Chris Matyszczyk
for Technically Incorrect
| September 22, 2021
| Topic: Innovation
He really cares about toilets.
Screenshot by ZDNet
The sight of him getting excitable can make grown adults squint.
With either disbelief or embarrassment.
Steve Ballmer is still at it, expressing himself in ways that seem simultaneously unbelievable and unnatural.
It’s his thing, I suppose. Even if some find his aggressive thigh-grabbing a little much.
Having left Microsoft, Ballmer took another then-mediocre brand — the Los Angeles Clippers — and turned it into an improved mediocre brand. (Disclosure: Golden State Warriors fan.)
You, though, will be wondering whether he’s found sufficient excitement being an NBA franchise owner. It can’t be easy dealing with fragile egos such as Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
I can tell you he’s injecting so much of his enormous emotional well into a new project — building the Clippers’ new arena in Inglewood, California.
No, it won’t make them any better as a team. But, once it’s built, it’ll have so many aspects that’ll make fans forget the team’s woes.
There is, naturally, a lot of tech going into it. Why, Intuit, the financial software company, is spending $500 million just to put its name on the door. I mean, the dome. Yes, this new palace of playoff not-quites will be called the Intuit Dome.
So much intuition is going into the construction. There’ll be fewer luxury boxes in order to create a greater focus on the game. Well, in the fourth quarter.
Yet the most important aspect, the one closest to Ballmer’s, well, heart, is one you might not expect.
He declared it fully to the Washington Post: “The thing I hate most in life is arenas where you have to wait in line for the bathroom.”
There’s a privileged view, some might say. I can think of a couple of things that may be worse. Visiting fans who won’t shut up, for example. Or home team fans who get drunk and offer abusive comments. Or people who sit on their phones and don’t watch the game at all.
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Chris Matyszczyk
for Technically Incorrect
| September 22, 2021
| Topic: Innovation