James Fryer's Blog

I'd Still Like To Try Though, Just To See If You're Right.

December 4, 2013

I have hung out with a couple of billionaires—my experiences indicate that being a billionaire is just incrementally better than Enough.

Don't Start a Company, Kid - Big Nerd Ranch Blog

Kind Of Pretentious

December 1, 2013

Build your own cellphone for $200 - The Verge

But I also like it. So I'm pretentious now I guess.

Deceptively Simple

November 20, 2013

Bob Dylan "Like A Rolling Stone" Official Interactive Video - BobDylan.com

It seems relatively simple, yet brilliant.

Coolest Thing Every To Exist

October 21, 2013

Elon Musk to make James Bond submarine car a reality

UPDATE: Shocking no one, Elon did not make a submarine car.

Microsoft Shoots Itself In The Head

September 30th, 2013

Please Note: I originally published this on my blog at WordPress.com. But at some point in the past, the WordPress system broke and the original post was lost. I only have a fragment of that post and one of the things lost was where I read the original story. I am reposting what is left, it still has the relevant concept of Microsoft's disastrous employee review system, but my original extended thoughts on it are lost.

here's an excerpt from the part where Eichenwald explains stack ranking: At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called "stack ranking." Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as "the performance model," "the bell curve," or just "the employee review"—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.

For that reason, executives said, a lot of Microsoft superstars did everything they could to avoid working alongside other top-notch developers, out of fear that they would be hurt in the rankings. And the reviews had real-world consequences: those at the top received bonuses and promotions; those at the bottom usually received no cash or were shown the door.

"The behavior this engenders, people do everything they can to stay out of the bottom bucket," one Microsoft engineer said. "People responsible for features will openly sabotage other people's efforts. One of the most valuable things I learned was to give the appearance of being courteous while withholding just enough information from colleagues to ensure they didn't get ahead of me on the rankings." Worse, because the reviews came every six months, employees and their supervisors—who were also ranked—focused on their short-term performance, rather than on longer efforts to innovate.