[jdsully]

He never managed the Excel team and he didn't write code for the product. He was a PM and wrote the spec for VBA. An accomplishment to be sure but not much different than all the other great individual contributors Excel has had over the years.

[orclev]

Perhaps I should have said he was a manager on the Excel team.

[jdsully]

He did not have a management role. PMs write specs and talk to the customers. That time was also very much the "cowboy coding" era so part of the job was convincing devs they should implement it how he spec'd because he couldn't force them. I think that's part of why he was so popular with his blog aimed at programmers, he had lots of time honing his persuasive technique.