I only started referring to MS as M$ after I had been working there for a year. I joined them with cautious optimism, because the new CEO had finally gotten rid of that atrocious stack ranking system.

That optimism did not last long. I only stayed there as long as I did because of how much they were paying me. Referring to them as "M$" is disturbingly appropriate given that all they do is to throw huge amounts of money at problems until they go away.

After seeing what goes on inside that company, I immediately tried to move to Linux, but it just isn't practical (http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.th...). At the very least, I won't be upgrading to Windows 10 until 2020.

Have you ever seen how much Microsoft will pay you? Those sort of people often end up as very good programmers. Not that surprised that people in this camp end up working at Microsoft and then quit because they don't like working there.