Apparently tired of getting his butt handed to him by Google, Steve Ballmer calls Google’s growth plans “insane”.
“They are trying to double in a year,” Ballmer told a crowd of Stanford Graduate School of Business students on Thursday. “That’s insane in my opinion.”
But, he added, “it doesn’t mean they won’t do it well.”
Mr. Ballmer went on to call them a “one-trick pony” that “does a lot of cute things”.
Of course, this all sounds like sour grapes to anyone who is familiar with Steve’s attitude towards Google. The most famous incident of course is the one in which he threw a chair across the room after one of his executives who decided to work for Google and vowed to “f**king kill” Google. Apparently, execs leaving Microsoft for Google is a rather common occurrence these days, and Steve isn’t too happy about that.
Hey Steve, from here it doesn’t like you’re exactly “killing” Google. In fact, it looks like Google continues to take the lion’s share of the ever-expanding search engine market, while Microsoft’s share isn’t even keeping pace with overall growth. Maybe you’re just a bit jealous of that?
This loud-mouthed jerk continues to be an embarrassment for Microsoft. I really do believe that the company as a whole is trying to improve its image, especially in open-source circles, but it makes it very difficult when this guy keeps shooting off his mouth. Microsoft, please can this guy already.
Update: This post originally stated that Ballmer “threw a chair at” the outgoing executive, which incorrectly implied actual physical violence towards him.
