Knowledge can be taught, but talent cannot
by Volker Weber
Ziv Caspi helps me understand why Microsoft constantly seems to reinvent stuff that is already out there. It hurts them a lot when they ignore exisiting protocols and standards:
... traditionally Microsoft had a very strict recruiting policy: get the best people, regardless of whether they know something about the problem or not. The underlying assumption is that knowledge can be taught, but talent cannot.The consequences of this policy are evident in many Microsoft products. When a new product which is unrelated to previous Microsoft products is being designed, the people who work on the project are brilliant, but inexperienced in the problem domain. Often, developers bring their own mindset from previous projects they've worked on to newer projects, whether this mindset suits the problem or not. Therefore, it takes them a few trial-and-error phases to get things done right.
