The software triangle he taught me — remembering S. Somasegar, 1966–2026

S. Somasegar is no longer with us.

I heard the news of his passing yesterday and have been thinking about him since. My condolences to his wife, children, and family.

Soma, as he was known, spent close to 27 years at Microsoft across several roles — and the last decade as a partner at Madrona Venture Group in Seattle. Beyond his work in technology, he was part of the ownership groups of the cricket teams and contributed to numerous civic efforts in the city.

I first came across his name in 1994, when I read Showstopper: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT by G. Pascal Zachary. Soma’s team featured in that story. In those days, finding an Indian name woven into the making of a landmark American software product was rare enough to stay with you. It stayed with me.

Years later, I had the chance to meet him in person twice during his visits to India. I also caught him speaking during my trips to the US. We exchanged a message or two online, though I would not claim to have known him well.

One exchange from around 2005 has stayed with me ever since. The conversation had turned to Visual Studio — Microsoft’s flagship developer suite — and he spoke about what it actually takes to ship a product of that scale. He put it simply: think of a triangle with three edges — features, quality, and time. You can never have all three. You pick two, and the third has to give way. For him, quality and time were non-negotiable, which meant some features had to wait for the next release.

What struck me was not the idea itself but that he was saying this about Microsoft. The same constraint that a ten-person product team in Chennai wrestles with, the person running one of the world’s most widely used developer tools was wrestling with too. I have recalled that triangle in conversations with founders and product leaders many times over, almost always when someone is stuck on a ship decision they are not ready to make.

And in that same meeting in 2005, when I asked where he drew the line on what he writes (shares) in his blog, he said simply: apply common sense.

I have heard that he played a significant role in bringing Microsoft’s first research centre outside the United States to Hyderabad — a detail that matters more in hindsight than it perhaps did at the time.

May his soul attain moksha. Om Shanti.