So, I was in KUOW's studios this morning to record a bit for the BBC (it'll air next week sometime, I'll let you know when that'll be on). The producer on the BBC told me that they have something like 160 million listeners around the world. Whew.

Anyway, over in KUOW my producer was Douglas Paterson (although I didn't know that until after the conversation below happened). After the session we started talking about things and he mentioned "my brother worked at Microsoft for 15 years."

"Oh, and what did he do?"

"He worked on the Visual Basic team before retiring."

That caught my ear cause I got my start working for BasicPro magazine that later turned into Visual Basic Programmer's Journal which later turned into Visual Studio Magazine.

But then he said:

"Oh, and my brother wrote MS-DOS."

"Your brother is Tim?" I asked. (I knew Tim Paterson worked for the VB team).

"Yeah."

What a trip.

Don't understand the significance yet?

Well, remember how Bill Gates got started in the operating system business? He bought DOS from Seattle Computer Works for about $65,000 and the rest is history. Tim has a bunch of links to history about MS-DOS, if you wanna know.

Oh, and Doug is interesting too. He got a PHd in anthropology, traveled the world, taught in various colleges before getting his job at NPR, which he says he absolutely loves cause he gets to meet interesting people every day.

You never know when you're gonna meet someone interesting, that's for sure, and just shows why you should stop and take time to get to know the people who don't seem to be all that interesting at first glance.

One thing I've learned is that the most interesting stuff (and the most interesting stories) are being done by people you don't know, or who you think are unimportant.

It's why when someone from India that I didn't know called me up and asked to have me on his podcast I said "sure."

Why? Cause I know I'll learn something. That guy is Kiruba Shankar and I'll be on his podcast this afternoon.

I liked this picture of me.

I've gotten so much email that I'm just struggling mentally. It's all catching up now. I stayed at work until 4:30 a.m. (hey, no senioritis here!) and was back here at 9:30 a.m. for an interview with our new Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Alex Gounares (he just came off of a two-year-stint as Bill Gates technical assistant).

If you had any doubts whether the company was going to press on with blogging and customer conversations, have no doubt. Alex says the company is going to accelerate its usage of blogging. He says that they are seeing so many good things come out of the blogging movement inside the company that they'd be stupid to try to slow it down.

He also showed me the new ThinkWeek site. Now, for the first time, every employee can visit the site and vote for their favorite ThinkWeek papers. Oh, and they can see what Bill and other people thought about the papers.

I just realized I'm having the most weird experiences ever since I told everyone I quit. Not only did he give me one of the best interviews I've ever gotten but after the camera is off he gave me some personal business advice about things to look for in the video space.

Would you let an employee who announced to the world that he was leaving walk around your executive offices with a camcorder? I'm not sure many companies in the world would.

Oh, and he invited me back to work at Microsoft just in case my new gig didn't work out, but added "next time, though, we're gonna ask you some coding questions in your interview."

I joked back "they should have done that when they hired me the first time."

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Well, while I'm in blog lock, I'm still digging out and still giving interviews. Tomorrow morning I'll be on BBC Radio.

Today Mary Jo Foley gave me my first "exit interview." Hers was easy. Charles Torre is planning to do one and he asks really tough questions, not looking forward to that!

Ed Brill, of IBM, notes that corporate blogs are often best used to talk to internal audiences. I totally agree. There's something about putting an idea in public that gets it considered a lot more strongly than just writing an email to a contained group of people. Anyway, Ed is taking stock of how many IBM employees read his blog.

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Lots of media on my leaving.

Blogging Times has a podcast.

Beet.TV was the one who broke my news (that'll teach me not to tell a few bloggers about what I was doing. Heheh.) and they have a bunch of video from VLoggercon, and some news from Google's video team as well.

I'm on Geek Entertainment TV.

Scott Beale has great photos, as usual, of VLoggerCon.

PodTech interviewed me.

Xolo.TV has a video interview with me.

I'm on BeachWalks with Rox (she does a show every day from a beach in Hawaii — sadly I wasn't in Hawaii for this one).

Leo Laporte, on This Week in Tech, says he has the last podcast I've done before I quit my job. 

Any other video interviews? Leave a link in the comments here.

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Inside Microsoft asks if I'll still be at a bunch of conferences. Yes, definitely. One of my first plans is to travel the world with John Furrier and get out of the echo chamber of Silicon Valley.

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Vik tells how I snatched him from Google.

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I love Thomas Hawk. His photos are inspiring.
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Rick Schaut gave me some advice that led, in part, to my decision.

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But, I do have my detractors. Among them is Shmula and some of his commenters who think I'm possibly not sincere. Bill Trippe thinks I'm not terribly interesting (he's right) and that my value just declined a whole lot (hope not, but he's probably right there too).

James Fee says "I'm unsubscribing."

Update: I totally forgot about Rocketboom. My son and I are on Rocketboom with Amanda. Now you know why I really quit Microsoft — I wanted to see Amanda again!

One of the little secrets I've learned is that PR people play a much bigger role in life than geeks often give them credit for. They are major influencers who help shape what story gets written about you. If you write them off or treat them badly, they'll get negative stories written about you. Same as underground influencers, who are really unpaid PR people anyway. Christopher Coulter, for instance, is one of the best networkers the world has ever not known. He has gotten me and Microsoft in more stories than any other single human being that I know about. How did he do that? Emailed his list of hundreds of journalists and gave them both snarky stuff and real news to write about. I keep wishing he'd do a blog, but he likes to play the underground string puller a lot more than being out front about what he's up to. Yeah, me and him have had our fights, but he keeps sending me stuff even though I've been fighting with him in public. I always appreciated that.

Another guy who has done me numerous favors is Frank Shaw, vice president at Waggener Edstrom, one of the PR firms Microsoft uses. He wrote about his relationship with me on his blog.
While those on the outside might think he's just a typical flack I've gotten to know Frank over the years and he's the first guy I'll call if there's a story breaking about Microsoft. Why? Cause he knows everyone. Seriously. And when I say everyone, I mean he could get you onto Bill Gates lunch schedule if he wanted to.

There isn't anyone else like him that I've met. Buzz Bruggeman comes pretty close in terms of networking skills, but I think Frank has even Buzz beat.

He's been internally blogging for a long time and I hear it's pretty good. It'll be interesting to watch his new blog and see how it evolves. I bet that Frank blogs some big stories from Microsoft within the next year. His blog will be the first place I'll look for the inside scoop on what's really going on at Microsoft.

OK, Frank, that IS a challenge to let a little dirty laundry hang out in the public square for us all to gawk at.

It's interesting. Om Malik was the first one to call me up when the news started breaking. I never returned the call and I owe him one on that score. Om, though, is a great journalist. He called.

So did AP, Reuters, (Eric did one of the best news stories) and many other news organizations.

Dan Farber from CNET did more than call. He came to VLoggerCon and talked with me and John before writing his story.

Bloggers rarely call before writing. It's something I hope we can change. Call before running the story. It's what great journalists do.

Oh, and there's a rumor going around about Om. I haven't talked with him yet about that rumor so I'm not going to repeat that story until I see him post a confirmation.

Update: Kevin Murphy wonders if that'll do more harm than good. He has visions of having hundreds, or thousands of bloggers calling. Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying. Only people who are breaking stories need to call. In my case that would have been only a handful of people. 

One of the things I love about Microsoft's employees is their sense of humor. Unfortunately this very rarely comes out in public.

Anyway, Dean Hachamovitch (the guy who runs the IE 7 team) and I had a meeting set for this morning and when I got there he threw a chair in my honor. Of course we were laughing about that. He's a great guy and someone I'm glad to have gotten to know over my journey the past few years.

While walking to his office (it's in building two, which is one of Microsoft's first buildings) I drew misty eyed. I realized I've been given a gift very few human beings have ever had the opportunity to have: to walk the halls of Microsoft where history has been made.

While walking by office after office I realized something. Each office had a name on it. The Microsoft empire has more than 60,000 people working for it. Not just one.

What has changed in the past few years? Easy: search engines have made it much more likely to get to know each person inside a company. Even a big one like Microsoft.

If there's one thing I'm happiest with is that Bill Gates decided early on not to blog. He wanted you to get to know the employees who build the products and work the halls of Microsoft. I far prefer that approach. Why? Because he knew it would lead to better conversations with customers. That, in turn, would lead to better products.

Don't understand how this works? Read this blog. It shows how a guy you didn't know, fixed a bug you didn't know about, reported by a customer you didn't know.

Microsoft no longer has one Scoble, but it has one David Powell. And 60,000 others like him.

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I'm getting a few notes this morning about "I was thinking of joining Microsoft and now I'm wondering."

That bums me out. Why? Because you're placing your hopes and dreams on someone else. Don't.

Take a job because you could use that job to do something good for the world. Why would I consider working at Microsoft? Because the things you'd build here MATTER.

I was sitting in the studio listening to Robert Fripp a few weeks back play for hours. Why? To find one 2.5-second clip of sounds.

Why take that effort? Cause that sound will play trillions of times over the next decade.

Trillions.

And I'm not overestimating that, either. That'll happen if Microsoft's Windows Vista turns out to be a huge sales flop. If it's successful (and I believe it will be — I'll be running it on my computers at PodTech after I leave) it'll be a factor of ten higher than that.

As to working for Jeff Sandquist. He's the best boss I've ever had. And I've had some damn good bosses (if you have a good boss, knock on wood, there are very few out there). Jeff and his family are personal friends and are welcome in our home anytime.

The usual belief is people leave bosses, not companies. That is NOT true in my case. I just had a spectacular offer thrown at me that, at the end of the day, excited me and Maryam.

Out of all the people at Microsoft that I've met he's one of the top 10 in terms of being able to motivate people to give their top performances. He has, over and over and over demonstrated to me his ability to bulldoze through red tape and get shit done.

I am quite confident that he'll soon be a major corporate leader, although he's too humble to ever say that himself.

Anyway, I'll miss working with him. He always hated being called "Scoble's boss" by the way. I used to bug him with that by always introducing him that way. But, really, he was a far better person than that. He covered my back and made it a joy to come into work every day.

Not only that, but he hired the best people in the industry.

The first on that list is Charles Torre.

One thing I feel bad about is that Charles often didn't get the credit he deserved. Why? Cause he isn't the kind of social butterfly that I am. He's more a typical developer who just likes building stuff. That's why I love him.

He built Channel 9, along with a couple of other developers over the years. Bryn Waibel. Adam Kinney.

It's unfortunate that in the world some people get credit for other people's work. That happened in the media storm this weekend.

When I'm gone and you see that Channel 9 is still rocking and rolling you'll see that Channel 9 was a lot more than just me.

I think Michael Gartenberg said it best: the cemetaries are full of people who couldn't be replaced.

Maryam, this afternoon, will announce the other news we've been holding back on: she's joining PodTech too.

I told you she was a good negotiator!

But, seriously, she's built up a large audience of her own on her blog and her interests are far different than mine are. (She has a popular book and movie clubs).

That might give you a hit about what else attracted me about PodTech.net: it isn't going to be only about tech. 

She also is a better writer than I am and, even, more human. Truth be told she's the main reason I've been successful at Microsoft. First, she backed me up everytime. Second, she gave me the time and the space I needed to blog and read all the feeds I do. Third, she keeps our family running like a well-tuned watch. Fourth, she gives the best back rubs. Oh, TMI (too much information). Heheh.

Oh, and Dave Burke, I totally agree with you about PodTech that its content is too commercial and not interesting enough. I wouldn't subscribe to it, if I weren't joining the company. In fact, last week before I had made my decision John Furrier asked a mailing list I'm on for advice about the new redesign they turned on last week. I gave the company 21 ideas to improve.

I've done this before. Remember how I got to Microsoft? I stood up at an MVP Summit and told Ballmer how to improve Microsoft (I told him to get Microsoft a more human face). He signed a dollar bill for me for that idea. A few months later I got hired to help the company get a more human face.

See, I don't want to join companies where everything is going well. Why? Cause there's no opportunities there! 

So, don't subscribe to PodTech.net just cause I'm going. Make us earn your subscription! 

Tris Hussey, in the comments on Toby Bloomberg's blog, asks "what the heck where all these bloggers doing up at 11 p.m. on a Saturday?"

Tell me about it! I was out to dinner with a bunch of video bloggers. It was interesting to watch how the news started spreading. I looked at my cell phone and I think there was a call from Om Malik that I ignored (sorry, Om, I didn't know you were calling about THAT). Then the email started coming in. Oh, crud. It was out.

