Competing to Work for Microsoft 359
theodp writes "Addressing 5,000 developers in Bangalore, Bill Gates announced the Code4Bill contest, a nationwide talent hunt which will begin in January and last eight months. Twenty finalists will receive internships with Microsoft India before one Superhero is selected to join Mr. Gates's own team."
Familiar (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Familiar (Score:5, Funny)
An awed hush falls over the crowd assembled, and then Mr. Gates speaks:
"Is it imperative that we crush this rebellion before the start rainy season! And a shiny new donkey to whomever brings me the head of Eric Schmidt!"
Re:Familiar (Score:5, Funny)
with a motley group of men and creatures. Admiral Allen and
two controllers stand at the front of the bridge and watch the
group with scorn.
ALLEN: Bounty hunters. We don't need that scum.
FIRST CONTROLLER: Yes, sir.
ALLEN: Those Rebels won't escape us.
A second controller interrupts.
SECOND CONTROLLER: Sir, we have a priority signal from the Star
Destroyer Avenger.
ALLEN: Right.
The group standing before Gates is a bizarre array of
galactic fortune hunters: There is Bossk, a slimy, tentacled
monster with two huge, bloodshot eyes in a soft baggy face;
Zuckuss and Dengar, two battle-scarred, mangy human types;
IG-88, a battered, tarnished chrome war droid; and Boba Fett,
a man in a weapon-covered armored space suit.
GATES:
Page and Brin. You are free to use any methods necessary, but
I want them alive. No disintegrations.
BOBA FETT: As you wish.
At that moment, Admiral Allen approaches Gates in a rush of
excitement.
ALLEN: Lord Gates! My lord, we have them.
http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html [google.com]
Dr. Eric Schmidt; Chairman of the Executive Committee and CEO
Larry Page; Co-Founder & President, Products
Sergey Brin; Co-Founder & President, Technology
Re:Familiar (Score:4, Funny)
ADMIRAL GATES: We need to do something about these damn space tights!
CAPTAIN BALMER: But what about Longhorn?
ADMIRAL GATES: That's the problem!
Me too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Me too (Score:2)
They did an interesting job of covering their ass on the avoiding-slander issue by working Bill's name into a minor dialogue in the movie:
"Doesn't Bill Gates have one of those?"
"Bill who?"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reality TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Inquiring Minds Want to Know ... (Score:5, Funny)
That's interesting. What are they going to do to the second one that's voted off the team?
Re:Inquiring Minds Want to Know ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Inquiring Minds Want to Know ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Inquiring Minds Want to Know ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Inquiring Minds Want to Know ... (Score:3, Funny)
Somehow... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I know! (Score:2)
Ah, the wonderful closed source lie: sell me your effort and I will make you rich.
In all fairness, Microsoft has created a truly shocking number of millionaire workers. Myself, I'll not look to employment to make me rich - I'm trying to find a business plan that I can use to do it for myself.
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because not every great coder is a great business man. In this day, you have to have some very smart (financially and fiscally) people on your side as well. Besides, after winning this thing you could go do your internship and then quit a year later. The "fame" from the contest will likely provide some sort of venture capital which would hopefully make it easier to start the business anyway.
Plus, think of all the chicks you'd get...
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
That didn't take long at all.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
That didn't take long at all.
Are you actually shocked that some people like to gather power so they can fuck lots of women? It's always been so.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
http://www.canepa.com/SportsLuxury/Showroom/959Art icleAutoweek.asp [canepa.com]
That speaks volumes about both his passion and his power.
Sure anyone could start their own company, but why spend 10 years getting your ass kicked when you can get an express ride straight to the top? You can convert 5 years working with him into pretty much anything you like, including your own company with p
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Piles of cash, I think not. Put an 30th percentile programmer and a 99th percentile programmer next to each other at a big company and wait 5 years. The better developer will distinguish him/herself, and even make more money. But not that much more, unless the ace progresses to a leadership role. And in that case the extra money is really for
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
The point I was going to make has already been made by another poster. So instead I have to ask: Why did this post shoot up to +5? Is it really not that well understood that software has to be designed before it can be coded, then marketed then supported, and s
The article isn't clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Just for fun (Score:5, Funny)
If I lived in India, I think just for fun I would participate in this contest, and then when I win (because I am of course the best dev in the world), I will tell Balmer "I am sorry but actually I think I am gonna work for Google. Bye ! Oh BTW, nice chair you have there. Have a nice day !".
Or if you lived in the Soviet Union .. (Score:2)
Neat... (Score:2, Funny)
Product Development Strategy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Product Development Strategy (Score:2)
it would be nice to win (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if all of these programmers in India are even slightly concerned that he ditched out on the (I'm assuming here) more expensive U.S. programmers to hire "more cost effective" employees in India?
