Steve Ballmer Loses Mind, Throws Chair at Wall
Wuahaha. John Battelle’s Searchblog was one of the first sources to quote an amazing leaked court document that is currently getting a lot of attention — it describes a conversation between Steve Ballmer and now former employee Mark Lucovsky, who left Microsoft in late 2004. In this conversation, Lucovsky tells Ballmer that he is leaving for Google, and Ballmers reaction is revealing.
Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google.
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.”
This is just too cool. Not even the revelation that Ballmer is apparently not as indifferent towards competitors as he wants everybody to think he is. We all know this is just an act. (Cf. his interview with Channel 9, where he brags about having surpassed IBM and other old-school tech companies, but avoids to even mention Google, or Apple. Read “Steve Ballmer Creeps Me Out” for a short analysis of the video, and pictures.)
No, the great thing about this transcript is that it illustrates pointedly what kind of a person he is. That he can’t restrain himself. That he reacts badly under pressure. That he takes his business very, very personal, and that he loses his judgement over his seemingly inhuman desire to dominate.
There are some unusually interesting comments on the accompanying Slashdot story. Excerpts:
And this is the problem, isn’t it? Microsoft can’t coexist with anyone. To them, “the competition” is anyone in the computer industry who is making money or gaining power who is not them. […] Microsoft keeps demonstrating, again and again, that they believe no one may have power but them, and keep killing companies to attain that goal.
Re:And this is the problem, isn’t it? I used to work for a company that had a mini MS complex: we thought everyone in IT industry services sector or reseller channel was a competition. The result: we fought a war on 900 fronts and could not bring critical resources to bear on our real competitors […] Right now, MS is showing signs of what I saw at Inacom:
- Changes and delays with their OS product.
- Development of huge initiatives that business partners want and customers don’t want like DRM and trusted computing.
- Not adapting to changing business models - open source for example.
- Ability to market, but not deliver - like the MSN search that was going to be more accurate, etc…
- Competing against yourself - AXAPTA, NAVISION, GreatPlains… how many competing and overlapping ERP/CRM packages do you need?
- … [rest omitted, ed.]
Time to rethink owning MSFT stock? Investors should take note of these types of situations. While we all think it funny, it offers insight into the emotional response of the CEO of the world’s largest software company. It shows his a weakness, that he is personally threatened by Google, and a despiration, that he feels Google just one upped him. There is a difference between being passionate about your products and being threatened by your market mates.
And the repeated comparisons with Nikita Khrushchev make it even more colorful.
Ah, we live in great times. Democratizing technology on the rise, business makes a clown of itself.