The entire table pulled out geek gadgets. Treos. SmartPhones. Blackberries.

Tara Hunt was the first one to find the first story and read it to us.

I told Marc Canter, "sorry, gotta go" and paid for my dinner and called John Furrier and headed to his house to write a press release.

Don Dodge adds onto the hype, but he nailed a lot of why I'm joining a startup.

Oh, and folks over on Channel 9 are saying "it's dead." Not so, not so.

I wouldn't have left if I didn't think Channel 9 and Microsoft weren't in awesome hands.

Bill Gates, at his CEO summit a few weeks ago, bragged about Channel 9 and told the CEOs something like "if there's one thing you should do, it should be to build your own Channel 9."

Hey, I know a small startup in Silicon Valley that can help with that!

I met Cali Lewis yesterday. Don't know her? I didn't either, but her story tells you a lot about why I am jumping into Podcasting and Videoblogging and Second Life with both feet.

She started her videoblog in December (she does the Geekbrief videoblog). A mere six months ago. Today she is getting millions of downloads a month. Yesterday she and her husband and partner told me:

"We just quit our day jobs to do this full time."

Now what I really noticed was the joy on her face.

Oh, by the way, I'm talking about competitors again. She's working for Adam Curry, who runs the Podshow network. They already are doing some of the most interesting stuff right now and, if Cali's story is typical, are seeing rapid growth.

I forget who said it, but I learned long ago that an industry will only be strong if it has great competitors in it. Imagine a mall that only had one shoe store. How boring. The most vibrant mall has dozens of shoe stores. How can they all survive? Easy, their competition draws more people into the mall.

But what Cali is showing us all is that you can get a low-cost video camera, make an interesting show in your nights and weekends, and within six months get such a large audience that you are quitting your day job.

Yesterday I was talking with Amanda Congdon, one of the co-founders of Rocketboom. Her videoblog is now seeing about 300,000 viewers a day. That's, what, a year or so old? Did you know that advertisers are now paying her $85,000 per week? That's almost as much money as I made in an entire year of working at Microsoft.

Now, I have no delusions that I'm either Amanda or Cali. I'm not half as cute as either of them, for one. Nor am I as smart. Or as visionary. I'll just have to work harder (which is going to be very tough, since Amanda tells me she and her team are working nearly around the clock right now to put together their three-minute videoblog).

But I had the same smile on my face when I told Cali I just quit my day job too to work in this new media industry.

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On Thursday I was sitting on the lawn in the front row at my son's graduation from Elementary School. One part of the graduation that effected my decision was when the teachers read off what each kid would like to do when they "grow up." I loved some of their ideas. Veterinarian. Policeman. Actress. Videogame designer (whoa, Bill, hire them now!)

Anyway, my son was so cute. He said he wanted to be a famous blogger like me and work at a big company like Apple or Microsoft. That made my heart warm.

But it also made this decision clearer. I only have a couple more years left before Patrick wants nothing to do with me (that's how almost every teenager behaves, it's just natural). Maryam and I were definitely tired of the every-other-week flights and drives to see Patrick. Being closer to him just was a major part of this decision. Microsoft, by the way, offered to move us down to Silicon Valley, which was very flattering (thanks Jeff and Vic) but I just knew that if I stayed at Microsoft all the action would be up in Redmond and that would be tough to manage.

This morning I saw Vinnie Mirchandani's post about his hanging out with his 12-year-old son and it reminded me of Friday's lunch with Jonathan Schwartz where we talked at length about our kids and the kind of world we were leaving behind for them.

One of the strongest arguments that Sanjay, Vic, and Jeff gave me for staying at Microsoft was the family that had built around me. All of us have kids and we had lots of great discussions about what's important in life. In a few minutes I'll be leaving to go pick up Patrick, who is staying with us for the summer. I can't wait to see him and that certainly played a huge part in this.

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The BMW. One thing about the BMW. It has a jack to plug in a cell phone or an iPod. Now, it's a rich-man's toy, right? But what that tells me is that there's a huge growth in the distribution channel for podcasts coming. Why? Cause what the rich man can buy today you'll be able to buy tomorrow.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, taught me that. I remember in 1990 when he had bought one of the valley's first dye-sublimation printers. It was a color printer that cost $40,000. I thought to myself then "I really want one of those." Today, about 16 years later, a $70 printer does a better job than his did. So, if you're not rich and you want something that a rich guy has, just stick around!