They might want to think about what happens when ex-Soviet free states reaches a technology level that either surpasses India, or become cheap enough labor wise to be worth the loss of quality. I honestly don't see a lack of qualified programmers here in the U.S. for Microsoft to hire. And I hate seeing companies that have no reason to expand their profit margins start outsourcing just for the sake of making that extra buck.
Re:Ethics anyone? (Score:2)
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:4, Insightful)
When did you guys lose your "Give me your poor, tired and huddled masses
What should we have done when you colonised us and took away our wealth built up over centuries, if not millenia? When India alone accounted for a few dozen percent of world trade? Now that you guys are on top, you'd like to keep a third of humanity down forever?
And did you even consider in your pompousness that some of the software that MS does might be for the local market? Or do you even realise that there's a world outside the US, and languages other than English? And that developing software in the local languages might, conceivably, be easier in that country?
And, the ex-Soviet states are already technologically and educationally above India/China. What we do have is a huge mass of humanity trying desperately for three square meals a day, clothing and a roof over the head. Considering this, I think with our democracy, we're doing pretty well thank you.
Come to think of it there are/were many democracies doing quite well until some pompous pricks decided that they were not right-wing enough. Hmm, can you name the pricks?
One would think that if you post on
Don't you want to get off this Earth? Don't you want mankind to ensure its safety with colonies off the Earth? Do you think that's going to happen when a third of humanity is without any technology?
And for those who think we have no home-grown tech companies, wait and watch. There are companies capable to giving any MNC a run for its money, and is as ruthless as any other (not that I'm happy about this). Do you know the owners of some of the largest trans-oceanic fiber networks are now Indian companies? That some of the largest steel producers in the world are from India? One of the top-three media (cd/dvd/cdr) manufacturers in the world?
Napolean once said "China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." A large portion of humanity is trying very hard to regain its due. The world order will change. Be prepared for it.
This probably came off as something of a rant. So be it. When I see people struggling for their lives everyday, and see someone complaining because they theoretically 'lost' their cushy job to the 'third-world' only because of cost, I just lose it
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:5, Insightful)
What people are bothered by is that large corporations expect certain level of education out of the system in the US. But mega corporations like MS avoid millions in taxes by setting up in places like Nevada. So people would have less problems with Mr. Gates, or Mr. Walmart, Mr. Gm if they paid taxes for better schools, and infrastructure instead of complaining about high wages, health insurance and lack of quality labor in America. Another problem is, if there are so many that lack skills in the US, then why does he hire temps, it doesn't make sense, why not train these temps to be full time employees, he doesn't do that to save money, he is not going to India to get better programmers, he is doing it to save money, once India realizes that, they don't have to beg at the teat of large mega corps and start their own firms and stop being an outsourcing bitch.
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's odd for you to argue "Microsoft doesn't pay taxes in America, so how can they expect decent programmers in America if they don't fund schools?" By some miracle Microsoft doesn't pay much to schools in India, yet they find decent programmers there. Perhaps it's not Microsoft's tax avoidance that's the problem?
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:2)
"We" didn't colonize India. With minor exceptions such as the Portuguese in Goa it was the British who colonized India. Although I certainly don't justify colonialism and agree with most of your post, I don't see any justification for the view that India is poor because of British colonialism. The reason that India is a relati
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:2)
It's the individual companies that are taking away the *opportunity* for employment that are the problem.
Re:What about when India gets outsourced? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right about the ex-soviet states. If they bothered to learn english, you guys would be fucked. If the Chinese learned english, everyone would be fucked because they'd have programmers working for $1 a day.
I have met plenty of Indians who are pompous and quite pleased with themselves. Don't
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Code for Bill? (Score:2, Funny)
Truth be told . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truth be told . . . (Score:2)
At least give Bill some credit for honesty...intentional or not.
Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:5, Insightful)
So why doesn't he have such a program in the United States? Funny, though, I've never seen the American - or Canadian, or British version - of the Code4Bill contest. Guess expensive developers aren't really wanted at Microsoft.
How are we supposed to motivate college students to enter computer science when the (sadly) premier computer software maker stages competitions to find the very same programmers who may well replace American workers. What bloody hypocrisy Gates has to complain about the state of American CS while at the same time doing his damn best to destroy it.
Bill can recruit programmers from anywhere he wants. But he can try to find the best here, too.
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
They do. Its called the standard job application process.
Post a notice on Monster.
Gather several thousand resumes.
Pick 20 or so for further review.
1 lucky person actually gets the job.
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
PressPass [microsoft.com]
It's called cheap labor (Score:4, Insightful)
Typical of way too many companies here in the US, they'd rather save money and make the bottom line look better, than actually support their own economy. It's not like the bigwigs have to worry about budgets or anything...
