In this new book, an untold story emerges as Microsoft insiders talk: for the first time, insiders tell their stories in their own words. Karin Carter, 14-year veteran of the company, shares her view of life at Microsoft along with first-person stories from 18 co-workers. Meet the real people behind the hype through their thoughtful essays, funny stories, and surprising anecdotes. Current and former employees from the trenches, not the executive suites, give their perspectives on their own experiences, the industry, competitors, and the Department of Justice pursuit of Microsoft.Detail by detail, they paint a picture of their slice of Microsoft. Their stories range from serious to surprising. Read about the programmer who married a woman he met in a bar and eleven months later was cleaned out, the woman who walked away from a fortune, the secretary who worked her way into management and retired at 34, and tales from the card counting team that played blackjack in Las Vegas. Carter says, "Microsoft was my head-spinning world for fourteen years. I landed there by chance and I stayed there because it was an adventure - incredible and hard and frustrating and exciting. I moved to Seattle with very little: my clothes and a tiny old blue car with one orange door. I had to puff up my resume with every extra skill I could think of. I had one friend in Seattle. Now, when I look in the mirror, I see a person shaped by Microsoft. And Microsoft was shaped by us".
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Karin Carter's interest in combining language and business led her far away from her California roots, first to a summer job in French-speaking Tunisia, then to a job in France, and finally to Seattle. A move to the east side of Lake Washington led to her dropping her resume at tiny Microsoft. Hired as a trilingual administrative assistant in the International group, she moved to a role where she helped produce user documentation for foreign-language manuals. After spending eight years in the International group doing book production, quality assurance, training, and management, she moved to the English-speaking side of the company. Her roles there included editing and management. She has an entrepreneurial streak: while working at Microsoft she created side businesses for desktop publishing, freelance editing, contemporary quilt making, and creating and selling greeting cards. She joined a blackjack team made up of Microsoft programmers and learned to count cards. She taught herself to trade options (puts and calls) and has played the stock market profitably since 1995. These days she might be found quilting, nailing fabric to a piece of found wood, sewing on paper bags, learning to draw and paint, or continuing with other entrepreneurial adventures.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insiders Insights to Microsoft,
By "pulibros" (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Microsoft in the Mirror: Nineteen Insiders Reflect on the Experience (Paperback)
As an ex-Microsoft employee I have read almost every book published about the company by both Microsoft people and external observers. This is the one I recommend to others who want to understand what it was like at Microsoft in the early years. This book is unique in that it does not try to "teach" you how Microsoft works, but rather it allows individuals who were there tell their unique stories to illustrate what it was like inside one of the fastest growing high-tech companies. Common experiences like how strange it was not having to beg for supplies or even ask permission to do something you thought needed to be done ("just exercise good judgement") ring true, as do the experiences of coming to grips with a growing company and balancing one's work and family time. Microsoft may not be like this today, but it accurately portrays the experiences in the early years through the first successful launch of Windows and Windows becoming a product that most of us use today. Remember these are the tales of people who had to explain to others that they worked for a small company in the Pacific Northwest that wrote software -- for Microsoft was not always the brand it is today.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing, entertaining look at Microsoft from the trenches,
By A Customer
This review is from: Microsoft in the Mirror: Nineteen Insiders Reflect on the Experience (Paperback)
I read this book because a friend of a friend of a friend is one of the "insiders," and I thought it would be fun to see if I could recognize his story. I didn't have any specific expectations about the book as a whole - and I was surprised to find myself riveted from early on. These people tell their stories in a variety of ways, and they all had different experiences at Microsoft and came away with different perspectives - but they all tell the same very human tale of making hard choices, recognizing opportunity, dealing with disappointment, growing up, clarifying values, etc. The fact that the context is Microsoft definitely adds an interesting dimension to the stories, but this is more of a generic character study of smart young people struggling with the big questions of life (like money - lots and lots of money) than anything really specific to Microsoft. Also, I have to say that they're not all (at least from their stories here) likeable people - but that just adds to the realism of the book as a whole. This is a fascinating book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A glimpse into the psychology and culture of Microsoft,
By Michael Erisman (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Microsoft in the Mirror: Nineteen Insiders Reflect on the Experience (Paperback)
While Microsoft enjoys a great reputation as an industry leader in its field, and while its business success has never been in question, there are all kinds of stories about what it is like to work there. This book gives the reader an inside look at what is was like as the company was getting started. This is important to note because most of these depictions are centered on the early days of the company, long before it became the large organization it is today.
The book broken into chapters centered on each of the 19 people. Each chapter introduces the particular individual and provides a bit of information on their background. The individuals themselves have each written an essay on their time at the company, and particular insights they have. What is fascinating is that the perspectives are all different, and even though some common themes emerge, each person was impacted in a different way by their experiences. As a result the essays themselves are a joy to read, and are more like a conversation or a series of relatable observations, than a detailed analysis. Some are quite funny. One individual in particular had me laughing so hard with his dry humor than I nearly fell off the exercise equipment I was working on while reading. Some are sad, some a bit bitter, and one or two actually seem to regard the experience as life changing in a much broader sense than merely a career. The most common theme is money, in particular how the stock options made them rich, or didn't. It is profound to read about the impact this had on their lives. Some seem grateful, others give a feeling of entitlement, and others seem genuinely haunted by what could have been. So powerful was the wealth that was created, that most who did well discuss in equal balance the security and flexibility it gives them in their lives, and the isolation that is created with family and friends due to their wealth. It seems most have some difficulty in reconciling the wealth they amassed with the correlated effort and career opportunity. Overall, while I'm sure the culture of the company is really not captured perfectly by any of them, the reader is nonetheless able to see some transcending themes emerge from all of the stories. This is a fascinating book from a psychology standpoint, as well as a brief, but powerful, inside look into a legendary company culture.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
