Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

Microsoft was moribund under Ballmer and then saved by Satya, right?

There's a common narrative that Microsoft was moribund under Steve Ballmer and then later saved by the miraculous leadership of Satya Nadella. This is the dominant narrative in every online discussion about the topic I've seen and it's a commonly expressed belief "in real life" as well. While I don't have anything negative to say about Nadella's leadership in this post, this narrative underrates Ballmer's role in Microsoft's success. Not only did Microsoft's financials, revenue and profit, look great under Ballmer, Microsoft under Ballmer made deep, long-term bets that set up Microsoft for success in the decades after his reign.

Explore how to harness AI’s potential to drive real impact for your product growth. Dive into actionable strategies for optimizing AI-enhanced experiences that boost business efficiency. No fluff - just practical insights to help you make smarter product decisions.

How to not be a prioritization machine
3 minutes by Alexis and Adrienne

A product manager shares their journey from being a bottleneck in decision-making to implementing an effective team-wide prioritization system. Instead of relying on traditional cost-impact frameworks, they created a simple guideline based on team goals and current stage, which is reviewed every 3-6 months during roadmap planning.

Instead of resolving from the top down, start with the inside out.

eBay explored three approaches to boost developer productivity using AI: GitHub Copilot implementation, fine-tuning LLMs (creating eBayCoder based on Code Llama), and developing an internal knowledge base GPT. Their Copilot pilot showed positive results with a 27% code acceptance rate and reduced PR merge times, while eBayCoder helped with software upkeep and reduced code duplication.

Line manager to Senior Manager to Director and 12+ years in total. It was a great place to work, but this is a pretty balanced view of what Amazon does well, and what it doesn't. This is a first-hand account from Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM, sharing insights about working at Amazon.

Transitioning to microservices is tough. It’s not just a technical shift but an organizational one too. From defining service boundaries, to managing decentralized data and handling interservice communication, there’s a lot that can go sideways. This 80+ page ebook breaks down common migration challenges with examples from dev teams at Uber, Spotify & Netflix, helping you understand the obstacles before you hit them.

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