Knowledge@Wharton: You’ve been a Microsoft employee now for roughly two years. What has surprised you most about the company?
Ozzie: I can’t say that anything has surprised me. I knew what the company was like because I had been doing business in one way, shape, or form with it since the early 1980s.
What is breathtaking to me, once inside, is the scope and the number of initiatives that are being undertaken in parallel by all of [Microsoft’s product] groups. It’s a much more nuanced business than I had appreciated. You can know something intellectually, but when you actually see it and get a chance to interact with the groups, it’s [quite] interesting.
Knowledge@Wharton: About a year ago you were made chief software architect, the title Bill Gates formerly held. What do you do in that role?
Ozzie: It’s a fascinating role, which Bill created after he stepped down as CEO some years back. It serves a unique function that’s necessitated by the breadth of the company. The first task is to bridge the different groups [within Microsoft]. I might see something going on within one group that another group might be able to take advantage of that [might not be visible] from their vantage point within a division. So, in essence, it’s an architect one level up.
The same thing pertains to market strategy and business strategy. I may be able to see these different products and how they could come together to solve an opportunity in the market that [the individual product groups] might not otherwise recognize. It’s a role that sits at the juncture of technology and market and business strategy — all put together.
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This is a very large article. Read more of it at:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1698
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