Figures. It was a highly profitable division that nobody could figure out what it did or how.

But allowing a single person to go from $20B to $130B in assets in 10 years feels like a pretty obvious policy failure.

Satya's mistake though is that he has filled Microsoft with average people. The best fresh graduates from the top colleges went to Google and Facebook in the last decade -- because they paid significantly more -- and Microsoft picked up the rest. What is the impact of that? Microsoft's execution ability is lower, and we'll see the impact of that in the coming years.

Another of Satya's mistakes is his faux pas related to women employees. He was accused -- unfairly in my opinion -- of saying women employees should not ask for a raise. He did no such thing. He said employees should not ask for a raise (not women employees specifically) and instead should rely on the system to give you the appropriate raise at the appropriate time. But since he said that at a women's conference the accusation stood that he meant women employees specifically. Satya has had to fight against this accusation and he has done so by establishing a quota system for promoting women employees. Executive compensation at all levels at Microsoft is directly tied to promotion of women employees, and as a result, a lot of women now occupy positions they would not otherwise. Again, the impact is decreased ability to execute.

Microsoft today is the second most valuable company behind Nvidia. But you wouldn't know that looking at their products. They don't have any interesting new products. To some extend they are coasting. Will their success continue into the next decade? It's going to be interesting to watch.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe...