Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft by Michael Drummond

The Beastie Boys did whatever it took to make their revolution happen. . . . St. John's disregard for Microsoft authority figures was equaled only by the game developers' antipathy for the big Redmond company. No one knew how far he might go until his boss put him in charge of a presentation to the trade press. St. John emerged on stage at the Microsoft theater and told the trade-press writers: Yep, I know what you guys think about Windows. He booted up a computer. The blue start-up screen with clouds and Windows 3.1 logo came to life on a large display. A graphic of a shotgun barrel rose from the bottom of the screen. With the audience looking down its sights, the gun blasted five holes in the logo. The press erupted with laughter and approving applause. Microsoft's senior marketing vice president turned crimson and told St. John's boss, Rick Segal, You gotta fire this guy. Segal set the marketing guy straight. I looked him right in the face and, said, 'You don't have a clue. They think you're a slime bag and now they think he's a hero.' Competing in the high-tech computer market is a lot like war--especially if you work at Microsoft. Bill Gates's gladiators--his engineers and evangelists and programmers--were famous for seizing new terrain, converting nonbelievers, and always winning, no matter what the cost. No one took the lessons of the Microsoft way more to heart than Craig Eisler, Eric Engstrom, and Alex St. John, a trio of evangelists and software engineers who, more than anything, wanted to conquer a market on their own. Their first attempt was a top-secret effort to make Windows do what it had never done before: play games. Turning their well-honed combat skills on their own company, the trio--often called the Beastie Boys--rammed DirectX, their game project, through, first without permission, then without regard for political correctness, protocol, or budget restraints. The battle spilled from the halls of Microsoft into the international gaming community, but within months, DirectX was being used in every one of the best-selling games for the PC. The Beastie Boys had won the battle, but they received so few rewards that they felt as if they'd lost the war. So they set their sights on the Internet. Their new project: Chrome, a Web browser that could bring television-quality animated graphics to the Internet. It was every Microsoft marketer's dream, every competitor's nightmare. It should have changed the Internet and the lives of millions, none more than those of the three designers. Michael Drummond gained exclusive access to this trio's story--the tale of a rise, a fall, and, perhaps, a triumph. In telling it, he gives us the most revealing glimpse yet into the world's most successful company. Renegades of the Empire isn't just a story of a nascent technology--it's a primer on how to get rid of your boss, how to bury your expenses on someone else's balance sheet, and when to put on your Viking costume and walk the halls swinging an ax if you want to get things done. It is a story of fascinating science and high-tech boys and their toys, but even more, it is the story of how three engineers turned the might of an empire to their own ends. Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is by no accounts a kind, nurturing type of manager. In conversation, according to Renegades of the Empire, Gates is said to challenge and goad people just to see how robustly they'll defend a position. He may not know whether they're right or wrong, but he likes to see how confident they are. In that environment, the meek don't do particularly well. But the three software warriors portrayed in Renegades of the Empire were over the top, even by Microsoft standards. Alex St. John, Eric Engstrom, and Craig Eisler started at Microsoft as evangelists, the guys who persuade companies to create products to run on Microsoft operating systems. All three, separately and together, would end up giving the company fits with their cockiness and contrarian ways. Eventually, they would team up on a project called Chrome, a revolutionary technology designed to bring three-dimensional graphics to the Web. While these three bigger-than-life characters are vividly portrayed, this is mostly a story about technology: where the ideas come from, how it's developed, how internal company politics affects its development, and how outside companies are courted and cajoled to participate. Drummond, a skillful writer and dogged journalist, thoroughly explains all the technology--but, in the end, the acronyms take over. This makes for a tough read if you're not technologically inclined. Still, anyone with the slightest tech background should enjoy this peek behind Microsoft's silicon curtain. --Lou Schuler From Publishers Weekly This is the story of a failure in the software industry, a Microsoft project that never went into commercial production. The author, a San Diego Union technology and business writer, profiles the oddball team that orchestrated this effort, three characters who stand out even by the unconventional standards of Microsoft programmers (they were known around the company as the Beastie Boys). Their mission was originally to develop programming code that would run computer games from the Windows operating environment, a major step forward for personal computers. Almost as soon as a workable product was created, however, the team switched its sights to the next frontier, the Internet, and attempted to adapt the concept for Web surfers. This effort ultimately failed, due to conflicts in management objectives and bad timing; the programming produced required computing power that, in the mid-1990s was not yet part of the mainstream PC market. The attack dog personalities of the Beastie Boys also played a significant role, too significant for any general lessons to be learned from their failure. Although there is plenty of local colorAinsider descriptions of the Microsoft environment aboundAand programmers and gaming enthusiasts may find this saga entertaining, they are unlikely to gain any useful insights from a story that hinges more on the clash of particular egos than the more general mechanics of a working office culture. Author tour. