Did Amazon Induce Vista's Premature Birth?

theodp writes "A recent Amazon SEC filing sheds light on the puzzling departure of Microsoft Sr. VP Brian Valentine in Sept. 2006. Valentine is the Gen. George Patton-like figure charged with pushing Vista developers, who dumped the still not-ready-for-prime-time OS into RC1 status as he bolted for a new gig at Amazon. Having repeatedly assured everyone that Valentine was staying with the company post-Vista, Microsoft backpedaled and explained that Valentine decided to leave since the company had shipped a near-final version of Vista. Not so. Although analysts fell for the PR line, it seems Valentine had actually signed an Employment Agreement way back in June calling for him to be on board at Amazon on Sept. 11 if he wanted to pick up a $1.7M signing bonus, $150K base salary, another $500K bonus, and 400K shares of Amazon stock (now worth almost $30M). Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"

May be the best decision he ever made.

[arizwebfoot]

Can't fault a guy for makin' money.

Re:May be the best decision he ever made.

[easyTree]

Hit and run; the consistent meme in corporate strategy.

Maybe the best decision he made... maybe...

[Jack Conrad]

And yes, yes you can fault people for making money.

Amazon made the big mistake here...

[puff3456]

If he is willing to push an unfinished product to market at a huge loss to his company just so that he can leave his current post for a higher paying one, what is to say he won't simply rinse and repeat. People like this are more a liability than an asset.

You miss the point

[EmbeddedJanitor]

People have very short memories. They see the fanfare and forget the 5 year death march.

I've seen this effect before. A manager in a company I worked for was angling for a position in a different business unit in the company. He wanted to show focus, leadership etc so he whitewashed the problems in the project he was directing and pushed for a premature release. He forced design choices that looked OK in the short term (from outside) and ignored the longterm consequences. He got the new job and a big write-up about how he had managed this project so well. Of course the project was flawed, but he did not have to clean up the mess anfd the product got canned a few months later.

Release decisions etc should not be made by exiting managers. They shopuld be made by the new management team that has to keep things going.

Re:What is so uniquely brilliant about this guy...

[Harmonious Botch]

He had the foresight to make himself am essential part of company A at exactly the time that company B wanted to begin competing with A.

Bad title

[t33jster]

If one person leaving company X for company Y and it causes causes company X's bread and butter product to suck, it's not company Y's fault. Company X should have invested in business continuity. BCP is boring, but what if instead of being hired away, he was hit by a bus or (arguably similar to the deal he got at Amazon) wins the lottery? A company 1/10th the size of Microsoft shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket.

Re:May be the best decision he ever made.

[milsoRgen]

Hit and run; the consistent meme in corporate strategy.

Hit and run yes, but that doesn't explain why Vista still went out the door? Couldn't he have just quit? Couldn't Microsoft said no, it's not ready? I mean this still doesn't explain why Vista was out the door before the code was ready.

I didn't RTFA either. So anyone care to shine some light on this?

Re:May be the best decision he ever made.

[AKAImBatman]

It's implied right in the summary. Microsoft didn't want investors to lose confidence in Vista, so they shipped it early to coincide with Valentine's departure. That way it looks like Valentine left because the product was ready rather than leaving because the project was going down the drain.

Think of it this way: What does it say when a coach of a sports team decides to jump ship to another team mid-season?

Easy answer

[siesindallerscheisse]

"To make him worth that kind of money?"

It's what he convinced someone to pay him.

What you were expecting someone to give you something objective so you could rant about no one being worth that much? Sorry, but my metric is the one that matters, and it says he's worth what he got.

May be the best decision he NEVER made.

[infonography]

Hit and run; the consistent meme in corporate strategy.

The thing is that he didn't release Vista, just RC1. RC1 isn't the shipping OS. Sounds like someone still at Microsoft is trying to point the blame at someone who left a year before. This isn't Hit and Run, it's Duck and Cover.

Re:150K is not that much

[Shados]

For top notch positions, the yearly salary is just cosmetic. Its not uncommon for high ranked managers and architects to make some silly salary like minimum wadge, but get hundreds over hundreds of thousands in bonus every year. Its a whole different ballbark from the average salaried developer monkey.

How quickly we forget

[robertjw]

What the article doesn't seem to mention, or remember, is all the bad press Microsoft was getting for having the DNF of Operating Systems. They were getting annual vaporware nominations, and basically looking like a bunch of idiots that couldn't get a product out the door.

There was tremendous pressure from all sides to release Vista. Don't think you can really place the blame on Valentine or Amazon for this one.

Re:Yes, you can fault people for making to much mo

[cayenne8]

"...it all depends on the situation. If you have access to a income with which you can reasonably support yourself and your kids and, optionally, donate to charities you find worthwhile, then you can't be faulted for making that income. If you make more, you are able to be faulted."

Whoa....wait. What are you saying? That a person should only be making enough money to basically...get by...and if you make much more than that...it is a bad thing?????

Geez...who is to say if a person is making 'too much' money..and 'be faulted'?? I don't get it...I always want to make more. I supposed if I was super rich, multi-millionaire...I'd slide and just enjoy it for the rest of my life playing, but, still, I don't get how people can say someone is making too much money.

I can only guess you're one of those that thinks someone that is making MORE than they 'need' should have their excess monies taken away forceably (sp?) by tax for wealth redistribution?

Who exactly is to be the judge of who makes too much money? Who is to say you have too rich a lifestyle?

I don't fault anyone who makes more than I do...nor am I jealous, it does, however, encourage me to get off my ass and work to make more, so I can live the 'easy life', not want for anything, and have fun.

Can you explain your thoughts on this more? Who is to say someone is making too much money, and can be faulted for it? I say you get paid what someone is willing to pay you.

Re:The reason?

[schnikies79]

It stays on 24/7 thank you and has been installed for over 3 years.

If XP crashes, something is wrong and it's not the OS.

Re:WinFS

[rbanffy]

WinFS is not and never will be a file system.

In fact, I doubt it will ever be a real product.

It's vaporware that's resurrected every once and then (ever since the early NT vs. IBM's OS/2 times), designed to make Microsoft look like it has some flashy technology pointy-haired-bosses will not be able to tell it's a Really Bad Idea. And they won't because it will never, ever ship.

WinFS is not real.

Re:Amazon made the big mistake here...

[Trojan35]

Completely disagree. Amazon put that clause in the contract for this very purpose. They didn't want to wait 2 years for a delayed Vista to get Valentine.

Re:May be the best decision he ever made.

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way: What does it say when a coach of a sports team decides to jump ship to another team mid-season?

What does it say about the coach when the owners of the team don't even try to match the other team's offer?

As a long-time Microsoft employee, I can say with some degree of confidence that it was high time for Bryan (and Jim Alchin) to take a hike.