How a Microsoft exec managed to pitch Microsoft Word through the genius tactic of being able to actually use it in a 'type-off' demanded by clients: 'I was the only one who'd actually been a secretary'

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The GDC 2025 highlight for me was a talk by Monica Harrington, Valve co-founder and the company's first chief marketing officer, about her long and storied career in tech. And like many of Valve's earliest employees, Harrington came there from Microsoft, where one of her major responsibilities was marketing Microsoft Word and later the Office suite.

"It's the mid-90s, and I'm in a new job at Microsoft overseeing PR for Microsoft's newish Consumer Division," says Harrington in her talk. "I'd previously worked as a product manager on Microsoft Word and later took on a new role overseeing all of the applications and developer tools PR for the company. We'd recently launched the version of Microsoft Office that would result—sorry to Microsoft's antitrust lawyers—in total domination over our old rivals WordPerfect and Lotus."