Mannerisms

It was at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas during The Consumer Electronics Show.

We gathered in a corridor below the escalators which led to the hotel’s biggest ballroom where Gates was going to deliver his keynote.

The crowd was organized into those who were first to ascend at five o'clock, which were the hacks, and those who were scheduled for later.

At the top of the escalator was a large bar with glasses of beer and wine poured.

We then queued for half an hour while waiters and waitresses came round with more drinks.

A living statue statue in mediaeval Venetian dress stood by one wall.

Gradually, as the booze circulated, the noise level increased, and the chatter took on the satisfied hum of cocktail party, or a London pub at six in the evening.

The booze was a shrewd investment, because the scrum in the corridor, followed by the queuing, might otherwise have made people fractious, instead of which their bonhomie was swelling.

The investment got a quick pay-back in terms of laughter and applause later on when even the demo of a Vista screen-saver got a clap.

The queue shuffled past a corridor which led down behind the stage of the ballroom.

Somewhere down there the richest man in the world was preparing for his speech. No one went down to say hello because of the enormous heavy patrolling the end of the corridor.

As the queue approached the entrance to the ballroom the hacks could feel smug because over the door was a sign saying 'Press and VIPs Only’.

There didn't seem to be any VIPs.

We got into the ballroom at 5:30, and were allotted the best seats at the front. There was an hour to go before proceedings were to begin.

The room was enormous with some 4500 chairs. Apart from maybe a few hundred, they were all to be filled in the course of the next hour.

During that time jugglers, clowns, stilt-walkers and wandering minstrels in mediaeval clothing wandered around. Thumpy music played.

Then it was 6:30 and the stooge came on. He was CEO of the CES and told the old stories about Gates, like dropping out of Harvard to change the world etc etc.

Then a video came on showing Gates in various media appearances, almost all to his comical disadvantage.

So we'd all had a drink on him, and we'd all had an opportunity to laugh at him.

By now most of us liked him, despite his being the richest guy in the world who’d soaked us all for his flaky software.

We were gagging to see him.

He came on and talked very naturally, right to the level of his audience, just one industry guy talking to a few thousand others.

Along the way he showed a video clip showing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer looking foolish. “And he’s the one who graduated from Harvard” cracked Gates.

You might have expected the richest man in the world, the companion of presidents and glitterati, to set a lofty note and talk about global issues and humanity’s challenges.

Not a bit of it.

Gates launched into a shameless product pitch for his company’s latest products.

Maybe that’s why he’s the richest man in the world.