Steve Ballmer

Well, it's painfully obvious. It's Microsoft Office. And it's the fact that the whole workforce is already using Microsoft Office.

And everyone loves to talk about product-led growth and how it's this new thing in the late 2010s and how Slack and Atlassian and Trello, everyone figured out PLG in this bottoms-up workforce-adopted way rather than selling to procurement or IT or the central administrator. And it's just not new. No, this has always been the case. And Microsoft invented it.

And everyone loves to talk about product-led growth and how it's this new thing in the late 2010s and how Slack and Atlassian and Trello, everyone figured out PLG in this bottoms-up workforce-adopted way rather than selling to procurement or IT or the central administrator. And it's just not new. No, this has always been the case. And Microsoft invented it.

All the employees wanted to use Excel and Word and they just had to figure they were doing it anyway. And at some point, Microsoft needed to figure out how to take advantage of selling it centrally and how you do business with other businesses rather than selling a zillion retail copies of people who are using it kind of illegally for their work.

All the employees wanted to use Excel and Word and they just had to figure they were doing it anyway. And at some point, Microsoft needed to figure out how to take advantage of selling it centrally and how you do business with other businesses rather than selling a zillion retail copies of people who are using it kind of illegally for their work.

Yep, absolutely. And next episode is going to be all about the enormous success of becoming an enterprise company and the enterprise agreement and cloud and everything that sort of came after that. But we have two chapters left in this episode, and they happen concurrently within the systems group by two very, very different teams, and that is Windows 95 and Windows NT.

Yep, absolutely. And next episode is going to be all about the enormous success of becoming an enterprise company and the enterprise agreement and cloud and everything that sort of came after that. But we have two chapters left in this episode, and they happen concurrently within the systems group by two very, very different teams, and that is Windows 95 and Windows NT.

So David, let's start with NT, and then our little cherry on top can be 95 to close us out. How did Windows NT happen?

So David, let's start with NT, and then our little cherry on top can be 95 to close us out. How did Windows NT happen?

He's written a widely deployed enterprise operating system.

He's written a widely deployed enterprise operating system.

Even though they don't yet have an enterprise product to sell. They've got DOS and early Windows, which is essentially consumer targeted. But now they've got this guy, Dave.

Even though they don't yet have an enterprise product to sell. They've got DOS and early Windows, which is essentially consumer targeted. But now they've got this guy, Dave.

And we should say, Dave, this is really the first time they brought in someone who had real industry experience. I mean, in 88, Microsoft was 13 years old, so Bill Gates would have been 33. Everyone is in their late 20s and early 30s, and Dave's mid-40s. He's like, I've seen a few things.

And we should say, Dave, this is really the first time they brought in someone who had real industry experience. I mean, in 88, Microsoft was 13 years old, so Bill Gates would have been 33. Everyone is in their late 20s and early 30s, and Dave's mid-40s. He's like, I've seen a few things.

Right. It enables all of your desktop computers at the company to join and network together in a compliant way. It enables an internal server that everything communicates with. It enables a directory of all the devices on the network and all the people in your organization.

Right. It enables all of your desktop computers at the company to join and network together in a compliant way. It enables an internal server that everything communicates with. It enables a directory of all the devices on the network and all the people in your organization.

So the other important takeaway on NT is it was going to take a long time to build. It was going to take a long time to test. It was going to take a long time to sell and deploy. And it was going to have really strict requirements for what it could work on because it's a power-hungry operating system built for enterprise IT administrators. And so that is... not your short-term product strategy.

So the other important takeaway on NT is it was going to take a long time to build. It was going to take a long time to test. It was going to take a long time to sell and deploy. And it was going to have really strict requirements for what it could work on because it's a power-hungry operating system built for enterprise IT administrators. And so that is... not your short-term product strategy.

That is a long-term bet that a team is going to work on concurrently while you're figuring out what to do after Windows 3.1. So in 1991, Bill Gates sums this up in a memo where he says, "...our strategy is Windows. One evolving architecture, a couple of implementations, and an immense number of great applications from Microsoft and others."