But, back to the car. It made me realize that there's a new media-distribution network being built. We're still in the very early days of that. I feel like we have lived through the first few years of Television. Or radio. And I can see nothing but incredible growth ahead.

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This morning on some of the blogs I see people saying that Microsoft is clueless for letting me go and that they don't care about this new stuff (or that they won't "get it").

I have a totally different viewpoint. Did you not see on Engadget that Microsoft is working on a portable media player? I can't break wind about it, but when Microsoft comes into that market it'll create new opportunities. New media distribution channels. Translation, that product will create new "Amanda's" and new "Cali's." And it's not the only one coming. I've seen and heard about some really awesome stuff coming soon from other companies as well. That all spells OPPORTUNITY for all of us.

Oh, and then there's the little thing about Google vs. Microsoft. When two big companies are struggling to build audiences to stick advertising next to it creates new opportunities. Startups can zig and zag where big companies just can't take advantage of new opportunities the way someone like Cali can. Remember, she didn't exist six months ago. SIX MONTHS AGO!!! And who the hell is Amanda? She didn't exist 1.5 years ago. Now she's been on CSI and big huge media companies are vying to get near her brand. What a world!

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Will I lose my audience? That's a question I've seen on the blogs.

Yes.

Huh? You will unsubscribe if I don't give you a payoff. For many of you Microsoft was that payoff. Yes, Microsoft is still an interesting company for many many people in the world. When I was at my mom's funeral, what did we end up talking about at lunch afterward? Microsoft. Everyone had an opinion about Microsoft. Everyone knew who it was. What it did.

PodTech.net? Huh? Who are they? What are they? Why do I care?

Over the next few months if I don't give you a payoff you'll leave. That'd be OK with me, I didn't do this for the audience. When I started blogging there were only a few hundred blogs that I could find. I never thought it'd get to the point where I'd help build a media property that had 3.5-million unique visitors last month (http://channel9.msdn.com).

But, when life hands you a metaphorical equivilent of a gold coin you better do something with it. Invest it in something else. If you don't I believe that's unethical. My ethical system says that you should reinvest your talents and your luck to make the world a better place.

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The team. One of my interviews was with Karen Edwards, who is on the management team at PodTech.net. She was, if I remember right, the 17th employee at Yahoo. She got her job by writing to the kids who started Yahoo and saying something like "you need me to build you a global brand." They took a chance on her and she did just that.

She isn't the only superstar at PodTech. You'll hear about others after I get there (I start July 5th).

Just about a year ago John Furrier interviewed me at the Supernova conference. I thought he was the nicest guy who I had ever met. That was important to me. Why? Cause nice guys attract great teams. I've seen that with Sanjay, Vic, and Jeff and many other experiences in my life. It was very important to me that I join someone who was nice.

Speaking of which, I've gotten to know John's family. I thought John was nice, but his kids and his wife are even nicer. And they play an important role in the company too. You'll hear more about that next month too.

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Silicon Valley.

On Friday I started up my videocamera and filmed as I went into one of my last conversations with John and his team before making my decision. I passed under the sign that said "Sand Hill Road."

It is the dream of many entrepreneurs around the world to come to Sand Hill Road and talk a venture capitalist out of a few million dollars to start a company.

I've never worked for a venture capitalist before. When I mentioned the companies that were backing John Furrier to my friend Buzz Bruggeman, his voice dropped and he said "wow." (They were USVP and VenRock). Now, if you know Buzz, you know he knows everyone in the tech industry. So, I knew then that John had gotten the best.

John later told me how he did it: he interviewed a bunch of venture capitalists. He said that process taught him a lot about how clued in each firm was, and how much they'd help PodTech along after the money came.

I'm sure we'll talk a lot more about what it's like working for a venture-backed firm.

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My wife. Maryam. She was involved in the discussions too. And, even, was my negotiator. She told me during one of the negotiations "shut up, will you?" Heheh. It's always good to have someone on your side. John said at one point during the negotiations "you're a shark." She answered back "I'm a guppy."

I love my guppy. Maryam and I are a team. More on that team later in the week.

