Bill Gates is pissed. “You’ve studied it and studied it and decided that it’s turning bits on and off! And it’s a BRILLIANT INSIGHT! … And then there’s this relationship with Hewlett-Packard that we KEEP SCREWING UP! … What about this bullshit thing with no definition!”
He’s in a small, crowded conference room on the Microsoft campus with 20 young Microsofties gathered around an oblong table. Most are unkempt; some are unwashed; all are uncomfortable. As they sit around the table, stand along the walls on three sides of the room, or perch on a cabinet along one wall, most look at their chairman with outright fear, if they look at him at all.
The sour smell of sweaty terror fills the room. Through the acrid aroma of armpit, a few noteworthy figures stand out. There’s a young man, skinny, pale, and hairy, wearing thick glasses and a khaki jacket — a dead ringer for Animal, the Muppet drummer, but without the muscles. Another one has an unnaturally fleshy face that looms out of his long-sleeved white shirt and tight black jeans like a genie emerging from a stovepipe. Still another looks oddly like … a woman.
A closer look reveals the fact that she is a woman. The only female in the room, she’s a tiny Chinese immigrant, wearing a T-shirt and a cardigan sweater, and sitting just two chairs away from Gates. What makes her different from the others in the room is not only her sex, but also her courage: she’s the only person not afraid to look at Gates as he goes ballistic.
