Dave Winer talks about how he would like to see companies, like Microsoft, being more “statesman-like”.
Starting many many years ago, I urged Microsoft and other technology companies, to adopt a different poise with respect to the community of developers and users. Microsoft had outgrown its self-image of “scrappy upstart.” In the mid-nineties, Microsoft was anything but that. Some phrases that might have made more sense: Lumbering Giant, Awkward Adolescent. Adjectives: self-absorbed, unfocused, off-topic, dangerous. Dangerous to it itself, and dangerous to everyone else.