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Christopher Coulter. Oh, Christopher, my arch-nemisis. Last week he wrote a rant about the podcasting and videoblogging industry and how lame it was. He had no idea I was considering taking a job in that industry.

I thought to myself "oh, it'll make him mad? Even better!"

So, blame this all on Christopher. Heheh.

More later, journalists are calling left and right. Thanks so much for everyone's support!

I'm seeing some things on the blogs that just chap my hide.

First, I love Microsoft and Microsoft did not lose me — at least as a supporter and friend. I am not throwing away my Tablet PC or my Xbox or my other Microsoft stuff. :-)

Second, my management team is awesome and I don't have a beef with them at all. They have ALWAYS supported me. I have, in my pocket, a corporate American Express card and they never have questioned any of my expenses. The reason I shared rooms with other bloggers is because I always treated Microsoft as a startup. I don't believe it's proper to waste shareholder resources if you don't need to.

Third, I wasn't, and am not, frustrated at Microsoft. I've never had more opportunities available to me. In fact, I am due to spend a day with ImagineCup contestants and Bill Gates later this month.

Fourth, believe it or not, but no one at Microsoft has complained to me about my views for a very long time. In fact, the harsher I got the more support I got. Friday I visited with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. Management at Microsoft didn't say a thing about that. Imagine if your employees went to your fiercest competitor and had a very public lunch, wouldn't you be up in arms? Not at Microsoft. At Microsoft I am encouraged to change the world and make things better for our customers.

Fifth, I've never been told not to travel to any conference by anyone at Microsoft and my travel expenses were always approved. I was encouraged to meet with developers wherever they lived. And, it is my job to go around to Microsoft offices worldwide and interview employees about the technologies they are building. At many conferences, where I was speaking about non-Microsoft stuff, I didn't feel it was appropriate to charge our shareholders for those expenses. That was my decision, not my boss's.

Sixth, how do you know that the company didn't move heaven and hell to keep me happy? They did. I have the best job in the tech world. Bar none. I got to meet and interview and influence the best people in the world. Career decisions are personal and opportunity and growth require thinking about a lot of different things, not just one or two. I've turned down quite a few offers for more money than I'm now making.

Seventh, there is a lot more positive PR to come out of my mouth about Microsoft. It is the best big company in the world (and I've been lucky to meet and study quite a few of the world's best companies lately).

Eighth, I'm not the only blogger at Microsoft. There are about 3,000 of them here. They are not having the plug pulled on them. They changed the world. I just was the cheerleader.

So, what about the other news? This is a rapidly-evolving part of my life. I just made this decision and it got out before I was completely ready to talk about it. I invite you to meet with me at the VLoggerCon tomorrow evening at 3 to 6 p.m. in San Francisco where we'll talk about it further (and I'll post again tomorrow about what's going on in my life and why I made this decision).

Oh, and thanks Niall Kennedy for your post. I really appreciate your friendship and am so glad you're at Microsoft.

Chris Pirillo doesn't get Second Life. That's OK, he doesn't get baseball either. I thought Chris' avatar with a bottle sticking out of his head was pretty funny, though. Maybe Chris, all you need to do is hold Eric Rice's hand. Heck, it worked for me. Heheh.

Here's a little secret Chris: Second Life IS lame. Why? Cause the people in Second Life are the ones who built it. Think about that one for a while. Maybe if it's lame you just haven't built something not lame yet.

Actually, we should all just blame this guy, he's a developer at Linden Labs. I forget his name and his card is back at work. I think he's the guy responsible for what my son told me on Thursday "hey, Dad, I got you some waving PRIMs." You know you're getting old when you have to ask your kid "what the heck did you just say?"

But, on the other hand, Chris did do some real reporting (imagine a blogger doing THAT!) and found out that our download servers and Internet links are overloaded thanks to Windows Vista. The Windows Vista team blog has more on that. Oh, that's right, no one cares about good old Microsoft anymore or its lame OS. Heheh.

In other Microsoft news we renamed WinFX to .NET 3.0. 3.0 is always the one that rocks, isn't it?

Oh, and our identity guru, Kim Cameron says he likes the new Cardspace name too, for what used to be called InfoCards. Anyway, now I'm really leaving to go to VLoggerCon. More from the road.