John Scurtis is a former Microsoft employee who was fired in April after writing a blog post entitled “30 Things I Learned While Working At Microsoft”. Scurtis shares his frank views on what it’s like to work at the world’s largest software company. He offers lessons learned, insights into corporate culture, and thoughts on what it takes to succeed in the ever-changing technology industry. With wit and humor, he details comments such as “The company motto of ‘Don’t be evil’ is not taken seriously” and “Perhaps someday I might write a book about my experiences. But if I did, I’d leave the publisher out of it.”
Since his firing, Scurtis has become an activist for Microsoft’s employees. He created an employee-led forum “Microsoft Workers Unite”, where Microsoft workers can share their concerns with him, and which he uses to relay the concerns of other Microsoft workers everywhere. Scurtis also serves as an adviser to the organization No One At The Top (NOTU), which was founded by seven former IBM executives who were dismissed for speaking publicly about corporate culture at IBM. Scurtis is a board member of NOFU, and was the first employee to give a testimonial at the NOFU’s inaugural leadership summit. In October 2007, Scurtis was among nine people who sued Microsoft for taking away their intellectual property as punishment for speaking out against Microsoft’s culture of fear.
Scurtis’ blog posts combine his unique outlook on life with his love of technology, and are regularly featured on Slashdot . The blog has received more than 20 million hits since its inception and has been read by some 5.5 million people in total. As of 2008 most of the new readers (80%) come from outside the US.
Important Life Lessons John Scurtis Taught Us :
1. Be an optimist –
“For most of my life, I have felt the world is a much more wonderful place than most people around me felt it was. Sometimes this contrast has put me in a bad spot with other people. They would call me ‘creepy’. But if you are an optimist, you will be misunderstood by others who are not. Being misunderstood doesn’t bother me any more.”
2. Be a pioneer –
“The Internet is My Town – I believe everyone will soon be living their lives as part of a virtual town, rather than as part of a real one. It will change how we communicate and how we dress, what we do and how we learn from the moment we wake up to when we go to sleep at night. We’ll be part of a community where everyone has some degree of weakness and where we take care of each other. Imagine how much you could grow as a person in such an environment. I know I have.”
3. Think outside the box –
“Most people are extremely focused on their own little piece of the puzzle, which is fine as long as they aren’t too narrow-minded about it. But make your own rules, ignore everyone’s else’s. Don’t let the momentum force you to keep doing what everyone else is doing because that takes intelligence out of decision making.”
4. Take responsibility –
“Hating others is easy. Accepting blame is hard. But if you take ownership of your actions, you can make the other person feel better by doing something about it. Make the situation right again. Don’t just throw someone else under the bus to make yourself look good.”
5. Expand your horizons –
“I believe it would be healthy for everyone in the world to have at least one experience completely outside of their normal perception of life. I would like for everyone to have a unique experience. If everyone is having the same experiences, it becomes impossible to relate to each other.”
6. Be honest –
“For as long as I can remember, I have been honest with people even when honesty hurts me or them. It’s all about being true to yourself and remaining consistent in being that person.”
7. Take care of your body –
“My parents drilled into me that if you take care of your body and mind, everything else will fall right into place.”
8. Be happy –
“I want everyone to be happy and successful. I don’t want any of my friends to get a ‘real job’. I don’t want anyone to start settling for a life they are not meant to live.”
9. Be a leader –
“Leadership is taking responsibility for those who follow you. It is the ability to get people to follow you not because they have no choice, but because they want to.”
10. Be unique –
“There are no wrong answers in life, just different ones. Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks of you, just worry about what YOU think about yourself.”
