So I moved to Bellevue to work more closely with Microsoft, and the first things that we did was setup a meeting with the DirectX team to ask them to add a new DirectDraw feature that allowed configuration of the video port hardware that most graphics vendors now supported. Eric Engstrom confirmed that a bunch of vendors have asked for this support, but as we discussed what it meant, he said that it requires too much domain expertise to design and to support and that they had neither the available man power nor the domain expertise.

My boss then said” “What if Scott comes onsite and does all of the work for you?” and I was shocked when Eric said “That would be great!”  That is how I (without any formal legal agreements in place):

• Got a permanent working space on the Microsoft campus amongst the DirectX developers.
• Got access to all of the DirectX source code.
• Became responsible for designing the new Microsoft DirectDraw APIs and DDIs for this feature, which included:
  • Documentation
  • Communicating plans with the other graphics vendors on the new DDIs.
  • Gather and incorporate feedback from the other IHVs.
  • Provide them with technical support, such as help debugging and troubleshooting.

I think that most people can see that 1) this was a big deal and 2) is a cowboy move that no company in their right mind would ever make. I was responsible for supporting my competitors and to act in their best interest, while at the same time writing code that Microsoft would ship (but was financed entirely by Cirrus Logic), with nothing more than a gentleman’s agreement between two developers – neither of which had the authority to make that agreement. But this is exactly how the DirectX team rolled back in those days – all that really mattered was that Eric and Craig trusted me.

At the time (mid 1996), there were about 15 graphics vendors competing against each other. They were happy that Microsoft was adding this interface and they were happy that somebody was running it that understood the domain, but you can imagine that they were all a little nervous that they now relied on a competitor for support. As Microsoft was the 900lb gorilla, nobody complained too loudly (but they did not exactly trust me).

Within a month, my inbox was full of emails from various IHVs asking questions and asking for help debugging their drivers, and I supported them 100%. It was kind of a wild experience.

The graphics market at the time was going through a transition. In the early days, it was all about being the cheapest (at which Cirrus Logic excelled). We’d add some hardware gates here and there for new features that we saw as cost effective, but everything was about keeping the hardware inexpensive. When 3D came along, everybody realized that creating a full 3D pipeline was expensive and it was unclear if the large motherboard manufacturers would pay for it. Cirrus Logic bet that they would not, so instead they worked on adding some miniscule features that everybody called Free-D.

A competitor named S3 started eating our lunch with the S3 Virge chipset (which was itself a Free-D product, but slightly more featured than what Cirrus Logic offered). Cirrus Logic lost a significant amount of its previous market share, and it wasn’t long before S3 lost out to other vendors who invested more in 3D hardware. The low-end chipmakers missed the important paradigm shift and simply refused to see the importance of 3D. Around this time, I remember receiving an email asking for support from a new startup called Nvidia.

Cirrus Logic was always way too political for its own good, but things got much worse as their business started to dry up, and I decided to start looking for a new job. The next three days were surreal and I could barely control my ego. As graphics vendors lived or died (at least at that time) by how well their products aligned with Microsoft’s plans, I got job offers from about 10 of more prominent graphics vendors – and some of the offers were embarrassingly good.

I was walking down the hall at Microsoft when Craig saw me and pulled me aside. He heard that I was talking to other companies and wanted to know why I hadn’t approached him. I was kind of surprised by this because jobs at Microsoft at the time were insanely hard to get – about one out of 50 interviewees passed their interviews and received a job offer. But I also knew that Microsoft paid a little below the going rate, so I told him that was why I hadn’t approached him yet. I was quickly shuffled into his office, the door was closed, and we started talking. How much did I want? I gave him the largest number that other vendors had offered me, and he agreed that is was beyond company policy to pay that as my starting salary. However, what he could pay me was higher than I expected and he had a lot of discretion regarding a signing bonus. He offered me 5 times the yearly difference between my number and the salary he was offering. He also added a substantial number of stock options. I was very flattered, but I still wasn’t too excited because I felt that the likelihood of me passing the interview process was low. And then he said that the job was mine – I didn’t have to interview, and that a recruiter would follow up with me tomorrow. My jaw was on the floor.

That night I went over the numbers with my wife. I knew that Microsoft (at that time) was a VERY hard place to work. Everybody was really smart, many had huge egos, and confrontation was the norm. But the numbers said that if I lasted two years, we could pay off the house (even if my performance reviews were not very good), so how could I not take the job? Two weeks later I was a Microsoft employee.