I worked ten years at Microsoft, six gigs between 1989 and 2009. It would be hard to describe how full of themselves they actually are and be believed.

One person I knew had been extended an offer but had found another place to work (oh, those glorious days of choosing between four offers!) and didn't like the guy who was going to be his manager at all (I had numerous managers lie to me in interviews). When he told the HR droid he was turning down the offer, she sputtered, "but ... but it's *Microsoft*!!" She acted like it was choosing hell over heaven.

I was always hearing jokes in meetings about how "customers are our beta testers huh huh huh."

And one in a division meeting, about 800 people, I interrupted the speaker, a David Stockman clone, who had just told us that memory leaks were just a fact of life. I faced him down and said they were inexcusable sloppiness. Managers looked daggers at me, trying to decide if I was being impudent or promoting excellence. Then they talked to my manager and learned that I actually did produce leak-free code. Time after time.