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly This is the story of a failure in the software industry, a Microsoft project that never went into commercial production. The author, a San Diego Union technology and business writer, profiles the oddball team that orchestrated this effort, three characters who stand out even by the unconventional standards of Microsoft programmers (they were known around the company as the Beastie Boys). Their mission was originally to develop programming code that would run computer games from the Windows operating environment, a major step forward for personal computers. Almost as soon as a workable product was created, however, the team switched its sights to the next frontier, the Internet, and attempted to adapt the concept for Web surfers. This effort ultimately failed, due to conflicts in management objectives and bad timing; the programming produced required computing power that, in the mid-1990s was not yet part of the mainstream PC market. The attack dog personalities of the Beastie Boys also played a significant role, too significant for any general lessons to be learned from their failure. Although there is plenty of local colorAinsider descriptions of the Microsoft environment aboundAand programmers and gaming enthusiasts may find this saga entertaining, they are unlikely to gain any useful insights from a story that hinges more on the clash of particular egos than the more general mechanics of a working office culture. Author tour. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal This book, yet another about Microsoft, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the company and at Project Chrome. Drummond, a technology business writer for the San Diego Union and winner of the Society of Professional Journalists Award, describes the background of the three Renegades, or Beastie Boys, who initiated Chrome and explains how they were recruited by Microsoft. Working together, the three would create technology that made it possible for computer games to run on Windows 95, a seminal technological feat. However, the Renegades built their technology without initial approval from their superiors and rammed it through with ruthless determination and indifference to internal political decorum. They then embarked on Chrome, which combined television and the personal computer and had the potential for changing perception and exploration of the Internet. The rise and ultimate demise of Chrome are vividly explored in this book. The implications of the antitrust case against Microsoft are also examined. A fascinating account of the inner workings of Microsoft, this book is an important addition to the literature on Microsoft and is recommended to public and academic libraries. -Lucy T. Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist The author, a business writer for the San Diego Union, follows the escapades of three men who, as Microsoft employees, secretly created groundbreaking software. Software designers Eric Engstrom, Craig Eisler, and Alex St. John, known locally as the Beastie Boys, put their heads together within the walls of Microsoft and, without permission and supervision, created a software system called DirectX, which allowed Windows to run computer games. They made a fortune for Microsoft, but when the personal rewards within the company were not substantial enough to suit them, they turned their scheming to what Microsoft was now turning its attention to, the Internet. They came up with Chrome, a system that mixed video game capabilities and the computer. The story of Chrome and how it affected both Microsoft and the Beastie Boys is played out against a backdrop of Microsoft's take-no-prisoners corporate attitude and its propensity for internecine battles. A very revealing look inside one corner of the computer industry and the personalities that color it. Brad Hooper From the Inside Flap astie Boys did whatever it took to make their revolution happen. . . . St. John's disregard for Microsoft authority figures was equaled only by the game developers' antipathy for the big Redmond company. No one knew how far he might go until his boss put him in charge of a presentation to the trade press. St. John emerged on stage at the Microsoft theater and told the trade-press writers: Yep, I know what you guys think about Windows. He booted up a computer. The blue start-up screen with clouds and Windows 3.1 logo came to life on a large display. A graphic of a shotgun barrel rose from the bottom of the screen. With the audience looking down its sights, the gun blasted five holes in the logo. The press erupted with laughter and approving applause. Microsoft's senior marketing vice preside About the Author Michael Drummond is a technology business writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune and has won many national and regional journalism awards, including the Investigating Reporters and Editors Award and the Best of the West competition. He lives in San Diego. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From Chapter 1 ALEX IN WONDERLAND His five-year romp through Bill Gates's Camelot was over. Microsoft security would be walking in any moment to clean out his desk and scan his computer's hard drive. No sensitive materials could leave the building. Alex St. John could almost hear the bootsteps. He knew what to do. He grabbed a handful of Hershey's kisses from a friend's office and dumped them on his desk with a note -- Help yourself! St. John, one of Microsoft's fabled evangelists, was fired that day. He and two colleagues had built DirectX, revolutionary computer-game technology that had turned Windows-based PCs into the world's most popular game platform. The three were now building controversial Web technology, a browser on steroids code-named Project Chrome. While he had helped feed hundreds of millions of dollars into Gates's software Empire, the fact remained that St. John was a rogue soldier who didn't understand how to follow orders and had never paid much attention to the chain of command. Management had any number of reasons to terminate him. Once, after Gates had just inked a major deal with three Sega executives, St. John had piled the visitors into his customized, purple Humvee and torn across the company's manicured lawns -- in front of several horrified senior Microsoft officers. Like the man who buys a pit bull for its ferocity only to have the animal attack him later, Microsoft had it coming. Before the Empire called, St. John was happily self-employed as a computer consultant on the other side of the country. Then his name began pinging on the radar screens of Microsoft talent scouts. St. John had cultivated a reputation in the industry as an innovative and charismatic programmer -- an articulate nerd who could charm even better than he could code. True, he had snapped at previous bosses over what he thought were impractical business decisions. But Microsoft wanted an evangelist, a breed that's sometimes hard to handle. The Empire began calling in fall 1992. St. John was working at home when an independent recruiter phoned to ask him, if he could work for any company, which would it be? St. John was reluctant to answer because he wasn't interested in working for a boss again and doubted any company could pay him as much as he was making on his own. The headhunter stroked St. John's voluminous ego, reminding him of his talents and how those talents could pay handsomely. St. John was a Macintosh programmer, impressed with Apple Computer Corp.'s elegant operating system, a system he thought superior to the early Windows kluges Microsoft was pushing at the time. He conceded that he would once have considered working for Apple, but they're dead, he told the recruiter. When pressed, St. John said he might be interested in Adobe Systems Inc. and, maybe, Microsoft Corp. Maybe. After some cajoling, the recruiter set up an interview for St. John with a local Adobe representative. The session went well, and the Adobe rep said he'd refer St. John to the company's California headquarters. But Adobe never called back and St. John didn't make any follow-up inquiries. Just about the time he had put Adobe out of his mind, Microsoft called. St. John says he kept stalling, but Microsoft kept calling and he finally agreed to meet a company rep in Boston. They said they were looking at me for a number of positions, he recalls. This was very surreal. They never explained what it was exactly they wanted me to do. St. John had been a fan of Microsoft since Bill Gates outmaneuvered IBM in the operating-system realm and usurped Big Blue's monopoly. Think of a computer as a sports stadium. The operating system is the playing field or platform on which all the programs run. All computers need an OS or platform to run word processors, spreadsheets, databases, whatever. Without operating systems, computers are empty stadiums without playing fields. IBM had underestimated Gates and allowed him the rights to license DOS, the Disk Operating System that would become a standard on the first generation of personal computers before Windows. St. John grew more nervous the closer he drew to the interview, scheduled to take place at a downtown Boston hotel. I didn't realize what my résumé must have looked like to them. I was very naive, St. John says. I never thought in my wildest dreams I could be working for a company like that. He met with Lee Cole, a Microsoft recruiter. The interview lasted all of ten minutes. Cole didn't seem interested in his work history and was unfazed when he told her he had no formal education. Yet she was aggressive, in-your-face, and wanted to know why St. John wanted to work for Microsoft. I don't want to work for Microsoft, he recalls saying. Then she asked the crucial question: What do you like about Microsoft? Bill kicks ass, St. John said. I like kicking ass. I enjoy the feeling of killing competitors and dominating markets. Good answer. Cole suggested that St. John fly out to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, for a Friday interview and a weekend stay, all expenses paid. Just a visit, really. No pressure. He walked out of the interview more curious than ever. After discussing it with his wife, Kelley, St. John flew to the Northwest in mid-December 1992 to see what the storied campus was all about. By the early nineties, Gates was already legendary. He was the visionary Harvard dropout who had spawned the personal computer revolution and whose company was destined to become one of the most revered and feared in history. The morning after St. John arrived, a grueling, eleven-hour round of interviews began. This was not the no pressure weekend stay he had been promised. Interviewer after interviewer grilled him -- one even leveled questions while cleaning his fingernails with a menacing bowie knife. An interviewer wondered how St. John would design a better remote control. Another asked, if St. John had ten red balls and ten white balls, how would he distribute them between two boxes, so that a blind man reaching into one of the boxes had the best chance of grabbing a red ball? And, yes, one even wanted to know why manhole covers are round, a question that has become part of the Microsoft cliché. Manhole covers are round so they won't fall through. The question is designed to test for thought process, not necessarily for a correct answer -- although in this instance, a correct answer is almost a must. Microsoft is also big on asking applicants how they would improve the design of gadgets be they bicycles or remote controls. Microsoft wants applicants to demonstrate their problem-solving skills on the fly, not how well they have memorized pat answers. In that same vein, the company also scours résumés for any hint of padding.