CE-Oh yes he did! Part XXII - Watkins apologizes for Ce-Oh no Part XIX

Finally man, a tech exec cuts through the heaps of banal press statements and glad-handing interviews to stand up and tell it like it is -- and boom, dude gets eaten alive. Yeah, we're talking about Bill Watkins, who was recently quoted as saying, "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn." Damn skippy Bill, you done the deed, now don't back out! Well, too late; apparently Bill sent out a memo to his company apologizing for the statement: "... unfortunately, and unwisely, I also used pornography as an example to illustrate a point. Fortune Magazine chose to focus narrowly on this example in their headline." Well, c'mon, you can't fault everybody for focusing in on the sound bite; but if you want to take a lesson in the school of stonewalling, without naming names we've got a few good coaches we could send your way.

[Nubaeus @ Dec 23rd 2006 1:19PM]

Whats porn?

[Mrfreezie @ Dec 23rd 2006 1:31PM]

The guy was just being honest. I don't see why he needs to apologize.

[marco @ Dec 23rd 2006 1:46PM]

"whats porn?"

ask google pictures

[srw985 @ Dec 23rd 2006 2:42PM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWEjvCRPrCo

The internet is for porn

[shirizaki @ Dec 23rd 2006 3:31PM]

Yeah, I bought a seagate because he said it was for porn. I assumed there were porn saving measures built into the hard drive.

[mitch @ Dec 23rd 2006 4:12PM]

Is there something wrong with mentioning pornography? This guy gets his ass in trouble for using porn as an example of things people store on their seagate?

[Gil @ Dec 23rd 2006 4:15PM]

Dude I bought two seagate HDDs thanks to that statement. Don't make me return them!

[LandMineHare @ Dec 23rd 2006 4:16PM]

I bought a seagate 320G 7200.10 because it was on sale.

And yes, it is now filled with my porn collection.

[dave @ Dec 23rd 2006 4:43PM]

Dear Bill W.

While I'm sure there are plenty of people who really only care about porn and buying crap, there are some of us out here that use these new technologies for purposeful, productive and innovative projects that are indeed changing the world. I'm sorry that you have such a pessimistic and bitter outlook. Perhaps you are truly an example that money can't buy happiness. =-(

[tekdroid @ Dec 23rd 2006 6:59PM]

his comments were taken out of context by the media (who always like a good headline). That will always happen in this soundbyte world.

When taken out of context like that, it's easy to think of the guy as over-generalising and under-appreciating the impact HDs have on our lives.

So he apologizes. He doesn't really need to, IMO. But some people will always take things the wrong way (particularly when taken out of context), so it was the diplomatic thing to do.

[dave @ Dec 24th 2006 12:04AM]

"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."


yeah, out of context, right, sure, you keep telling yourself that.

[Eric Glassman @ Dec 23rd 2006 11:01PM]

No, seriously. What's porn?

[mkh @ Dec 24th 2006 6:50PM]

"No, seriously. What's porn?"

It's like Engadget, but with naked people in place of electronics.

[Mike D @ Dec 24th 2006 2:18AM]

"yeah, out of context, right, sure, you keep telling yourself that."

there's no context in your quote.. do you know what context is?

[dave @ Dec 24th 2006 4:06AM]

Guess you didn't see the "View Comment in Thread" button...

[Mike D @ Dec 24th 2006 9:22PM]

yep .. did that .. also before I viewed comment in thread I knew what you were replying to. There is still no context in your quote. Meaning that the entire story of what the man was talking about is not told nor are any other points other then the one you are trying to highlight. I guess you don't know what context is.

[Mike D @ Dec 24th 2006 9:24PM]

"It's like Engadget, but with naked people in place of electronics."
there's a blog that highlights the latest advances in naked people??!! I must add this to my bookmarks!

[JJ @ Dec 26th 2006 1:23PM]

It's funny because it's true. . . . .

[tekdemon @ Dec 27th 2006 5:36PM]

lol, well for one thing I do appreciate his honesty. About the only real reason I could think of to upgrade to newer, humongous drives would be to store more crap. Although mostly I think he should have just said "videos and movies", since the majority of my storage use is definitely not porn (seriously it'd be ridiculously hard to fill up 500GB with porn).

But whatever, I'll probably buy a seagate as my next drive anyway, but that was mostly due to price/performance reasons.