Bill Gates: man in the bubble.
You've heard about the Apple bubble, right? The prevailing belief that Apple's stock is overpriced and about to explode? Turns out there's definitely a Microsoft bubble, too. Different kind, though. One that surrounds Bill Gates in his day-to-day role at Microsoft.
Microsoft employs a technical assistant dedicated to deleting Mr. Gates' email. "It is a corporate policy not to make a permanent record of Bill's works...The job duties of the technical assistant require him to delete email files from Mr Gates' computer weekly." Apparently this directive appeared after the recent US Government antitrust case, where many emails showed Microsoft's anticompetitive policy.
Still waiting to get to the Apple punchline of this whole post? Turns out that in a (non-deleted) 2004 email, a senior executive told Gates that if he didn't work for Microsoft, he'd buy a Mac. Which shows that you really can find good people for senior management. It also makes you wonder how many deleted emails discuss the preference for iPods over the Zune.
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