Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire (32 page)

“I don’t think of Bill as having a lot of formal management skills, not in those days,” said MacGregor. “He was kind of weak on managing people, so there was a certain kind of person who would do well in the environment. There were a lot of people at that time with no people skills whatsoever, people who were absolutely incompetent at managing people. It was the Peter Principle: very successful technical people would get promoted to management roles. You’d get 30 people reporting to one guy who was not on speaking terms with two-thirds of the group, which is inconceivable.”

MacGregor tried to interest the company in sending its managers to a short but intensive management training program offered by Xerox. He met with resistance and in one case outright hostility from Gordon Letwin, who was in charge of operating systems. Letwin had been the last of the original programmers hired while Microsoft was still in Albuquerque.

The Microsoft work environment for programmers was deliberately chaotic, and Letwin liked it that way. The feeling was that with less structure you could be more creative and produce innovative products. A rival software programmer who had toured the company in 1983 found little formal managing going on at all, at least in software development.

“They had a model where they just totally forgot about being efficient,” he said. “That blew our minds. We came out of a mainframe world, and there we were at Microsoft watching all of these software tools that were supposed to work together being built by totally independent units, and nobody was talking to each other. They didn’t use any of each other’s code and they didn’t share anything. But over the years, that’s turned out to be, probably in the PC world, one of the most effective models.” With his experience at Xerox, MacGregor seemed the perfect choice to guide the creative process. One year younger than Gates, he was thoughtful, intellectual, and selfcontained. The two of them spent a lot of time together in the first weeks of 1984, often sitting around each other’s offices on Saturday or Sunday debating the proper course of Windows development.

“I was pretty much handed off the ball, but Bill and I would meet frequently to talk about the design, and various needs,” MacGregor recalled. “I’ll give credit to Bill, he came up to speed pretty fast on understanding the issues. But if you wanted to see Bill, you never tried to reach him during the weekdays. His schedule was packed. If you really wanted to have a longer conversation you went in on Saturday or Sunday. Then you could get a couple hours and just talk about something.”

They did a lot of talking. How should memory management work? Should the windows on the screen be overlapped, like on the Macintosh, or should they butt up against each other like tiles on the kitchen sink? Should Windows require a mouse?

MacGregor understood Gates’ pushy, pugnacious way of making a point, and he respected his quick,'sure grasp of all the ramifications of various solutions to a given problem.

“A lot of people don’t like their jobs because they don’t get any feedback,” MacGregor said. “There was no problem there. You would know exactly what Bill thought about what you were doing. The goal, the motivational force for a lot of programmers, was to get Bill to like your product.”

MacGregor also liked the fact that Gates did not let his ego get in the way. '

“If he really believed in something, he would have this intense zeal and support it and push it through the organization and talk it up, and whenever he met with people talk about how great it was,” MacGregor said. “But if that particular thing was no longer great, he’d walk away from it and it was forgotten. A lot of people have a hard time doing that. It made him incredibly agile in a business sense. ... People usually fight to the death long beyond when it is the right thing to do.”

In late February of 1984, four months after the announcement of Windows in New York, about 300 representatives from various software publishers and computer manufacturers paid $500 each to attend a Windows conference sponsored by Microsoft. Most of the companies that had publicly pledged their support were represented. If Windows was to become the industry standard that Gates sought, these software developers would have to write applications for it. So it was essential that Gates be able to keep the alliance together.

Before the conference, the word out of the Microsoft headquarters was that Windows would be available by the end of March. But those who attended the Microsoft conference got bad news. Microsoft was still unable to provide them with the development tools to write those applications. The Windows deadline had been pushed back to at least May.

Inside the company, there were growing problems between MacGregor’s Interactive Systems Group and the Operating Systems Group run by Letwin.

At the outset of Windows development, it was the Operating Systems Group, at work on a new version of MS-DOS, that was supposed to take the lead writing some of the most advanced code, which would be delivered to the Interactive Systems Group and adapted for Windows. But as the months dragged on, the code wasn’t being cranked out fast enough. So MacGregor had his team do some of the coding. Letwin was furious.

For the skilled and ambitious programmers, the place to be at Microsoft was Interactive Systems. Windows was getting all the press, generating all the excitement. MacGregor was approached often by programmers in other groups, wanting to be taken aboard. This only increased Letwin’s resentment. The bushy-bearded Letwin was a programming prodigy and one of Microsoft’s older hands. He had gained his position as head of the operating group in the way most people got promoted at Microsoft, because of technical prowess and not because of his management skills. He would get into fights with programmers who worked under him and would go for days or weeks giving them the silent treatment.

“It’s one of those things that happens when a little company that’s highly technically focused, with a highly technical CEO, grows up,” said a programmer.“All of the CEO’s coding friends become his senior managers.”

Gates didn’t intervene, nor did he play favorites. The operating system clearly remained an important product. After IBM announced its decision to distribute VisiOn while development of TopView continued, Gates said Microsoft would counterpunch with a multitasking version of MS-DOS, complete with graphics, the ability to be commanded by mouse, and a windows management function. These GUI features have yet to make it into DOS. But Windows had them.

“We pretty much decided that Windows was supposed to be the first one out the door, so that was the one you didn’t want to hold up,” MacGregor said.

As Windows development proceeded, the program stopped being seen as a thin veneer over the operating system. It became far more complex and technologically advanced. But as the complexity of the code increased, so did the time needed to write it. Windows developers were falling further behind. The May target date was missed, and the end of August was established as the new date. OEM customers were getting nervous. Jon Shirley, in interviews with the trade press, insisted that Microsoft remained firmly committed to the project. In the summer of 1984 company officials were dispatched to the most important computer makers and software publishers to apologize in person for the latest slip in the schedule.

