My recently viral tweets

Hi Hadi, you do not know me but I do follow your posts What was right then (no fault of MS because 90s tech corporate culture was crunch mode in many ways) may not be correct now. The words you chose may have different meaning to different people,some of us who lived through the 90s will understand why you use those words while some who are not be from the era might not understand and may view it negatively. My point is everyone make mistakes now and then. Given all that has happened in Microsoft over the years based on my own observations as a MS business partner for almost 25 years and small time retail shareholder, the best thing that has happened there was when Satya introduced Allyship to replace the old corporate culture. Well, whats done is already done, we cannot change the past other than to reflect upon it and look forward to make the future better. For that, I think you did your best to reflect and clarify to everyone and what matters most is you have learnt and become a better person from this episode. I would say all the best on your new journey forward. Also Happy Diwali

Hadi, in pursuit of telling a valuable story it's easy not to precisely articulate your thoughts and feelings. But the general theme of the story is one of passion, reward, excitement, grit and determination, and hardship in pursuit of a goal. Some people see this as a negative but that's because they don't truely understand these drivers of motivation. For example I see training for the army or SAS as gruelling, hard work, risky to life yet other people love it and willing to make sacrifices. People have choices - Go and get another job if it doesnt suit you and let those people that find a common goal, pursue how they wish. Thanks for sharing the story Hadi.

Hadi Partovi: It was great to hear your recollections (perhaps colored by time) and they ring true to the tech culture of that era. In fact, it's fairly common now too. Not for everyone of course, but those who have dedicated themselves wholly to an objective and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve it, can see themselves in your recollections. It is not everyone who has an opportunity (or wants the opportunity) to participate in something of historic import. That said, in the end, Google won the Browser war and reaps most of the benefits, including the monetization of it.

Glad to see you're learning from this moment, and I hope you take what you've learned and apply it back into the kids at code.org. I know you saw your past experiences in a positive light, but those kids deserve a much brighter future in careers that enrich their lives and that don't require the same sacrifices.

Looking back during this period in the late 90's, many dotcom era companies encouraged extreme behavior and "Drink the Kool-Aid" mentality. We've learned a lot since. Thank you for the courage to put yourself out there and take the arrows while encouraging open minded dialogue and learning.