My talk at the PowerShell conference makes the point that developers do not care about Admins.
That is why they produce ... things like this.
That is why I designed PowerShell so you can clean up their ... work.
(even though you shouldn't have to).

My talk at the PowerShell conference makes the point that developers do not care about Admins.
That is why they produce ... things like this.
That is why I designed PowerShell so you can clean up their ... work.
(even though you shouldn't have to).

It is metaphysically impossible to build a safe general-purpose chatbot.

Not difficult.

Not expensive.

Impossible.

A system with an infinite goal space cannot be made safe.

That is a structural contradiction.

New post:
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

AI Safety Is a Category Error This week I attended the STAMP Safety Design Workshop at MIT. I went in hoping to get some answers about AI safety. I didn’t get answers. I got better questions. That turns out to be the more…

AI safety is a category error. AI is not a system. AI is a component of a system. Systems can be safe or unsafe. Components cannot.
New post:
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

I saw those errors and thought - use it anyway - it captures the boof-a-rama 🤣

Reminds me about what they say about second marriages - the triumph of Hope over experience. 🤣

I saw that and thought about trying to fix it (though I don't know how) but then decided it fit the gestalt of the message. 🤣🤣

#Microsoft and #Windows hasn't had a coherent GUI strategy since Petzold.

My blog:
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

Decreased benefits and not keeping up with inflation.

They Don’t Need to Fire You In a recent post I mentioned that the deal engineers get is going to get worse over time, and I used my time at DEC as an example. I think it’s worth going deeper on that. What happened at DE…

I spent 8 years at hashtag#DEC watching the deal get worse.

At first I thought it was just the economy. Then I reverse-engineered what was actually happening.

It was a deliberate strategy. And I think you're going to see it again.

New post: www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

The first 1/2 of my career was a deal.
I was a consistent top performer at DEC for 8 years. One bonus: $800.
That's what my dad's entire career looked like too. We've been living in very unusual times.

SAVE EARLY / SAVE OFTEN.

Let's have the hard conversation about Engineering total compensation:

A few years ago, we got an AWESOME deal.
Now we have a GREAT deal.
Soon we'll have a GOOD deal.
Then... we'll have deal.

Fellowship at Harvard Law School I’ve always had a stone in my shoe about being a college dropout.  As such, I never imagined I’d be walking into Harvard Law School as anything other than someone who needed directions t…

I've always had a stone in my shoe about being a college dropout. So naturally, I just became a Fellow at Harvard Law School.
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

In my conversation with Jeffrey Snover on Coffee and Open Source, I asked him "If you were to build an LLM prompt to create PowerShell, what would it be?" The answer will surprise you. Full episode be... TikTok video by Isaac Levin

In my conversation with @jsnover.com on @coffeeandopensource.com, I asked him "If you were to build an LLM prompt to create PowerShell, what would it be?" The answer will surprise you.
#powershell #tech #technology
www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8XAN7ny/

One of the challenges of being a CEO is that it is easy to get hight breathing your own exhaust.

If you are not occasionally overwhelmed by what is going on with AI, you are either:
1) Not paying attention.
2) Not understanding what you are seeing.
3) Made of much sturdier stuff than I.

Another Scary Microsoft Lawyers Incident or Don’t be on the Wrong Side of Antitrust I’ll never forget the day the world stopped. I picked up the phone and heard: “Hello. This is LCA. I’m calling to inform you that you are the subject of a formal investigation into anti-trust viola…

Scary Microsoft Lawyers Incident or Don’t be on the Wrong Side of Antitrust

A major CEO aggressively demanded that Microsoft cancel the PowerShell and use their proprietary language. When I refused, he filed an antitrust complaint.

Enter scary Microsoft Lawyers.

www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03...

"I Was Demoted for Inventing PowerShell" – Jeffrey Snover YouTube video by Hassan Habib

Sat down with @jsnover.com the inventor of PowerShell.

We talked about being demoted for believing in an idea, architecting systems that last, and why AI should empower people and not replace them.

Technology isn’t about tools.
It’s about impact.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzu...

The Physics of Misunderstanding: When “Gaze” Almost Cost Me My Career Technology is easy but people are hard. In particular, communications are hard. They’re the physics of human interaction—the $F=ma$ of how we get things done—and when the forces don’t align, …

That time I thought Perry Clarke was going to fire me....
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

Scary Microsoft Lawyers – Part 1 I had a few encounters with Microsoft lawyers that were, in a word, scary. But in a good way. Every time I worked with them, they were hardcore on following the law, and I greatly appreciated and r…

In the trenches of shipping actual products, clarity is a gift—even when it's delivered as a threat of criminal prosecution.
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

Scary Microsoft Lawyers – Part 1 I had a few encounters with Microsoft lawyers that were, in a word, scary. But in a good way. Every time I worked with them, they were hardcore on following the law, and I greatly appreciated and r…

The celebration lasted exactly sixty seconds.

Then the scary Microsoft lawyer walked in and promised to help the feds prosecute us if we leaked the deal.

That generated clarity.
#Respect
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

What it takes to become a Senior Technical IC
www.jsnover.com/blog/2011/10...

The Time I Asked My Boss: Are You An Idiot? A Microsoft engineer recently told me he used Copilot to script a way out of a laggy system. He was delighted. The story triggered a memory from the early days of PowerShell when my diplomacy was c…

A story from early #PowerShell days when my sense of diplomacy was strictly "pre-operational."

I asked my new boss—a 20-year Windows veteran with a Physics PhD—if he was an idiot because neither of us could debug a thrashing system using GUI tools.
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

Product Market Fit is Math I have a lot of conversations where teams toss around the concept of Product Market Fit (PMF) like it’s a vibe. We all pretend to get the gestalt of it, but usually, we’re just guessing. Here are e…

Success in software isn't just about shipping—it’s about knowing when the market is actually pulling your product. That pull is measurable. A new look at the equations that drive sustainable growth:
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...

Less than 70 days until the #PowerShell Global Summit. Don't put off getting tickets. Then let everyone know you are attending.
www.powershellsummit.org/tickets/

Absolutely.
I'm doing KEYNOTES in Seattle, Paris, an Germany

Welcome to the Room A lesson in leadership by Satya Nadella When I was Promoted to Technical Fellow, I was “invited to the room”, joining Microsoft’s other Senior Executives.  It was really something. Achieving the Se…

"In this room, we deliver success, we don’t whine.​
Look, I’m not confused, I know you walk through fields of shit every day.
Your job is to find the rose petals."
www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02...