Microsoft in the Mirror: Nineteen Insiders Reflect on the Experience

In this new book, an untold story emerges as Microsoft insiders talk: for the first time, insiders tell their stories in their own words. Karin Carter, 14-year veteran of the company, shares her view of life at Microsoft along with first-person stories from 18 co-workers. Meet the real people behind the hype through their thoughtful essays, funny stories, and surprising anecdotes. Current and former employees from the trenches, not the executive suites, give their perspectives on their own experiences, the industry, competitors, and the Department of Justice pursuit of Microsoft.Detail by detail, they paint a picture of their slice of Microsoft. Their stories range from serious to surprising. Read about the programmer who married a woman he met in a bar and eleven months later was cleaned out, the woman who walked away from a fortune, the secretary who worked her way into management and retired at 34, and tales from the card counting team that played blackjack in Las Vegas. Carter says, "Microsoft was my head-spinning world for fourteen years. I landed there by chance and I stayed there because it was an adventure - incredible and hard and frustrating and exciting. I moved to Seattle with very little: my clothes and a tiny old blue car with one orange door. I had to puff up my resume with every extra skill I could think of. I had one friend in Seattle. Now, when I look in the mirror, I see a person shaped by Microsoft. And Microsoft was shaped by us".

About the Author :
Karin Carter's interest in combining language and business led her far away from her California roots, first to a summer job in French-speaking Tunisia, then to a job in France, and finally to Seattle. A move to the east side of Lake Washington led to her dropping her resume at tiny Microsoft. Hired as a trilingual administrative assistant in the International group, she moved to a role where she helped produce user documentation for foreign-language manuals. After spending eight years in the International group doing book production, quality assurance, training, and management, she moved to the English-speaking side of the company. Her roles there included editing and management. She has an entrepreneurial streak: while working at Microsoft she created side businesses for desktop publishing, freelance editing, contemporary quilt making, and creating and selling greeting cards. She joined a blackjack team made up of Microsoft programmers and learned to count cards. She taught herself to trade options (puts and calls) and has played the stock market profitably since 1995. These days she might be found quilting, nailing fabric to a piece of found wood, sewing on paper bags, learning to draw and paint, or continuing with other entrepreneurial adventures.