What do 90,000 Microsoft Employees do all day?

I saw this article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about how Microsoft added another 11,200 employees this year and I was a bit dumbfounded. What are all those people doing? How could Microsoft expect to maintain quality hiring standards continuing to grow at that rate? Why on earth would someone want to join a company that was so large that you were guaranteed that your best hope would be to rise to middle-management. Companies with 90,000 employees don’t attract aggressive and creative folk who want to make a difference. They attract people who want a steady paycheck and job security, the risk-adverse. The risk-adverse don’t make good products, or push boundaries. They follow trends, they don’t create them (at least not on company time).

on a side note:

That article lead me to MSFTextrememakeover which had this awesome mega-post about everything that is wrong with Microsoft since 2000. Unfortunately, it was the last post

So it’s time for me to listen to the fat lady who has been singing for years now, and finally pull the plug. I can’t keep waiting another 11 years for MSFT’s leadership to deliver the returns that say AAPL’s have in just the past 12 months, despite struggling (and that’s on top of 2000+% this decade). I’m also increasingly concerned that under this leadership team the long-term flatline will eventually be resolved to the downside versus the up, with all the implications for additional shareholder value destruction that implies.

I’ll miss the insights from you MSFTem!

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