Microsoft CIO Stuart Scott Gets Axed

avjt writes "Microsoft has terminated its CIO Stuart Scott for 'violation of company policies'. They won't elaborate. Now what do you think this guy has done?" Ya know, I'm positive someone reading this story knows the answer to the mystery... and they could post it anonymously and be totally fine because there will be a hundred other totally wrong guesses and it would be completely impossible to distinguish the two ;)

Rumor: love affair

[slashflood]

... according to ValleyWag [valleywag.com].

Some information...

[Funkcikle]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/stuartsc/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

* He is a Six Sigma black belt.
* Scott lives with his wife and SEVEN children.
* He helped "ensure that Microsoft is the "first and best customer" of its own products."
* He spends his free time with his family, coaching sports teams, leading youth groups, and playing golf.

I'm guessing...he was teaching Six Sigma karate to underprivileged inner-city girls and, as happened with his wife, got too close and BAM...instant pregnancies all round.

Seriously...who has SEVEN CHILDREN? On PURPOSE?

Re:Fired?

[FlyByPC]

For stealing boxes?!?!

Yes. Eight-Xeon-CPU "boxes," with 64GB of memory, 200-TB RAID arrays of solid-state drives, and next-generation GPUs that make the ST Holodeck look lame.

He had an affair with a subordinate

[Anonymous Coward]

The rumor mill is already gushing about the story: turns out Scott had an affair with one of his subordinates, who recently go a big promotion that raised many eye brows around the company. The two were on leave together when the investigation started: http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3617/microsoft-fires-cio-stuart-scott-possibly-for-inter-office-affair-with-his-subordinate [pollsb.com]

Re:google time

[blazerw11]

After reading through all of the comments. You don't want to do this unless your really bored. It looks like he was having an affair with a VP that reports to him. Type "/ValleyWag" to find the comment with the informative link. (If you are using IE, user your circa 1983 find function.)

Re:Pretty remarkable

[fm6]

That would certainly explain why they're being so hush-hush. On the one hand, ignoring a sexual harassment complaint can get you sued. On the other hand, saying one of your people is accused of sexual harassment can also get you sued.

General principal: when somebody is being really, really tight-lipped, either they're planning on invading a foreign country or they're trying to avoid litigation. And the security measures are less extreme for the invasion! I've been in meetings about such issues where I was told not to take notes, not to discuss the issue in email, and not to discuss the issue at all with anybody who didn't have a specific need to know. And don't ask for hints, because that could get me fired — and probably sued myself.

Re:google time

[Simon Brooke]

After reading through all of the comments. You don't want to do this unless your really bored. It looks like he was having an affair with a VP that reports to him.

Oh, come on. That's a company tradition. Bill Gates didn't just shag someone who reported to him [wikipedia.org], he married her.

Re:google time

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you have been effectively been brainwashed by a propaganda campaign. Gore never ever claimed he invented the internet. He said he created it, and rightly so due to the relentless backing and funding he obtained. Internet is not tcp/ip or www.

Re:google time

[defile]

You are referring to this, presumably?

"During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

You can't even convince politicians in Congress today that there is value in having anything to do with the internet besides enacting child protection laws. Gore has understood the value since the 1970s and been acted in his political capacity to develop and support legislation that created it and brought it to the public. Exactly what other kind of creation do you expect from politicians? Can only the guys on the front-lines take credit for creating something? Does it somehow diminish their value by acknowledging Gore's contribution?

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology#Congressional_work_and_Gore_Bill [wikipedia.org]

Re:google time

[aichpvee]

While I'm hoping that the GP was just making a joke and blew the delivery, to set the record straight (again!), here is what Gore actually said [cnn.com].

I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

obligatory

[DeepHurtn!]

Gee, I bet you're a lot of fun at parties!

Re:Pretty remarkable

[Shotgun]

I was going to moderate, but I have to respond to this.

All the "seminars" I've been to lead to me to understand that you can't separate the two. I quote "seminars", because they really don't provide information as much as they provide warnings.

-If you doink a subordinate, it can be view as sexual harassment, whether it was consenual or not, or whether quid pro quo was offered or not.
-If another employee knows you're doinking another subordinate, it can be view as sexual harassment, whether it was consenual or not, or whether quid pro quo was offered or not.
-If you make a sexual comment about another employee, it can be viewed as sexual harrassment.
-If you are overheard making a sexual comment about another employee, it can be viewed as sexual harrassment. "Sexual" will be determined by the person hearing the comment at the time they hear it.
-If someone feels "threatened" by your presence you can be canned. (I worked with a fellow who had this happen to him. He was black. She was white. Yay for the good ol' South).
-If coorperations don't react to the situation with incredibly disproportionate measures, they expose themselves to ridiculous lawsuits.

This is only in corporate America, and I can only hope to GOD that the rest of the world is not this insane.

Re:google time

[rkanodia]

Two things: first, research in network protocols costs a lot of money. Second, building the infrastructure costs a lot of money. Geeks may not like to admit that, but it counts for a lot. Saying that the internet had already been 'created' is rather disingenuous. If the internet of today consisted of a couple hundred research institutions which were connected via a haphazard set of links of dubious uptime, then you wouldn't be able to buy things on Amazon.com or get Google Maps on your cellphone or call your friends on Skype or look up Al Gore on Wikipedia. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn had this to say about the 'Al Gore claims he invented the internet' meme:

[A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept.

So if you know more about the early days of the internet/the late days of ARPANET than Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, I would consider myself extraordinarily fortunate if a person of such amazing insight could shed some light on their mistake.

Re:A couple of problems

[mav[LAG]]

My guess is that this post is from a real Microsoft insider, probably someone in support or IT.

Arrogant? Check.
Condescending? Check.
Thinks "slashdotters" are some kind of homogeneous Microsoft-bashing species? Check.
Thinks Google competes with Microsoft? Check.
Gives out information which is absolutely no use to anyone? Check.

It just has the ring of truth.

Sorry to burst your bubble ...

[jchenx]

Maybe his daughter was caught using an iPod? Or perhaps his work machine's cache was found to have a Google Search results page in it?

But, in all seriousness, it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft had a very stringent agreement with it's employees such that you're guilty of violating company policy at all times. Something really vague and impossible to avoid like "you shall not support a competitor in anyway with any of your personal funds or free time." They only let you go if they want to and so few get let go on these grounds that nobody really cares about it. Does anyone know if this is the case?

It really wouldn't surprise me if they treated their employees the same way they treat their customers.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but as someone who works at MS, they don't treat their employees like that. (Nor do I think we treat all of our customers like that either, but that's a separate discussion!)

There are plenty of people around here (myself included) that use competing products. We're talking about Macs, Firefox, Google, iPhone, iPod, PlayStation, etc. Yeah, some of it is competitive analysis and such, but a lot of it is just due to personal preference, and it is draconian to think that an employer would force such measures on their employees. Obviously MS would like everyone to drink nothing but Kool-Aid, and will suggest people buy Zunes, use Live Search, etc. and I think that's fine and healthy. I would expect Google and Apple to do the same thing with its employees, allowing them to run/own/use the competition's products.