It is the 20th anniversary of the ILOVEYOU virus affectionately called “Love Bug.” That was a long time ago, but the lessons learned were timeless—lessons about managing ecosystems and platforms, what’s it like to become an “enterprise company”, and customer trust. 1 of 6 
2/ The story is one of many fascinating stories I was (mostly) lucky enough to experience during my time at Microsoft (‘89-‘12). While I love sharing snippets on twitter and in blogs, (news) I have been working on a book project that brings together these stories in one place.
3/ The title of the draft is “Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution” and tells stories, from my perspective, through lenses of teams, culture, orgs, and products, of what I experienced. The title comes from the 1980s recruiting poster (a BillG classic).
4/ While I await publishing to return to a new normal to resume the project, I thought it would be fun to share an excerpt from the draft on ILOVEYOU and the broad topic of viruses/privacy and how those led to systematic changes in building products—lessons relevant today.
5/ I had a chance to talk to the legendary technology editor @harrymccracken at @FastCompany. Click the link for the excerpt and an interview with Harry. I welcome any thoughts, comments, and otherwise. My inbox is open, as I have always said. 🙏 fastcompany.com/90500378/ilove…
6/ Writing it has been a deeply personal experience. I spent months immersed in products and publications of the era, reliving the ups and downs of making C++, Office, and Windows with rich stories detailing early days of GUI dev to Clippy to Start Screen. fastcompany.com/90500394/steve…
PS/ It is almost crazy to think about, but within a week of the virus the US House of Representatives Science committee held hearings and questioned the antivirus industry and General Accounting Office on how could this happen. c-span.org/video/?157059-…
PPS/ Here’s the rest of the draft.
