Looking back at some of my earliest posts, I wondered about the professional fate of Martin Taylor, former corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN at Microsoft.
A protege of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Taylor left he company under mysterious circumstances that were never explained, at least publicly. One day he was there, seemingly entrenched and scheduled to make speeches on the company’s behalf, then suddenly he wasn’t. It was a situation that begged for clarification, but nobody who knew what happened was willing to provide enlightenment.
Anyway, I did a bit of digging and discovered Taylor’s current whereabouts.
For the last few years, starting about six months after he left Microsoft, Taylor has been with Vista Equity Partners, a San Francisco-based private-equity firm with more than $2 billion in committed capital. Taylor’s title at Vista is operating principal. I can’t resist mentioning — though perhaps I should — the irony implicit in an erstwhile Microsoft executive, who left Redmond under a cloud, now working for a company named Vista.
Reality writes a good script.
Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds 