If an idea bears no apparent complementarity to Windows or Office but is too good to pass up (say, a new virtual reality headset or a next-generation social network), senior Windows or Office bosses usurp the idea from lower-level or less powerful managers. Although they might intend to develop and market the idea, they often wind up sitting on the innovation and, in the process, precluding others from working on it. This tendency was so pervasive that employees outside the Windows and Office twin towers have a name for it: “licking the cookie.” Think back to grade school, when you ate meals
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