Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…I’m David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts. Well listeners, here we are. Microsoft Volume II, at long last. After the ancient history of Volume I, we now get to the stuff that you grew up with—the Internet, Windows XP, Xbox, the browser, search, and mobile. In this era, Microsoft had a lot of the right ideas with a lot of the wrong timing and execution on everything from the Zoom to Bing. But despite that, from 1995 where we start our story, to 2014 where we will end this episode, Microsoft grew their annual revenue from $6 billion to $80 billion. They became a phenomenally successful company and really cracked the code on selling enterprise software. I began the research thinking our part one episode would be about the rise and this episode would be about the fall—cultural problems, failed consumer products, antitrust. But it’s really not that straightforward. After spending months unpacking it all, I actually don’t think that’s the right framing anyway. On Microsoft’s 1998 antitrust suit against the Department of Justice, everyone knows of this case, but most people really have no idea what actually happened. Did Microsoft lose? Well, not really, but the answer is nuanced. Finally, today we dive into it all. Oh, and listeners, we have just one announcement for you here today. We told you before that September 10th, we are doing the biggest thing in Acquired history, and we’re doing it in the city of San Francisco. We’re doing a live Acquired show at the Chase Center, which is the brand new basketball arena here in San Francisco where the Warriors play. We’re putting it on with our good friends at JP Morgan Payments. As you can imagine, they know a few people at the Chase Center.…

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