is generally below market. Its pretty standard for funded startups to give more BASE salary than Microsoft. Google's base is roughly 50% more than what Microsoft pays. New hires at Google make more money than level 64 Microsoft engineers (5 levels from starting).

Microsoft will continue to execute and create good products, but until their internal culture drastically changes they will slowly slide into irrelevance.

[MartinCron]

I'm not going to claim that Microsoft isn't too insular (it is) and I live and work in Seattle on purpose, so I'm a little biased about this, but I don't think it's just about the location. Besides Amazon being a huge presence, more and more established tech companies are opening development offices here (Google, Facebook, Zynga) just to take advantage of the talent that's here. Not to mention the fairly healthy startup culture that feeds from and back into the beast in Redmond.

Leadership, culture, and politics are all much bigger problems than geography.

[potatolicious]

I agree leadership, culture, and politics are bigger problems than geography, but it's still an issue.

Sniping younger people from MSFT is sometimes trivially easy because of its remote location in Redmond - surrounded almost exclusively by nice, quiet suburbs. I know a lot of MSFTies braving the commute across the lake daily (1-1.5h each way!), but people get tired of it fast, and by and large the young want to live on the west side, in the city proper, not out in the 'burbs.

There's a reason why Google is now in Fremont, Facebook is downtown by the Market... I know personally (and some others who feel the same way) that there's not a chance I'll take a commute over the lake every day, and likewise no chance I'll live on the east side.

[MartinCron]

I totally agree with the East-side West-side thing. I commuted across Lake Washington once and I'm never going to do it again. In fact, I turned down what seemed like a promising position at a cool startup because they were threatening a move from Fremont(!) to Bellevue(!?).

Of course, two years later, they're still in Fremont.

Microsoft has done some good work with their connector shuttles. I could actually take a little shuttle van from my neighborhood straight to Redmond if I worked out there, and spend the commute time playing Tiny Wings on my iPad instead of driving.

[kkshin]

I guess what I meant was that the geography factors heavily into the culture, which feeds heavily into the leadership.

Even though large technology companies are opening offices, like you mentioned, the difference are that these are satellite offices. Your career potential will be limited, its just an unavoidable fact of the current corporate world. Its a very different scenario to move from the center of the solar system to Pluto.

A self feeding startup culture is not a healthy startup culture, at least imo.

[smtf]

Can someone explain why this was down-voted? Opening with the somewhat inflammatory remark about Redmond might not have been the best choice; however, I thought it was well argued none the less.