Good morning MIT: Summer at Microsoft Corporate Strategy

I am spending the summer in Seattle working as a Manager in the Corporate Strategy Group of Microsoft. This is a small group (mainly with management consulting experience) that advises senior executives on launching new businesses and identifying growth strategies for Microsoft. The content of the projects is really interesting and the quality/seniority of people I am interacting and networking with is incredible.

One of the interesting things is that I work in the corporate building, on the same floor as Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Chris Liddell, Ray Ozzie, etc.

Earlier this month the people on my floor waited outside Bill Gates's office to wish him a fond farewell as he made his way of out his office on his official last day at Microsoft.

This Monday we had lunch with Steve Ballmer. He talked about leadership and management in general, argumenting about the tradeoff of staying relevant and interesting today (i.e. in the current areas) vs. in other new areas in the future (e.g., phones, TV, reading) where there will be great opportunities to apply SW. He also talked about the application of SW to social issues:

Health (the largest industry in the world and the largest growing)
Education
Science (e.g., solutions to problems in environment)

One of the interesting things we heard is that when evaluating future opportunities, like in life, if you are big buy, you need to be patient with business (although not with people).