[unono]

Totally serious. Much of Apple's meteoric rise in the 2000s was because of the Steve Jobs brand, and Apple 2000s is the success you want to copy.

All the above listed are the biggest names in tech today. There are others, Gates, Ellison, Zuckerburg, but I don't consider them as talented as the ones I listed.

[ignostic]

Let's look outside the startup world for second.

Managing large, sprawling corporations is nothing like starting a company with a few products. I'm not saying it's harder, but it requires a different skill set. Neither Musk nor Graham have a proven history managing large and diversified companies. MS doesn't want them, and I seriously doubt they'd even be interested in the job. It'd be like recruiting Lebron James to play baseball.

[unono]

PG hasn't been running a startup, but managing hundreds of them.

A large company is just a large number of small groups.

A startup is a small group.

PG is someone who has proven effective at managing to give a big ROI from managing quite a few small groups. Hence he is eminently suited to running a large corporation.

[benologist]

YC startups are independent and autonomous, the only people running them are their own CEOs.

[unono]

So PG would be really good at delegating, another plus point for him as future Microsoft CEO.

[gdilla]

Much of Apple's metoric rise in the 2000s was from destroying everyone in mp3 players and then 2008, a thing called the iPhone. And selling lots of those.

[unono]

And how did they do that?

Buzz, created by Steve Jobs, much of it from his pioneer status from the 80s. They had a built-in market to whom they can sell high-priced items (Apple fanboys) where they recoup costs. Then, after that, they make profits from non-fanboys. (They don't like to talk about this, but that's how they internally plan it).