Eye on Winer

Dave spends a lot of time writing to bigwigs in the tech industry who probably don’t care a lick what he says or thinks. Today, however, he tells us that “the things I say have helped [Microsoft] see opportunities it otherwise would have missed” in an open letter to Bill Gates. Now, whether or not his advice is good is subject to debate, but that’s not the thing about his post that’s most annoying.

Rather, the problem is that Dave implies that, because Microsoft has done things that he suggested on his blog, they were listening to him. The logical and mathematical ridiculousness of such a statement boggles the mind. There are oodles of bloggers out there recommending that all sorts of people do all sorts of things. When there is speculation that a professional athlete is going to retire, sports bloggers rush to take sides… when the athlete eventually makes a decision, do the ones who recommended the course of action take credit for the decision? No. Why? Because they’re aware of the reality that, in all likelihood, Pro Athlete-guy didn’t read their blog and, even if he did, he probably didn’t care enough about what they were saying for it to make an impact.

Dave, though, continues to write these entries (and then take credit for coincidence) in hopes that one day someone important will acknowledge his existence. When Dave dreams, he dreams of emails showing up in his inbox like this one:

Dave,
I have a confession to make. Over the years I have been a frequent and habitual reader of not just Scripting News but of other blog and pseudo-blog that you’ve created. You are one of the most brilliant minds of our times and, truth be told, everyone who can read English should subscribe to your RSS feed. Anyone who can’t read English should take classes so that they’re not missing out on your wisdom.

Microsoft would not be where it is today without your savvy advice, occasional scolding, and outstanding business acumen. I cannot tell you how many of your nuggets of wisdom I’ve read and then immediately set into motion. And I promptly regretted not using the ones that I passed up.

I have to apologize for giving you the cold-shoulder all of these years. The problem is that you are simply to wise, and if I ever let on that I was listening to your every word, Microsoft’s competitors would have too much insight into our business plans. I have cried myself to sleep many nights for the cruel way that I’ve treated you, and I hope that this letter can somehow begin to make amends. To go one step farther, once a month I will be replacing the Microsoft.com site with a tribute to your genius, an apology for my severe mistreatment of you, and a list of all of the things that you have done for Microsoft.

I’d like to come to Berkeley some time so that you can teach me about business and the internet, and maybe eat some of your famous lasagna.

Thanks for everything, Dave!

Your pal and devotee,

Bill Gates

I really should’ve saved this for April Fool’s and then spoofed an email to him.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Dave, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.