From: Charlie Kindel Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 9:00 AM To: A gazillion old friends and colleagues

Subject: Goodbye Microsoft After 21 Years Its Time To Move On July 2, 1990 was my first day at Microsoft and September 2, 2011 will be my last . In the time honored tradition of good-bye mails this is mine. My first Microsoft product was a Z-80 Softcard for my Apple ][+ in 1984. That am azing product enabled me to become a UCSD P-System, CP/M, and Turbo Pascal geek. I still remember opening the big clear plastic box for the first time. In 1988 (my junior year at the University of Arizona) I decided I wanted to work for Microsoft when I discovered Windows programming (I conned my dad into buyin g me a copy of the Windows 2 SDK). Charles Petzold was my hero. I got no-hired after my first interviews (a dev role in Languages; shouldnt reall y surprise anyone). I bribed my recruiter into getting me another set of interviews by sending her a Christmas card (clearly I was meant to be a PM). The brightest memory I have of my first day at work was a Seattle Times sports p age pinned to my managers (Ridge Ostling) cube: Husky Women Beat Beavers. A few months later we threatened to quit because management kept turning the lig hts ON in Lincoln Plaza. Arne Josefsberg: I feel bad about writing that tool that generated fake time tra cking reports. But what did you expect? We were providing the best damn develope r support possible and the number of minutes we spent doing it was totally irrel evant. Curtis Palmer: I miss you. Our Bogus Software was the best. RIP. Tunneling Todd Laney, one day I got so pissed that the Windows 8514a driver didnt support smallfonts that I just fixed it and checked it in. I was still in PSS. My first production code at Microsoft and if you dont count OLEView which was just a tool, my last. I decided I wanted to be Chris Guzak. So I got out of PSS and into Developer Rel ations. I know, it doesnt make sense to me either. Vertical Developer Relations was an amazing group. Out of that group came: Jeff Teper, Satya Nadella, Joe Long, John Wilcox, Bret ORourke, and others. After writing OLEView I woke up and I was no longer an evangelist but a PM on th e OLE team. Initially I was given all the glamorous stuff like Mac OLE. Mario Go ertzel scared the crap out of me. It was 3 months before he and the other devs w ould invite me to lunch. I got to work with Bob Atkinson. He taught me the trick of taking people on walk s during 1:1s. He also taught me everything I know. We gave all PDC 93 attendees a CD with the first DCOM bits. ole.h was missing. On e (one!) customer noticed. We thought DCOM was hot-sh**. It wasnt. The first name for COM+ was COM3. Windows used to let you create directories nam

ed COM3. But you couldnt delete them. The real reason Im leaving Microsoft? COM is making a comeback. Sweeper and December 7, 1995 were epic. How the name ActiveX was chosen was not. D esigning the <OBJECT> tag with Tim Berners-Lee was mind blowing for me. Ben Sliv ka still owes my sister an airplane ticket. Shipping IE 3.0 was my first taste of what it really meant to build a product th at changed the world. I would have never joined the Windows Phone team if I had not had that prior experience of an impossible, come-from-behind, project. Somewhere along the line I learned the word mentor. Bob Muglia and Chris Jones: Th ank you. I learned everything I know from you. In 1998 a bunch of us from the IIS team were in Paris for some conference. We we nt out to dinner and when we came out of the restaurant there was a literal riot going on around the Arc de Triomphe. France had won the world cup. We joined in . I rode around the Arc de Triomphe on the roof of a city bus chanting Viva-La-F rance! Microsoft enabled me to see the world and Im grateful for that. Someday were going to have a Project42 reunion party. Or not. Tracy Sharpe once worked for me. One day his office was cleared out. I asked HR W heres Tracy? Oh, he moved to the Xbox team weeks ago. Oh, thats how that works. Charlie: Hey Chris (Jones) & David (Cole), we should build a Neptune Home Server! Well call it Ybox! Chris & David: Charlie, shut the eff up and get back to work. Working on Windows Millennium is where I met Dave Alles. The Connected Home Business Unit had this guy who drove a black Hummer. One day we put a Yes, my penis is small bumper sticker on it. Sorry about that Kevin Eagan . Bedrock and the bBox demonstrated that a group could have all the technology and a great user experience and still not know how to spell business. BXT folks. BXT! CHBU begat eHome. The first version of Windows Media Center was to be called Wind ows Remote View. Really. When I think about my time as BobMus TA Im reminded of the scene in Blade Runner, where Roy says Ive seen things you people could only imagine. Did I mention that I learned everything I know from Bob Muglia? You know why Quattro was named Quattro? My fourth attempt at building a home ser ver product at Microsoft. Best. Team. Ever. Ive had some great managers (and some not so great ones). Chris Phillips the best manager I ever had. I learned everything I know from Chris. To the people that helped build Windows Home Server: Chuck Norris doesnt leave Mi crosoft. Microsoft leaves with Chuck. Yamanote! Istvan, Friedbert, Bob, Drew, Tudor, Kevin, Akhil, Ron, Scott, and a s lew of others: They doubted, but we fraking did it. Together. 27,000 apps and co unting. Someone once gave me the advice The first rule of dependency management i s to not have any dependencies. I call BS on this and we proved that cross-group

collaboration CAN work at Microsoft. The real reason Im leaving Microsoft: At the last partner meeting Dave Alles didnt ask SteveB a question. To the Windows Phone team: I may stop using some Microsoft products now that Im o ut of here. But not Windows Phone. The BEST product Microsoft has ever built. Do not let up! To my wife: Thank you for putting up with Microsoft Time (Honey, Ill be home in an h our. Four hours later). Ive learned everything I know from Julie Kindel. To my kids: No, just because I dont work at Microsoft anymore you many not use Go ogle. Remember, every time you use Google, a puppy dies. Back in 1990 I assumed Id work here for 3 or so years. Im an entrepreneur at heart and every few years Id lift up my head and look around. I never had the need to look outside Microsoft because I kept finding one challenging opportunity after another. 21 years later I have finally decided I need to do something different: Im leavin g to start a new company here in the Seattle area. Im sure youll hear about it. There has been one constant in every job Ive had at Microsoft: People way smarter than me. Microsoft has always enabled me to play up. It has truly been an honor w orking with all of you. Thank you for helping me grow as an engineer, a manager, a businessman, and as a person. Stay in touch and keep changing the world! -cek charlie (at) kindel (dot) com http://ceklog.kindel.com @ckindel on Twitter