OK, 100% Cash and I’ll Throw in This Office Chair–but That’s My Final Offer
by John Paczkowski
Posted on March 6, 2008 at 5:01 AM PT
Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about Nov. 11, 2004, with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure. … At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: ‘Just tell me it’s not Google.’ I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room, hitting a table in his office.”
I’ve never thrown a chair in my life. … By and large I made a commitment nine years ago that I was not going to curse. I know I’ve had one or two transgressions in nine years, but I made that commitment to myself. Is that one of them? I don’t recall.”
–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Lucovsky’s allegation
We may see another chair-tossing tantrum in Redmond before this Microsoft-Yahoo debacle gets itself sorted.
Yahoo’s extension of a March 14 deadline for nominating directors to its board and reports of the company’s talks with other suitors are said to be trying Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s patience–and his temper. “Ballmer is just one of many highly emotional people involved in this,” a source close to both companies told the New York Post. “Microsoft has been trying to avoid going completely hostile, but now it is going to get completely hostile.”
For Microsoft, that means going public with the slate of directors it plans to nominate to Yahoo’s board as early as next week and perhaps even changing its half-cash/half-stock offer for the company to all cash, effectively raising it to to $44.6 billion from $41.5 billion .
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