Microsoft officially blamed the setback on a change in the way images appeared on the screen, a decision based on feedback from testing of the still-evolving program. But it was becoming obvious that the problems went deeper.

For one thing, Gates kept changing his mind about the graphics presentation of Windows—whether individual windows should appear tiled or overlapped on the monitor. He decided to add features to the product or insisted on other midcourse corrections. And, although he hired MacGregor and Nikora to oversee the project, Gates paid no heed to his chain-of-com- mand. Delegating decision making on such an important project was anathema to him, and he interceded in every decision, no matter how small.

“He was down there micro-managing everything, everyday, and it happened all the time,” said one former member of the Interactive Systems Group. “People would be going along and we would find out, behind our backs, that Bill had totally reversed the direction we were going and never even bothered to tell us.”

It was more than a minor annoyance. Whenever a change was made or a glitch uncovered, it cost the company time. Changes made by Gates generally improved the product, but the delays were having a cumulative effect that was hurting morale. MacGregor would argue for more programmers and more time. He and Gates had loud, fierce disagreements about how long the project was taking.

“There were shouting matches all the time,” Nikora said. “If he didn’t like the way Scott was doing something or anybody else was doing something, he’d say ‘OK I’ll take this weekend, and I’ll code it, and I’ll show you how it’s done!’ and he’d pound his fist on the desk.”

When MacGregor would produce the latest development schedule, he included extra time for sickness among employees, fixing unexpected bugs, field testing of the product, and other routine contingencies. Gates would go through the schedule and knock out all of the contingency times, saying he didn’t understand why it was necessary.

“I think Bill thought I was blackmailing him,” MacGregor said. “He had this notion that, gee, it was easy to make changes. He had typically worked on projects that were fairly small, and Microsoft then did almost no field testing. What Bill didn’t understand was that when you have large and complicated projects with a lot of documentation and a lot of people, the trivial change takes a long time. You have to factor it through, change the code, change the documentation and retest it, make sure the change works with all the other pieces of the program. If you made a change once every three months, you’d never ship the product. . .. There was this very real conflict between Bill’s desire to make Windows better, and the need to have a plan to execute, to actually get the product out.”

One of the most costly reversals came about a year into the project. At the outset, Windows had been designed to operate only with a mouse, like Apple’s Macintosh. But most PC users were only familiar with typing commands on a keyboard. There was a growing sense of consumer resistance to additional hardware. Also, Microsoft didn’t want to jeopardize its chance at retaining lucrative military contracts.

As MacGregor put it: “There was concern about trying to use a mouse while driving a tank.”

Despite growing pressure from Digital Equipment Corporation, Tandy, and Intel to deliver Windows, Gates and MacGregor reluctantly decided that Windows should also be able to operate with a keyboard. It was a decision that cost three to six months of development effort.

“It was frustrating in a sense, because, shoot, if we had known that in the beginning, we would have designed it that way,” MacGregor said.

So why did he go along with Gates?

“He just wore me down.”

As the deadline slipped further into 1984, and the pressure mounted to get a product out, there were constant arguments in Gates’ office. “It went on all the time,” said Nikora, whose office was next to that of Gates’. “He would spot the fatal flaw [in his opponent’s argument], and he would just tear into the person.”

Some, like MacGregor, thought the obnoxious streak in Gates was his way of testing his own ideas, as well as those of others.

“His style is to yell a lot. I think people who get along best with Bill are those who can yell back, and make him feel they might be right,” MacGregor said. “Bill doesn’t surround himself with yes men.”

It was also important not to take the arguments personally. Gates doesn’t rant so much at people, but at situations.

‘It’s not like he’s trying to vent his spleen on them,” said his friend Vern Raburn, who had resigned under pressure in 1982 as president of the company’s Consumer Products Division. “Because of his competitiveness he gets so upset with a situation, it’s like a stray cruise missile—anything in the blast range gets in trouble.”

MacGregor said he had frequent and intense arguments with Gates. “Bill could be just apoplectic over things. .. . that was just the emotional level he reacted to things on. We’d be yelling at each other, but at the end of the argument, we could say ‘so, what are you doing for dinner?’ ”

This challenging, confrontational style is inherently part of Gates’ personality. His father described it as “hard-nosed conversation engagement.” Gates dismissed it as “high bandwidth communication. ’ ’

“If I am trying to get a point across efficiently and I am with people I worked with for a long time or we are talking about something we’re really excited about, then if an outsider listened in it would sound awfully hardcore,” Gates said. “To characterize it as just aggressive is inaccurate.”

But Ruthann Quindlen, who specializes in software deals for investment banker Alex Brown and has known Gates since the early 1980s, said he is basically insensitive to other people. “Because of his position and his fame, people are willing to put up with what he wants to dish out,” she said. “But he can’t distinguish between those who can’t take it and those who can. He pays no attention at all to social niceties. You and I might put our criticism of someone in guarded tones. He can’t do that in any fashion.”

On the Windows project, this confrontational style was wearing down Nikora. So were the long hours.

“Bill required everyone to devote their entire life to Microsoft, like he did, and that was another sticking point between myself and him,” said Nikora, who was then in his early 40s. “I had another life. I had a family. I was willing to put in 60 hours a week. But the weekends were mine, for my family. ... I was right on the edge of being considered someone who didn’t put in enough time. I really felt he was stepping on my toes and he felt I was insubordinate.”

Gates didn’t want to hear excuses. Despite their management responsibilities, he wanted MacGregor and Nikora to really pitch in. It was at that point that he decided they should start writing Windows code.

MacGregor was incredulous. “Bill,” he argued, “it’s not my job. I’m supposed to be building a team, hiring people, dividing up the tasks. . .. I’m not supposed to be down there cranking code.”