How I Became a Microsoft Vice President

I was hired at Microsoft in early 1989 to work on the LAN Manager product line within the Systems Software Division. After a few months I was made the general manager of this business. My boss (and former Stanford GSB classmate) was Steve Ballmer who, at that time, was the Senior VP of Systems Software. 

LAN (Local Area Network) Manager competed against Novell’s Netware product. Novell was the dominant player in this sector of the software industry. They had a 90% market share. And we had less than 10%. Novell had a great product, satisfied customers and understood this business very well.

My assignment, not unusual for a Microsoft general manager, was to flip-flop the 90-10 ratio, and to do it in a hurry. In this particular case, the odds were stacked against us, but that never mattered at Microsoft. Our product sat on top of an obscure, unsuccessful operating system called OS/2. Very few companies were adopting OS/2 – and without huge growth in OS/2 adoption, LAN Manager had no chance. 

For a corporation to switch out its complex network management software, a competitor’s product would have to be clearly better, faster and cheaper. And we weren’t.

Our developers, program managers and product managers were brilliant and extremely hard working, and notwithstanding our poor business success, it was a very fun group to lead. Of particular note were Jim Allchin, Brian Valentine, Bruce Jacobsen, Richard Mcaniff, John Ludwig, Eric Rudder, Russell Siegelman, Danny Glasser, Patrick Awuah Jr. and many others.

My annual performance reviews, all predicated on achieving a timely 90-10 flip-flop were miserably low. In the back of my mind I wondered if I might see an early exit from the company.

In those days, all Redmond-based Microsoft employees received a free membership to the PRO Sports Club, a very large fitness facility just minutes away from the main campus. Throughout this period of time, I would get up early each morning to take my teenage children to their LDS Seminary (religion) class that began at 6:30AM. And then I would drive to the PRO Club where I would play full court basketball for 45-60 minutes. The PRO Club had three basketball courts, each with a set of “regulars”. I thoroughly enjoyed this vigorous workout with a terrific group of fellow basketball fanatics.

One morning in early 1992, in the locker room of the PRO Club, I bumped into Frank Gaudette, a member of Microsoft’s three-person Office of President and the Chief Financial Officer (see photo of Steve Ballmer, Frank Gaudette and Mike Maples). Frank was about my height and about twice my width. He was both an avid and excellent racquetball player. He was surprisingly quick, competitive and skilled on the racquetball court. He could be frequently found at the PRO Club during the early morning hours.

Frank was also one of the few “older” Microsoft executives. At the time of this story, he would have been 56 and the majority of employees and executives were in their 30s down to early 20s. I was 36. Frank joined the company in 1984 to manage the company’s finances because of his experience with transforming privately held concerns into publicly owned corporations. He was instrumental in organizing Microsoft's successful initial public offering of stock in 1986.

Frank grew up in Queens, New York and had been a street boxer as a young man. He still had a fighter-from-New York’s personality – and I really liked him.

“Hey Frank, how are you doing today?” I asked.

“Not good Murray.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Bill (Gates) wants me to hire the company’s first vice president of human resources and everyone I interview would be a disaster (in our company’s culture).”

And then I said something flippant and non-serious, “Oh Frank, I could do that job with my eyes closed.”

Frank instantly replied with a degree of certainty, “Murray, if you’re half-serious, we should talk.”

As I took a shower, dressed in the locker room and thought about that conversation, I found myself going from non-serious to half-serious. 

Unbeknownst to everyone but Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul A Maritzand me, we were going to merge the LAN Manager division into Paul’s much larger Windows NT operating system division. Paul would be the general manager. And the likely person to take the lead on the technical integration of LAN Manager into a future version of Windows would be the brilliant computer architect Jim Allchin, whom we had hired from Banyan Systems in Boston not too long before this. I would soon be out of a job. I had flopped in my flip and I'd soon be history.

Although I had no explicit passion for the corporate human resources function, I realized that I likely had what it took; I was a human and I was quite resourceful. I also had great passion for staying employed and I cared about helping Microsoft remain a great company. So I scheduled a formal meeting with Frank Gaudette and within a couple days he made me the formal job offer, which I immediately accepted.

My boss over in the Systems Software division was quite surprised by the sudden change and by the fact that I'd now be a vice president. But better this, I thought, than the option he might have been contemplating for me.

Soon after accepting the job, I met with Frank and he gave me the following counsel: “Murray, in this role you’ll need the wisdom of Solomon.” That night I re-read the story of Solomon in the Bible. And Frank was right. Again and again.

What I thought would be a 2-3 year assignment lasted until I left Microsoft almost 8 years later. I gained a great appreciation for the value of a strategically aligned HR function in an intellectual asset based company like Microsoft. And I was so impressed with the quality, intelligence and dedication of our professional HR team. The lessons I learned in that role have proven to be unusually beneficial as a husband, father, grandfather, social entrepreneur, leader and mentor. Running HR at Microsoft was a great blessing in disguise.

Sometimes our lives zig when we were expecting a zag. The value of time (10, 20, 30 and even 40 years) tends to even out much of it -- and allows one to see and appreciate the bigger picture. I've had many zigs and zags in my life, and hopefully I've allowed myself to grow and mature through the many ups and downs, for there were many great lessons to be learned.