It struck me this morning how Steve Ballmer has the incredible skill of looking almost infinitely stupid regardless of the situation you put him in. Would you trust the guy to run your company? Would you want him to be your poster-boy?
I’m wondering which comic book character he reminds me of - I think it’s the one that used to be made out of stone in the Marvel comics when I was a kid. Or is it a Sesame Street character? Would it be Bert or Ernie?
I guess the jury is already out on the guy following his monkey boy movie (if you haven’t seen it, there is a very entertaining movie of Mr Ballmer addressing a hall of Microsoft developers, and, well, you just have to see it to believe it - it’s even better than the “badday” movie). I guess the monkey boy episode is what happens if you blow enough sunshine at somebody who then thinks they are the most cool/powerful/influential guy in the room. I guess the movie is also a warning to the world about the effects of celebrity; even among a small group of people.
Anyway - getting back to my point, if you were in Bill Gates position, would you want this neanderthal thug on the front of magazines, appearing as the corporate face of Microsoft? Perhaps it’s the image they want to extend - “if we get into a fight with our competitors, hey, look, our CEO is a rugby prop forward”… except of course Microsoft never play by the rules; they prefer to invent their own. Comes of having Montgomery Burns (read:Gates) the 3rd secretly pulling the strings from his secret mansion in Redmond I guess.
I’ll think of something a little more intelligent to write later