I’ve gone back to my 30 year class reunion. No I don’t still hold grudges against the people who picked on me as a short (still short) fat (I got better) kid with a computer who couldn’t talk to a girl if his life depended on it (I’m happily married).
I really don’t think about it. We talk. We ask about family, etc
Did Microsoft attend its class reunion? Did it chat with Netscape about raising kids? Was it insufferably condescending while doing it? Did it go golfing with 3dfx? Did it cheat?
That just means it’s even sillier to compare what they did in 2000 to 2023. How many people do you still think work there now as then? Do you think MS is still using the same strategy in 2023 as they did in 2000 even though the landscape has changed?
Any long lived corporation is more like the ship of Theseus. They are the same in name only.
I think culture outlasts people and that they are likely to continue their historical recruiting standards and practices. As I said in another comment, I get older but Microsoft stays the same age. Corporations don’t mature.
I thought about going to my tenth to do something like this, but two things happened. One, the people who organized our first reunion had not matured since high school. They waited until the last moment to invite a lot of people which meant anyone out of town (ie, who “made it”) wouldn’t be able to come. Two, I realized that forty percent of the people I cared about wouldn’t be there, because our social group spanned years. We had seniors when we were juniors, and when I was a senior we had a sophomore, who was the “king” of the group when my brother joined it when he was a sophomore. I wouldn’t get to see any of those people, and that bummed me out.
By the next reunion I realized I didn’t have anything to prove to any of them. I wasn’t interested. And they were still trying to select for locals. See also “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen: people who peaked in high school.
I really don’t think about it. We talk. We ask about family, etc