The Screamers

The media has been slicing and dicing Paul Allen's book. The spotlight is on passages concerning the tirades o Bill Gates.

Some years ago I belonged to a discussion group sponsored by Bellevue Community College through their senior outreach program.

We met in a building previously used as headquarters for Microsoft.

At one of our meetings a member of the group brought Ross Hunter as a guest speaker. Ross had been an early executive of the company who taken his packet of shares and retired at a very young age to pursue a life of public service.

Ross opened his presentation by wistfully stating that we were sitting in Bill Gates former office.

Steve Balmer had an office at the far end of the hall.

The two never used an intercom to address each other.

As Ross who officed between them would suspend all efforts to concentrate the two would carry on their discussion screaming back and forth across the corridor