Your exit interview of me

What's the one thing your most proud of about your time at MSoft, the one thing you might do differently, and the one thing you didn't get to do but wanted to?

What is Microsoft's internal perception of what you did for them, and have the noticed a change in public perception?

What can you tell us about RSS/OPML/XMLRPC and the internal opinions of Microsoft? (ie. Don't care so much about RSS readers, dime a dozen)

You switched to Wordpress because Matt added OPML support, do you still use Manilla, Frontier or the OPML Editor and are Microsoft doing anything at all within this realm?

Full disclosure for those that don't know- I work for Microsoft.

Now for a tough question Robert. Do you think Windows is a drag on product teams, not a factor, or a benefit to other product teams? Explain.

Is there a super-duper secret backhannel method for communicating directly to Bill Gates?

Note: I'm kidding, kind of. But not really.

The meta-thought behind this question is how do guys at the top of the leadership chain get information they need, but would not see in the course of ordinary business.

It's a big problem in that good news migrates up the chain of command rather quickly but bad news not so quickly, if at all. An entirely human trait; and excaberated the larger an organization gets and the longer it's in place.

How does Microsoft handle this problem

Who's Mini?

@Jeffrey: Great question ;). But I am sure that Scoble is not going to answer that one, even if he knows the answer!

I'm from Austria and will be in October in San Francisco. Stupid question: Will there be something like a geek-dinner?

Scenario: Robert Scoble is promoted to CEO/Chief Software Architect/etc

Q1: Three things you would change at Microsoft?
Q2: Three companies you would purchase and or merge with?

btw - having a exit interview with your readers is cool :)

What didn't Microsoft want you to blog about?

Excellent questions, I'll answer them tonight, keep them coming! Steve Gillmor is coming over, maybe we'll do it as a Gillmor Daily show or something like that.

Does Ray Ozzie have what it takes to change the Microsoft macro development culture from cathedral to bazaar?

Why do people hate Microsoft?

It was your "organic and honest" blog that sorta influenced my decision to come work for Microsoft, along with other Microsoft individual bloggers such as Dare Obasanjo.

And ironically, I feel within MS,

- a lot of the folks (including cynical devs) do not even realize the power of blogging,and the visibility it gives to folks even outside the blogosphere.

- I have encountered a rather large sample population within MS, going "Who Scoble"?

- MSDN/ Technet has few credible individual bloggers like Alex Barnett. There are a mishmash of product blogs that are corporatish and have a spin...and are mostly written by PMs and Product Manager types.

- MS has a stellar roster of developers
a) who dont blog enough or
b) do not blog at all or
c) if they do blog, there is no internal visibility about their blogs/who they are.
(Often I find a good blog, and then realize that they indeed work for MS)

-And except for the occasional Ray Ozzie blogs, none of the execs who blog have any techworthy content that befits a software company.

- And scarily enough,a blog was used to announce the death of "WinFS"..a new strategy to control negative PR ?

- And internal blogs...less said the better.

So what are your thoughts about fixing the blogging mess at Microsoft (since now you can really speak your mind ?)

If you had a good/huge say in the development of Windows Vista: what would be the first thing to be changed, added, ...

Who is the person you most wanted to interview for Channel 9 but didn't get to interview?

What would you say is the biggest flaw at Microsoft?

If not willing to awnser that, then what was your biggest 'frustration' while being there?

Do you think Microsoft should have tried to be more international and less USA-national?

Now that you are leaving, are you going to buy a Mac, and only run windows when you absolutely have to?

Will you buy Vista when it ships?

Will you use Vista when it ships?

When will Mac and Windows become one?

1- http/xml ultimately became known as AJAX last year - and took off - why did microsoft not attempt to promote the technology and publicize it

2- MSN search engine only became a unique engine last year - why did Microsoft go YEARS without attempting to create an individual search engine :?

Do you have a non-disclosure agreement with MS?, if there isn't, will you join Google instead of PodTech?

How should Microsoft view its competition-should it focus on the bigger competitors or the smaller ones?

I wonder whether Gates is Mini? because he is not happy but not out yet:)

Robert, you've mentioned Microsoft paid you "less than 6 figures" a number of time on your blog. The actual number isn't important but I wanted to know if there *was* a number that would have kept you at Microsoft? Did Microsoft ever ask you, "What would it take to keep you?" or were you leaving regardless of what they could have done?

Call me old fashoned, (and disclosure: I work at Microsoft) but I would ask some traditional exit interview questions which, I hope, would help us understand your experience and do better in the future. So, my questions are:

-Why did you decide to take a job at Microsoft?

-What, if anything, changed your perceptions of the reasons you decided to take a job at Microsoft in the time you worked there?

-What obstacles did you encounter that made your job more difficult than it had to be?

-If you could change one thing about Microsoft, what would it be?

-What made you consider an offer from another company?

-Would you consider working at Microsoft again in the future?

-What advice would you give to your successor?

What really happened to Longhorn? It was such an ambitious and groundbreaking product around PDC 2003. Vista is NOT Longhorn!

@16. 60,000 employees, and you find a rather large percentage that have no clue who Scoble WAS or why they should think he mattered? I'm shocked!!! Shocked I tell you!

Why did you keep whining about your less than $100,000/yr salary? Do you were fairly compensated
for carrying around a camera and interviewing people that actually worked on products that were intended to make money for the company?

Will you revive "talkingmoose" ?

For the upcoming generations, like those whom have just graduated from college or high school, would you recommend working at Microsoft? Or would you suggest anywhere else?

Why did you decide to work at MS?

Did you feel that the noncompete agreement limited you from working where you really wanted to work (upon deciding to leave)?

What advice would you give to a junior employee?

plus the question from poster #31 would be of great interest to me too. :)

Thanks for opening up the floor to questions - looking forward to the answers! This is great!

Sarah, and everyone else, I've now answered all these questions. I think that's enough. Plus there'll be an exit interview on Channel 9. OK, I've gotten Microsoft out of my system. Heheh.

@28 To Dmad: I said a "sample" population (and not 60k)- please refer back to your Statistics-101.

And a sample population could hypothetically be my building or my division or my lunch group. Or maybe I hang out with the trolls underneath a firewall.

The inference point I was trying to make is : to have a large percent of a sample population not know Scoble surprised me, considering the folks at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ think it is important to read Scoble.

Robert, I know I'm a little late getting in on this exit interview game, but if you will take one more question I'd be grateful:

What have you heard about why Mark Zbikowski left Microsoft? I had just watched his Channel 9 interview and then turn around and find out he's gone. And I LOVED his interview, perhaps my all-time Channel 9 favorite.

If there's one guy who could have singlehandedly given Microsoft a true-blue-coder friendly reputation, it's Mark Zbikowski.

And now he's gone. Jesus Christ. Maybe Microsoft's best days really are in the past.

Joe: from what I hear he just wanted to retire and enjoy the rest of his life. He's worked at Microsoft for 25 years. That's an awful long time. No one stays at a company forever.

Look not at the people who built Microsoft in the past. The most interesting ideas are being done by interns who haven't even graduated from college yet. My favorite feature in OneNote, for instance, was built by an intern three summers ago.

D you use M$ products on a regular basis?