[/soapbox]
H.
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called ImagineCup [thespoke.net].
And this year it is being held in India, as well, actually. But it's a world-wide competition for college students in CS. I met one of the world finalists -- he was thrilled by it. But the point is, there are
Re:Bill's always whining about American CS... (Score:2)
Hey, don't encourage him. It's bad enough that he decided to place Microsoft headquarters here.
There will be no shortage of participants (Score:2)
Not the Apprentice for the dark side (Score:4, Funny)
Developers, developers, developers, developers! (Score:2, Funny)
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Link to Microsoft's Superhero-The Developer's Song (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Link to Microsoft's Superhero-The Developer's S (Score:2)
Real reason: Distract effort from KDE India (Score:4, Insightful)
Draw your own conclusion ;-)
Kde India Announcement [kde.org]
...jkl (Score:2)
wouldn't it be cool (Score:3, Funny)
translation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, you 5,000 developers, why don't you do a bunch of Microsoft Windows coding and propoganda for us* (for free) and we in turn will employ a handfull of you for all your combined effort. Now get started!
* all entries and innovation become the property of Microsoft.
Re:translation... (Score:2)
Re:translation... (Score:2)
So who exactly are the smart ones?
Not Interested (Score:5, Interesting)
The only situation where I can imagine myself competing against 5000 developers for a single job would be if I was fanatical about the organisation (e.g., Google), and I certainly don't feel that way about MS.
Ok kid, here's how to be like your idol... (Score:5, Funny)
"I want to be like him. I am a huge admirer," said 24-year old Naveen Rao, a development engineer with the outsourcing company Aditi Technologies.
Well, for starters, you need to drop out of an elite college just before you would have been thrown out for skipping classes. If you've already earned a college degree, forget everything you've learned. Get the point here? Next, since you're mom is rich and has big business connections through charity work, use those connections to steal someone elses product (a crappy OS simular to CPM) and pass it off as yours to a big dumb company with deep pockets.
Are you getting the point now? After a few years of screwing the company you sold the product to, cut a deal with them to make a better product. Screw them over again by stealing yet another product by hijacking a product team working nearby that's been cancled (perhaps its a GUI on top of VMS by a guy named Cavid Duttler). Use this stolen product team to plow the compnay that gave you the big start (don't worry, your mom's friend moved on long ago).
Is it starting to sink in yet? From there, you just keep going with whatever makes you money and screws hard working programmers over. Hijack a web browser from some poor startup (make sure they rhyme with "eyeglass").
Through all of this, if you want to go after something, just throw money at it and duplicate features other companies have done the hard work for. By version 3 you'll figure it out more or less. If not, you can just spend them out of the market.
Truth is, if you want to be like Bill Gates, all you don't need any technical tallent. And, if you admire Bill Gates, you have a serious lack of ethics.
The wrong choices for role models!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I will not include Bill Gates in the list of 'truly evil', some of the role models Indians consider are people of totally dubious background.
About 10-12 years back there was stock market crash in India engineered by loopholes-in-the-system+backdoor-deals by a rogue trader - Harshad Mehta. [thehindubusinessline.com]
I have seen many reports/articles/interviews where he was admired for his money making skills and quotes like 'I want to be like Harshad Mehta
reminds me of a joke... (Score:5, Funny)
NOTE: the above is a *joke*. If you do not have a sense of humor, please ignore this comment and move on.
Contest rules (Score:5, Funny)
2. Flying chairs screensavers earn a second place.
3. the third place, Assistant programmer, will be awarded to the one who makes a program whose clippy assistant says "Developers Developers Developers!" repeatedly.
4. Everyone in the country will be accepted to participate.
4b. Except in Nebraska!
Weakest Link (Score:4, Funny)
Set the bar high (Score:2)
Microsoft is to India....... (Score:2)
Better Strategy (Score:2)
2. Work on one of those projects.
3. Get converted to Microsoft FTE along with half the project team.
It happens this way ALL THE TIME, and you don't have to beat 5000 other programmers in some contest, you just have to be in the top half of the team you're on.
Give me the winner's code, and (Score:5, Interesting)
And the thing is, the culture at MSFT is such that you can't just email into dev team alias and say "this is crap, and this needs to be rewritten". You'd "hurt people's feelings", which will affect your yearly review, pushing it towards (or below) 3.5 grade, for which you get bonus and stock grant that may or may not cover the cost of living. So folks just shut up and suffer.
Actually, I think Vista will be pretty interesting to watch. It is now mandatory in many (if not all) teams at MSFT to outsource at least something across all disciplines. They outsource mostly Test, but since you have to outsource Dev and PM, too, some of Dev and PM work gets done in IDC (India Development Center). Generally, whatever comes from there ends up being rewritten by non-Indian devs in Redmond, on their own time, because you aren't going to tell your (most likely Indian) manager that the code that came from IDC fucking sucks. As pressure goes up in the ship cycle, folks in Redmond have less and less time to rewrite IDC garbage, so it gets checked in (and shipped) as-is. So I fully expect Vista to be a fuckup of gigantic proportions, until at least SP1.
The sad part is, people will buy it anyway.
BTW, this is not a racist or anti-outsourcing rant. Test folks in China did (and no doubt still do) a stellar job. I'm just puzzled that Indians fuck up so badly time after time. If you guys are reading this, you've got to realize that sooner or later it will become clear to the higher ups that company money is better spent in China, despite pretty shitty English that Chinese folks speak.
Re:Give me the winner's code, and (Score:4, Funny)
boolean isBarSelected = bar.isSelected();
boolean returnValue;
if (isBarSelected) {
returnValue = true;
} else {
returnValue = false;
}
return returnValue;
Why in god's name would someone ever write code like this?
Re:Give me the winner's code, and (Score:3, Funny)
boolean isBarSelected = bar.isSelected();
boolean returnValue;
boolean result;
if (isBarSelected) {
result = true;
}
if (!isBarSelected){
result = false;
}
if (isBarSelected && !isBarSelected) {
result = false;
}
returnValue = result;
return returnValue;
I actually saw code like this in a production system only it was far worse
economics... (Score:3, Insightful)
obviously
being
paid
by
the
line.
Re:Give me the winner's code, and (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I work for outsource projects to Wipro and TCS. The thing that is strange is that any person they send is automatically accepted as an engineer without any tests or screening what so ever. Ofcourse this is now being abused and I am now seeing 24 year old graduates arriving into mission critical projects.
The problem is that management is seeing software development as hard as digging a ditch. You just give anyone (preferebly the cheapest one) a shovel and off he/she go. The thing that is most funny is that in the company I work for it is all based on a lie. My manager plus a senior manager I spoke to 2 days ago claims that I cost 4 times as much as a resource from India. This is not true. What they are comparing is my funny money internal cost with the real fee from Wipro or TCS. What I really cost is 1.5 times. (+ the cost for my office) Of the cost for my salary the Swedish government is taking 55% and when ever I buy something I pay around 25% sales tax. (Food is 12.5% and taxi/bus is 6%) so in the end I might earn LESS than my Indian counterpart.
I want to finish off my rant with a quote from a management book, Object Technology - A Manager's Guide. Page 11. I think this quote explaines quite well managements view on us software developers. "For most business people, polymorphism is so obvious that they have a hard time seeing what is so special about it"
Re:Give me the winner's code, and (Score:3, Insightful)
What Wipro et al bill you for is the sales and management overheads. It might end up being cheaper for your company to just open an office in Pune/Hyderabad and start a
Re:Give me the winner's code, and (Score:3, Interesting)
To have no proper code quality check / audit team jus
This is a great idea... (Score:2)
This is an example of why Microsoft has problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody would argue that coding is important, and that you'd like to have good individuals to code applications.
But if you look at Microsoft's products, and compare them to Apple, what are the differences? Coding?
No, the differences are:
* a focus on integration of the hardware and software subsystem
* a focus on ease of use, not quality or rapidity of coding
* a focus on agility of teams. How many versions of Apple's OS have come out since the last Windows update?
I don't see a "coding contest" making a big difference. And it's not like Microsoft is running out of cash and has to shave costs by getting cheaper coders. They're doing it because they aren't growing enough. Cutting staff costs is treating the symptom. The actual disease is bloated code, not much creativity, integration, or elegance in their products. Coding contests aren't going to solve that.
I know this is tacky, (Score:5, Funny)
I knew I saw this movie somewhere.... (Score:3, Funny)
Let me get this straight (Score:3, Insightful)
So Code4Bill is meant to throw attention away from open source? And the 20 lucky winners get to work for Microsoft for a year for free?
Crazy world. If these 20 are so smart, why aren't they starting up their own companies to provide open source to schools and wi fi to villages?
Or are these at least _paid_ internships?
Re:the donkey game (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and if perchance you don't which game this is, check it out [folklore.org]!
basiCreations [basicreations.com]
Re:Spyware? (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Why don't they do this here? (Score:2)
Don't you mean his Darth Vader? (Score:2)
Darth Vader did kill the evil emperor eventually. But they had some good times ruling the galaxy. Good times.
Darth Vader also had it up on the competition because he had a bunch of computer parts. "He's more machine now than man." Too bad we never see Vader shutting off the trash co