Microsoft Exec on Google, Blue Screen of Death
Chris Capossela's career is a throwback, just like Dom's, the Italian restaurant in Boston's North End his parents ran for 45 years. Capossela has been at Microsoft ever since graduating 18 years ago, working his way up from being Bill Gates' speechwriter to head of the Microsoft Project business, to his current role running marketing for some of Microsoft's most lucrative products: Office, SharePoint, Exchange, as well as their new hosted equivalents. He talked to Computerworld about how his family background prepared him for Microsoft, how Microsoft plans to beat Google Apps, and how it is adding Twitter-like features to Office.
Tue, December 15, 2009
Computerworld — Chris Capossela's career is a throwback, just like Dom's, the Italian restaurant in Boston's North End his parents ran for 45 years. Capossela has been at Microsoft ever since graduating 18 years ago, working his way up from being Bill Gates' speechwriter to head of the Microsoft Project business, to his current role running marketing for some of Microsoft's most lucrative products: Office, SharePoint, Exchange, as well as their new hosted equivalents. He talked to Computerworld about how his family background prepared him for Microsoft, how Microsoft plans to beat Google Apps, and how it is adding Twitter-like features to Office.
You've only worked at two places in your life: Microsoft and your dad's restaurant. Tell me about your first job. I grew up in Boston with two older brothers in an apartment over the restaurant my parents opened when they were 22. The apartment was just for sleeping -- everyone was always downstairs. When I was a teen, I worked three to four nights a week during the school year, and six to seven nights a week during the summers.
Drying silverware was my first responsibility. My first dining room job was when I was 4. Believe it or not, it was changing ash trays. Today, it sounds like a horrible misappropriation of power by my parents, but back then it was considered quite fun and cute.
I was supposed to pick up a clean ash tray, put it on top of the dirty one, and then pick both of them up, to keep the ashes from flying up and making a mess. But I would pick up the dirty one, dump it into the clean one, and then give the customer back the dirty one. It always got a good laugh from customers.
How similar was working at a restaurant with working at Microsoft? My dad was very smart about having the boys do all of the jobs in the restaurant: wash dishes, order the food and wine, bus dishes. It was good preparation for Microsoft, where I've had a really different set of jobs, sometimes walking in the first day and literally knowing nobody inside that part of the company.
I worked as chief of staff to the European president for Microsoft for several years. Some people advised me not to take it and stick with what I was doing and work my way up. But because of my family upbringing, I was comfortable with non-traditional lateral moves.
