Another Microsoft Exec Joins Google

SirClicksalot writes "CNN is reporting that Vic Gundotra, a 15-year veteran general manager at Microsoft, has left the company to join Google. Gundotra worked at Microsoft as general manager for platform evangelism to get software developers to use Microsoft's software and online offerings. The function he will perform at Google is not yet known, but he will need to wait one year before starting his new job because of a non-compete clause in his contract."

Great News

[Azmodie]

More people leaving MS and oining Google means more google greatness :)

ANOTHER exec leaves???

[dlawson]

More jokes about flying chairs.

Eating One's Own Dog Food

[Distinguished Hero]

"Vic Gundotra ... has left the company to join Google. Gundotra worked at Microsoft as general manager for platform evangelism to get software developers to use Microsoft's software and online offerings." Hehe. I wonder how devoted he was to the job of "platform evangelism" given his willingness to defect / commit apostasy.

Re:Great News

[vertinox]

More people leaving MS and oining Google means more google greatness :)

Unless of course Microsoft's plan all along was to slowly replace all Google employees with former Microsoft ones. And when the code word is leaked they'll all revolt and start a hostile takeover by Microsoft.

Of course the plan could back fire after the MS employees have their cold hearts melted by Google's love in some sort of 80's carebare-ish type of montage at the last moment.

Non-compete? Ugh.

[Wylfing]

The Fine Summary sayeth:

he will need to wait one year before starting his new job because of a non-compete clause in his contract

That drives me insane. I had an employer once who tried to "get" me regarding a non-compete agreement, to wit he accused me of going after his customers. The problem was that no one could be excluded from that group -- he believed everyone on the planet was his customer. That's what I see when I read this. Google does not make operating systems or desktop software, they are a freakin' search company, and MS is not a search company. Yet MS identifies them as a competitor, just like they identify every company in existence as their competitor.

Re:1 year vacation

[canuck57]

Not a bad deal. I'm sure Google will end up paying him for the 1 year vacation.

It really shouldn't be that way. If a company can stick a no-compete on you, then it is they that should have to pay you during the period that you cannot work in your profession. And if you do not have a job at the end of that period, they still should pay you up to two times the length of the clause.

So if you work for a company, and have a 1 year no compete, they might have to pay you up to two years. The US and Canada being at will employment should work both ways equally.

Re:1 year vacation

[thrillseeker]

It really shouldn't be that way. If a company can stick a no-compete on you, then it is they that should have to pay you during the period that you cannot work

Was someone holding a gun at your head when you accepted the contract?

Power doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun

[hey!]

Chairman Mao's mordant quip notwithstanding.

No.

Power comes from the perception arising in the brains of others that you've got power.

Even more so, it comes from the perception that you are gaining more of it in the future. It's almost as if the human mind projects the trends outward and tries to jump on the right bandwagon. I experienced this in the 80s and early 90s as people began to abandon other platforms for Windows. There was almost a sense of panic, that if you didn't get in soon enough you would be crushed.

It follows that if the perception starts that you are losing power, you will lose it, and people will think about the consequences of tying themselves to you for too long. Lenin captured an empire pretty with little more than an audacious show of confidence in the face of deflating imperial fortunes.

Microsoft's mind share survived the massive storm of the antitrust suit. But that was easy. But a steady trickle of news of people going over to a competitor with growing mindshare and momentum hurts them far beyond whatever those individuals could posisbly to them working for the competition. In the context of the Vista delays, a trickle of executives jumping ship tends to look the vanguard of the proverbial rats.

Re:Non-compete? Ugh.

[martinussen]

Google does not make operating systems or desktop software, they are a freakin' search company, and MS is not a search company. Yet MS identifies them as a competitor, just like they identify every company in existence as their competitor.

If a company is a threat to their current portfolio has never been very important to Microsoft. Remember why IE was crufted together in the first place? Netscape wasn't a direct threat to Microsoft (granted, the existence of a familiar browser on a different platform would make it much more appealing to switch), but they were the New Great Thing. And the existence of New Great Things shows people that it's possible to compete with the big guys. There are several bloody good reasons for Microsoft to fear Google. One, they are a major threat to the MSN search engine. Two, they are rapidly expanding and making substitutes for current Microsoft products, mostly web-based. It is only a question of time before the two companies are competing over the same niches. Three, Google keeps "stealing" their employees and are hiring excellent engineers who could otherwise have been making stuff for Microsoft.

1 year non-comp??

