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Steven Sinofsky

Experienced business and product development leader, investor, advisor, director

United States

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $10,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $250,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $100,000.00

Work Experience

2016

  • Board Member

    2016

    Board member representing Andreessen Horowitz in the firm's investment. http://a16z.com/2016/01/14/everlaw/

2014

  • Advisory Board Member

    2014

    Board member representing Andreessen Horowitz investment in company. http://a16z.com/2014/06/22/tanium-magic/

  • Board Partner

    2013

    Serve on boards for select portfolio companies representing the firm as determined by investing partners. Assist and advise portfolio companies as they scale with management and strategy, mentoring, advising. https://venturebeat.com/2013/08/22/former-windows-guru-steven-sinofsky-joins-andreessen-horowitz-as-board-partner/

2013

  • Advisor

    2013

    http://blog.box.com/2013/08/welcoming-steven-sinofsky-as-a-box-advisor/

  • Author

    2020

    Authored and published "Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution". Through this first-person account of my time at Microsoft, I aim to convey to you an insider’s story of growing influence and corporate obstacles, the evolution of technology that changed the world, and most of all the people that made it happen. Hardcore Software shares the ups and downs of building massive software projects used by billions of people around the world. The scale of the software increases as the narrator and participant grows, starting as an individual contributor on pioneering tools for building Windows applications then rising to leading Microsoft Office and then Microsoft Windows. Sinofsky shares his experiences creating and managing successful software as well as the lessons that come from failure. We learn the inside story of how Microsoft tackled the challenges of the rise of the internet, the creation of Windows 95 and Office 95, and the wildly successful pivot to building enterprise products as Sinofsky works for Chairman/CEO Bill Gates as technical assistant and then as a member and eventual leader of the Office team. Following this is a period of challenging management and morale through the development of Office 2007 and Windows Vista. Sinofsky then moves to managing the Windows team and sees the team through the creation of the successful and stabilizing Windows 7 product followed by the controversial and ultimately unsuccessful product aimed at competing with Apple, Windows 8. Through all of this, candor and insider are the words that best describe the colorful and detailed analysis of what went well and what could have gone better. Released weekly on Substack with hundreds of archive materials, photos, articles, and memos all from my experience at Microsoft 1989-2012. Later compiled and released as an eBook availablea on most major eBook platforms. Audio narration by the author is also available. hardcoresoftware.substack.com

2014 - 2016

  • Board Member

    2014 - 2016

    Board member representing Andreessen Horowitz investment in company. http://a16z.com/2014/10/08/producthunt/. Product Hunt was acquired by AngelList December 2016—https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/angellist-buys-product-hunt-a-marriage-of-two-beloved-silicon-valley-sites.

2013 - 2015

  • Board Member

    2013 - 2015

    Board member representing Andreessen Horowitz investment in company. http://blog.pmarca.com/2013/08/28/bringing-the-shared-economy-to-the-enterprise-2/ Company was acquired by Avis Car Rental. http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/25/zipcar-buys-fleet-management-startup-local-motion/

  • Executive in Residence

    2015 - 2015

    In Fall 1998 helped to teach class full time on campus. In 2015, helped similarly as a Visiting Scholar. In between had many interactions in classrooms and outside with students.

1998 - 2012

  • President, Windows Division

    2006 - 2012

    Windows 8, Surface, Windows Services including Outlook.com, OneDrive, Identity, Photos.

  • Senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live product development

    2006 - 2009

    Windows 7, Windows Live services including Hotmail, Messenger, SkyDrive, Identity, Writer.

  • Senior vice president, Office product development

    2003 - 2006

    Office 2007, SharePoint, Project, Visio, OneNote

  • Senior vice president, Office product development

    2004 - 2005

    In residence in Beijing China with focus on local Microsoft-wide efforts.

  • Vice president, Office product development

    1998 - 2003

    Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, FrontPage, SharePoint, Project, Visio, OneNote.

  • Author

    2009 - 2009

    Learn from the concepts, capabilities, processes, and behaviors that aligned around one strategy with the hard-won, first-person wisdom found in One Strategy. Challenging traditional views of strategy and operational execution, this book-written by Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky with Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti-describes how you can drive innovation by connecting the potential of strategic opportunities to the impact of operational execution. Lessons from the unique combination of real-world experience managing a large scale organization with academic research in strategy and innovation Reveals what it takes to align a complex organization around one strategy, manage its execution, and reach for "strategic integrity" Written by Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky with Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti-a combined forty years of management and research experience A unique perspective on strategy development, alignment, and execution Drawn from Sinofsky's internal Microsoft blog where he communicated some of the management processes the team put to work while developing a 4,000 person, multi-year project-Microsoft Windows 7-One Strategy shares the hard-won insights you can use to successfully make the leap from strategy to execution.