I was contradicting the clearly false claim made by OP, not trying to give the nuanced portrayal from the article. The thesis of the article I posted is that Microsoft continues to be haunted by the vestiges of Gates' and Balmer's influence. I think your cherry picking of a single quote praising some positives the author provides to balance his polemic is purposefully misleading.
The original argument was: "Microsoft still has the elements of its previous bad behaviour in its DNA." The counter claim was: "No one from Microsoft during that time is still in the company". The article clearly supports the first claim and shows the second claim is at its face false. I encourage everyone to read the article and not to take speculations and misleading quotes as support for false ideas.
Does the fact that some Microsoft employees, even those in positions of influence, remain from that time matter? Does the fact that there are new successful employees, with entirely new ideas about products and management, matter?
The article demonstrates that Microsoft is a complex organization with both good and bad and is changing for the better even if it has a way to go.
Supporting the good and praising Microsoft for what they're doing well is going to make Microsoft better. Crapping on what they're doing well because of actions from 20 years is not rational or helpful.
If you are asking: "Should Microsoft get some credit for the positive things it has done" then the answer is clearly yes. Even during the time periods where Microsoft was universally (and legally) perceived to be engaged in unfair business practices my own feeling is that their overall contribution to IT was a net positive.
That does not change the fact that Microsoft is a risk. Google is a risk since they have a habit of shutting down projects. Oracle is a risk due to their insane licensing and consulting fees. Open Source is a risk since the contributors can just decided to drop support. Everything has elements of risk. I guess I just won't back down from someone claiming there is no risk in Microsoft because all the bad people are gone. That is an absurd claim that also happens to be false.
That's arguing against a straw man. Nobody is claiming all the bad people are gone. But the claim that Microsoft is all bad was the source of this whole thread.
I am not claiming you are making that argument. I'm responding to the original poster, relevant part quoted here: "I think it’s safe to say that anyone working there today has nothing to do with the time periods you’re referencing, so I don’t know why you would consider decades old issues to be relevant today."
As demonstrated, people working during the time periods he referenced are still working for Microsoft, contrary to this claim. This also addresses why someone should consider the risk of "decades old issues" when making decisions today.
The original argument was: "Microsoft still has the elements of its previous bad behaviour in its DNA." The counter claim was: "No one from Microsoft during that time is still in the company". The article clearly supports the first claim and shows the second claim is at its face false. I encourage everyone to read the article and not to take speculations and misleading quotes as support for false ideas.