Microsoft

You're working with a lot of smart and dedicated people.

Every day is an opportunity to challenge oneself, learn, and improve.

You can change things if you really want to, but it's really hard.

Microsoft seems to continuously play catch-up with the competition. People know it but don't know how to fix this. Bureaucracy and the development process tend to naturally kill a lot of ideas and water down everything to average end-solutions. There is no time to iterate ideas, learn, and potentially let them flourish, so you'll need a lot of hard work and dedication to get an innovative idea through, but it's possible. The planning process is a bit of a mess and creates more pain than it should. It is probably why we fail to create a long-term vision that people can rally around.

We probably need a new CEO who can bring fresh ideas and style to the company.

We need more interim milestones to allow for mistakes and try new ideas. (Windows is using 3, it's not enough)