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Comment by bkjelden | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I agree with the author's analysis on compensation.

While RSUs at a large company don't have the growth potential of a startup, Google, Microsoft, etc still seem to be the smarter choice for compensation-minded engineers.

And of course the author also ignores the CEO change that occurred at Microsoft in 2000, and the reawakening that has occurred after his departure in 2014.

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That is a good point. History is going to remember Ballmer as one of the worst CEOs in history, though, unlike Jeffrey Skilling or Bernard Ebbers, Ballmer will be remembered for mistakes of omission rather than commission. And the revival of Microsoft should be factored in to a full understanding of the situation.

Ballmer grew profits, there is no denying that. He definitely missed a lot of things, but there is no qualification for the title of "one of the worst CEOs in history," just like Bush 2 made mistakes but will hardly be remembered as one of the worst presidents.

I agree Ballmer was not "one of the worst CEOs in history", but Bush will quite certainly rank among the worst presidents in history. Bush's two war mistakes were gargantuan, scholars estimate over one million war dead in Iraq, in addition he accelerated the decline of the American state in numerous other aspects.

Eh, I'm no Bush fan, and the historians will sort it out 20 or so years from now anyways. There were plenty of bad presidents in the 19th century to compete with.

Hyperboles are almost always inaccurate.

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