No CAPA but fun in Geekdom
Well, I didn’t win a Psyche (that was my category at the CAPAs) BUT I lost to Joy Nash and her book Deep Magic. Joy just happens to be a best-selling USA Today author so, all in all, I’m not feeling too bad. Congratulations Joy!
The subject of interest in ITlandia at the moment is the bid by Microsoft Corporation (the lumbering, myopic rhinoceros, perhaps) for Yahoo (the injured, undernourished gazelle), with Google as the stalking cheetah following the hunt across the savannah. In a recent news item from the San Jose Mercury News, the Good Morning Silicon Valley section (via their email newsletter) had this to say:
In an internet moment, retired advertising executive Roy Bostock was thrust in the middle of a high-stakes Silicon Valley drama. Minutes after he was appointed Yahoo’s chairman Jan. 31, Microsoft phoned with its takeover offer.
Minutes after? Do you wonder how that phone conversation went?
MS: Good morning, I’d like to speak to your chairman please?
YH: May I ask who’s calling?
MS: Microsoft Corporation.
YH: Yeah right, and I’m Albert Einstein. Piss off, you freak!
or
MS: May I speak with Terry Semel please?
YH: I’m sorry, Mr Semel is no longer with the company.
MS: Oh well, whoever is Chairman nowadays. And make it pronto!
or even
MS: May I speak with Roy Bostock please?
YH: I’m sorry, we have no Mr Bostock working for our company.
MS: Of course you do, you moron, he’s the new Chairman. Jeez, no wonder we’re trying to take you over!
I wonder, too, if there are codewords that business owners use to identify that they’re bona fide billionaires, instead of one of the great unwashed masses pranking in their spare time.
AP: Hi, I’d like to talk to Steve Ballmer.
MS: I’m afraid Mr Ballmer is–
AP: The ice moves swiftly when salty.
MS: Oh, hold on a minute Mr Jobs, and I’ll put you straight through.
And how would a retired advertising executive, no less, deal with a call from Microsoft, offering $31 per Yahoo share? “Yeah, whatever sweetheart. Look, why don’t you get your people to call my people and we’ll set up lunch, say, next Tuesday? You eat Italian? I love Italian. If we’re lucky, I’ll get Tiger Woods to join us. We completed a great campaign with him for steel-reinforced jockey shorts before I left Scratchy and Scratchy.” It’s hard to know who would be more stunned by such a conversation.
So that’s the way my mind works when the truth was actually a lot more prosaic. Co-founder of Yahoo, Jerry Yang, got a call from Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, and that’s when the offer was made.
JY: (phone rings) Hi, this is Jerry.
SB: Jerr, this is Steve. Steve Ballmer. How are ya, pal?
JY: Great Steve, and you?
SB: Fine. Fine. How’re the kids? And the wife?
JY: Oh you know, ticking over. What about you?
SB: Oh same ole, same ole. What about those 49ers, eh?
JY: (chuckles) Yeah. Say, I’m taking the Gulfstream down to Atlanta to catch a game next month. Care to join me?
SB: Sure. Just let me know when, in case it clashes with my regular poker night.
JY: I’ll get my PA to confirm with yours.
SB: Great. Looking forward to it. Say, since I’ve got you on the line…
The Valley being a small place, these guys probably bump into each other at Fry’s every other week, and they’ve probably got each other’s private mobile number on speed-dial. But it’s still nice to muse on hypotheticals …
Tsk, must I tell you everything? They speak in Yogi-Berra Code.
MS: “Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical.”
YAHOO: “You’re what? Well, let me think about it.”
MS: “Think? How are you gonna think and hit at the same time? That’s why you’re slumping.”
YAHOO: “Slump? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hitting. If you really must know how I feel about it, I think you’d better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
MS: “If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”
YAHOO: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
***All said by the great Yogi Berra himself.
See? It all makes sense now, right?
Oh, the pizza comment really cracked me up, Gennita! And, from the looks of things, I think all those comments could be fairly applied to Yahoo, judging by their board and how they’ve been going recently. Bwahahahahahaha…
And you know that blog entry you had up, a couple of weeks ago? The one with the job you wouldn’t want to have…in China…with the surgical masks? I just want to say that I’m still having nightmares.
Sorry about the CAPA, but in your place I would have been utterly thrilled just to be nominated. Maybe next time…