It makes sense. I should say I'd estimate 70-90% of the class didn't want to work their own ideas, but would be happy to work at a big company forever, and this was the mindset going into the CS program. A fair number of people within my circle of folks that hung out at the CS lab and lounge and discussed ideas eventually launched successful companies, and I'm probably overindexing on these types with survivorship plus hindsight bias, since they were the most memorable to talk to.
I interned at Microsoft in 2005, and it felt like most people there were just looking for something stable, with a side of Office Space-esque exit thoughts. The culture and scale was different in ways that seem weird to me today - One example is that Bill Gates invited all of the interns to have dinner at his house, which is something that is probably reserved only for startups nowadays, if even.
Re: shareware, I released a crappy checkers twist game for Mac, which was also very educational, and I was proud to have it on the MacAddict Magazine CD.
[1] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/5196-checkerwarz
By contrast, in 2009 the several hundred interns were bussed in a police escorted motorcade along the closed down highway from Redmond to the Pacific Science Center for a special showing of some Harry Potter film and catered dinner, after which complimentary Xbox 360s were distributed. It felt like pretty big business.
Everything has a cost, and if the hiring budget is available, things like bussing several hundred interns around may be cheaper than you'd expect, certainly cheaper (even with free Xboxes) than flying hundreds of candidates out for interviews.
Using "today" prices - something like $25-50 per person for the bus, $20 per for the film, $100 for the dinner, $400 for the Xbox - less than $1k all concerned.
Thanks for putting it like this, the numbers took me by surprise. During my university years (a bit over a decade ago), I actually applied for an internship at Microsoft, and they definitely spent more than $1k flying me from Poland to UK and back for an on-site interview. I wasn't that good, my university isn't that good either, surely they could've used that money to incentivize a few local candidates with free Xboxes and come out ahead. Makes me wonder why they bothered with interns from distant lands in the first place. Tech recruitment never made sense to me (though I enjoyed benefiting from its peculiarities).
I interned at Microsoft in 2005, and it felt like most people there were just looking for something stable, with a side of Office Space-esque exit thoughts. The culture and scale was different in ways that seem weird to me today - One example is that Bill Gates invited all of the interns to have dinner at his house, which is something that is probably reserved only for startups nowadays, if even.
Re: shareware, I released a crappy checkers twist game for Mac, which was also very educational, and I was proud to have it on the MacAddict Magazine CD. [1] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/5196-checkerwarz