There is a couple of problems with the current Erlang implementation that tends to nag me. One of the more problematic for newcomers is that the bytecode format doesn't contain line-number references from the original source. Hence, an error can not show you exactly where the problem occurs, but it can give you a backtrace. This is rather unfortunate for Erlangs adoption.

Nothing, I'm on my second one.

Oh, and to answer your question, what made me go start my own business is I couldn't stand the way things were done in the big corp world.

I'm impatient. I want to get things done. I want to achieve things. I cannot stand the idea of being given orders. I have no respect for authority, only for competence. I want to realise my potential. The tedious and endless game of corporate politics bullshit is just a problem to be solved, as I see it. And one valid solution for it is to get out. This game just isn't worth the candle. What do you get for learning the ropes of the politics game? More politics. It's self-defeating. "The only way to win is not to play".

The corporate world also has a well earned reputation for being bland and boring. All the dishonesty and obsequiousness that comes out of needing to maintain a "normal" image makes it conforming like a mass of grey goo. Embrace weirdness and difference. Accept the idea that exceptional people are not normal. Then maybe it'll be less bland.

I haven't looked back since I quit. Life is so much more varied and interesting. I only ever do things that I think are worth doing. I work at my own pace (which is 10x faster than anything I ever observed in the corporate world). I work exclusively with brilliant people, doing something which I think is worthwhile.

Even if there wasn't more money in the long term, this is an infinitely preferable lifestyle.

What about you, yourself, who asked this question? Why do you stick around in this corporate world? If you're wondering why all these people are leaving, maybe you should go and find out for yourself. Believe me, it's worth it.

That's not all it drains, am I right? Am I right? Come on, high five!

...

Hmm... I should probably have more karma before making that joke.

His courage is admirable, but unfortunately misplaced. His job was to test next-gen consoles. It shouldn't have been surprising that he'd find bugs. And since he was a tester, he likely saw far more bugs than most end-users, simply because he was looking for them.

I empathize with his frustration with Microsoft. He probably felt like they were not listening to his reports, or if they were, that they were focusing on problems that he believed to be less important. However, as a game developer, I understand why it can take a very long time to respond to a playtester's bug report. In the game industry, you're constantly working on improvements. There really is no downtime. So, tester identifies bug; tester reports bug; manager schedules bugfix; developer finishes what he's doing; developer reproduces the bug; developer fixes the bug; developer does a "programmer test" to verify that the bug is actually fixed; code is checked in, which is queued to be deployed; and finally, the bugfix is deployed back to the original tester. It can take anywhere from two days to two months for certain bugfixes, through no fault of the process. (A process like that is inevitable for codebases that are millions of lines of code.) And once you throw in the fact it is probably difficult to deploy new code to consoles, and also that the testers aren't in the same building as the developers, that process can probably take quite a long time from the point of view of the tester.

So that said, I don't understand why he felt it was a good idea to be a whistleblower in this case. There really is no big scandal. If a console fails, Microsoft will replace it.

Also, I assume he signed a non-disclosure agreement, which he brazenly violated.

Neither is discretion.

In 2003, me and a partner decided it'd be pretty neat if companies could deploy firewalls that filtered AOL Instant Messenger, Jabber, and MSN IM, with rules for users and groups, not IP addresses, and with automatic encryption and message relaying to keep corporate secrets off the OSCAR servers.

Then AOL announced they were going to go release the same thing. We had pretty much everything but the user interface done.

Like the man said, "In a situation like this, there's a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out". We bitched out.

A few months later, AOL dropped the product. Akonix and IMlogic, two companies that didn't bitch out, went on to gross something like 30-40MM in revenue each. I stopped paying attention to them; I assume they exited nicely.

Your competitors don't decide whether you're going to succeed. Your judgement and execution do. We probably would have failed even if we kept moving --- our hearts weren't in it. Is yours? If you have to ask whether you're going to keep going, maybe you should do something else.

Arbitrary enforcement of unwritten rules. Sounds like a great platform to develop for.

Oh yeah, and one more thing...

all your standard developer care and feeding: snacks, beverages, free lunches.

Really? At your company, can I stay in bed or spend the day doing something else when I hit one of those days when I don't feel like working? Can I work in my dressing gown? Can I prepare my own food in my own kitchen? Can I have a 10-second commute from my bedroom to my office? Can I have a nap whenever I want to? A 2-hour nap?

Perks-wise, working in most corporations doesn't hold a candle to working for yourself.

Much better than the first.

Having checked the T&Cs, this is US only

It's ironic. Just months after a much publicized retirement that emphasized "Microsoft after Gates", Microsoft wants to build some brand. And who do they bring back?

Is there Microsoft beyond Gates? More broadly, what does it take for a startup to outlive its founders?

Microsoft has much bigger problems than Vista. Their stronghold on the OS market is strong enough that they can probably stand 1 bad release. Only if Windows 7 screws up will they have real problems in terms of market share & bottom line.

The bigger problem for Microsoft is that they're just not cool anymore. Not for prospective customers, not for prospective employees, and not for prospective partners. That's why I think brand awareness is what they're going after with all this.

I'll be glad when the election is over.

It's a branding thing for the whole company. The idea is to slightly reduce the ickiness some people feel when the name comes up. Not to directly sell anything.

Are you KIDDING me??? We're all adults here and we all have varying degrees of understanding about what's going on in the world and we all have different levels of involvement in trying to make it better. I don't need that shit thrown in my face on this forum.