The video author's bio: "A Mac consultant ranting and raving about technology. And life, too."
Likely staged. If this guy was actually high up enough in a company of 93,000 employees to be sitting in meetings with the CEO, then he's not the kind of guy you fire during a meeting for not "Bing"ing loudly. Nor would he be making so little that being fired mid-December means he can't afford Christmas presents for his family.
At one level, do we care if it's true? (At another, it really does matter if Ballmer is a chair throwing maniac who'd do this sort of thing.)
E.g. how many people will find this believable and/or believe it? I could counter your points by asking "What if Ballmer was managing by walking around and dropped in on this group of programmers?" or "This guy is still in shock/is otherwise set up to survive but serious Christmas presents are right out?"
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" ... and in this sort of thing we'll likely never get the latter. But we do know terminations like this happen in the industry, there are more than a few insane managers out there. Maybe Ballmer is not this insane, but I'm not impressed by his tenure at the top of Microsoft.
I don't think we do (at least I don't.) What is interesting to me is the premise behind the story, whether or not the story is true. A lot of the attention being paid to Microsoft on the net is largely negative, and just the idea that any sort of criticism or lack of support really gets to Ballmer is only going to fuel the fire of anti-MS sentiment.
yeah, when I saw the video, it seemed like either (a) the guy never worked at Microsoft or that (b) he may have worked at Microsoft at one time and decided to get his few seconds of fame with a lie.
imo the fact that this video was posted on HN and that it got at least 3 upvotes in the past 11 hours shows that the the guys who made the video were right about their estimation of the public's willingness to give them their few seconds of fame.
4 comments
[ 623 ms ] story [ 23.5 ms ] threadLikely staged. If this guy was actually high up enough in a company of 93,000 employees to be sitting in meetings with the CEO, then he's not the kind of guy you fire during a meeting for not "Bing"ing loudly. Nor would he be making so little that being fired mid-December means he can't afford Christmas presents for his family.
E.g. how many people will find this believable and/or believe it? I could counter your points by asking "What if Ballmer was managing by walking around and dropped in on this group of programmers?" or "This guy is still in shock/is otherwise set up to survive but serious Christmas presents are right out?"
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" ... and in this sort of thing we'll likely never get the latter. But we do know terminations like this happen in the industry, there are more than a few insane managers out there. Maybe Ballmer is not this insane, but I'm not impressed by his tenure at the top of Microsoft.
I don't think we do (at least I don't.) What is interesting to me is the premise behind the story, whether or not the story is true. A lot of the attention being paid to Microsoft on the net is largely negative, and just the idea that any sort of criticism or lack of support really gets to Ballmer is only going to fuel the fire of anti-MS sentiment.
imo the fact that this video was posted on HN and that it got at least 3 upvotes in the past 11 hours shows that the the guys who made the video were right about their estimation of the public's willingness to give them their few seconds of fame.