[bogidu]

That's amazing. Many companies use this 1-year non-comp clause in their employment agreements that are usually nothing more than a way to lock employees into working for their company and effectively holding them hostage to whatever salary range that they originally agree. Only those select few individuals that make god-like salaries have the ability to quit a job, wait a year, then start with a new company.

Re:Was that...

[Frankie70]

the sound a chair being thrown?

Almost died laughing. That was the first time I read that
joke on Slashdot.. .. .. ..
today .. .. ..
in this article.

No chairs will be thrown over this departure

[melted]

No chairs will be thrown over this departure. The dude was a bullshit master. And not just that, but he was managing other bullshit masters, which kind of means he didn't have much time to spout bullshit outside MSFT. There are millions of bullshit masters in the US, especially if you pay them Gundotra's salary. Chairs will be thrown if senior engineering staff (of Bosworth and Lucovsky level) departs. Those folks are harder to replace and Google should start targeting them instead if they want to piss off Ballmer.

Re:Great News

[iznogud]

When they are in MS, we see them as lazy, clumsy, evil, worst programmers in the world, etc. When they switch to Google, they suddenly becomes hottest programmers, managers, whatever in the Universe.

Re:Only on slashdot...

[kimvette]

Question (no offense intended): why waste a mod point modding posts down, even grammar nazis or trolls, when there are so many great posts that need to be modded up to insighful or interesting to make the threshold settings actually useful?

(Again no offense intended, I am genuinely curious why people do this)

Aside from really racist crap I don't see the point of modding trolls down (or even just humor that some people don't find funny).

Re:Only on slashdot...

[MORB]

Both modding up the good posts and modding down the bad ones improve the signal/noise ratio.

Re:Curious statement

[kimvette]

Actually, that's not true. Like Beta Vs. VHS, DVD vs. Divx, or HD-DVD vs. BluRay you need to establish demand before the product sells. Many waited on the sidelines of DVD vs. Divx to see which would win before buying (the ones who bought Divx got stung). Why would one buy Vista for the DRM features when the new DRM is not even being offered by content providers? It's a chicken-and-egg situation.

More likely, people will buy Windows Vista for two reasons:

  - Windows XP will be phased out of the market and Vista will come preinstalled on 90% of PCs
  - the new GUI and Video games (this is a single reason, coming down to essentially eye candy. "Oooh, shiny!")

AFTER that, the content will come.

Re:Only on slashdot...

[drsquare]

You do realise that if people set their thresholds at 4 no-one would read any of your posts?

Worried...

[Trifthen]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not particularly excited about MS Execs being hired by Google. Do we really want Google to turn into another Microsoft?

Please Google, for the love of $diety, please hire execs from reputable companies...

Re:Great News

[laffer1]

I always find it interesting how many on slashdot find Microsoft employees at google so great. Most of us regularly make fun of Microsoft for one thing or another. Quite a few of us love some open source operating system. Yet, we want google to hire Microsoft employees? Do we think google will get better? Perhaps this trend is part of the problem. Many end users find google to be great. THey talk about gmail like its a new thing. (i had hotmail in 1998 people... and i got rid of it for a reason) What about the summer of code nightmare from lastyear thats rearing its ugly head yet again. I'm sure google will change the requirements which automatically voids applications and doesn't pay out again even though the person made real progress. Google does harm, its just not as bad as some companies. Google is a company... accept they aren't some idealistic open source fantasy.

Strategic?

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Okay, I'm too late for a chair joke, so I guess I'll share my other thoughts.

Maybe Google are hiring away Microsofties in strategic positions, deliberately targeting those who have greater worth that their current compensation, partly to gain and partly to hurt Microsoft in a completely legal way?

They do have an advantage over Microsoft that they are probably playing to their advantage; ethically compared to Microsoft, Google are freaking angels.

Re:Power doesn't come out of the barrel of a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

Chairman's Mao quip was about the eventual degragation of power to coercive power. After you completely dissagree with a person and totally and completely refuse to cooperate with them, how can they have power from you? Through the barrel of a gun. They'll KILL you, or physically force you to comply (arrest). Unless you have a superior coercive power over a person, you cannot arrest them and you have war.

Physical coersion is the endpoint of power. From a person's basic surivival instinct leads to fear of pain. Fear of pain leads to fear of this coersion, and from this basic fear of coersion is root of all power. You can derive all power from fear and all fears lead to the fear of pain.

Why for example, does a person fear poverty? Because they fear the pain of poverty and the coercive forces that may get in their way when they try to claw back out. So why did they panic to get to windows in the 80s and 90s? Because of some fear or another derived from other fears.