Oops, He Did It Again (Premium)

He was only joking, but a Satya Nadella jab about iPads has the PC police in a tizzy. Because these days, anything you say will infuriate someone.

Welcome to 2017, folks.

Appearing at the India Today Next Conclave recently, Satya Nadella was doing what he's been doing a lot lately, which is taking time off from his apparently responsibility-free job as Microsoft CEO to discuss his management book and his love of cricket.

But Mr. Nadella really put his foot in his mouth---yep, I just used an idiom, relax---when he passed by two iPad Pro-wielding pseudo-journalists and quipped, "You need to get a real computer, my friend."

Oops.

This is most decidedly not the image of Microsoft that Nadella has been projecting since he rose to the most senior position at that company. And the irony here is that the article in which this incident was first reported is titled, "Microsoft CEO Nadella: here's how we're different from Apple and Google."

Different, you say?

Look, I'm no fan of political correctness. In fact, I am positive that the "everyone's a winner" mentality that this country has adopted is the root cause of all of our problems. But this comment---a joke, for sure---was ill-timed. It was wrong-headed. Just ... wrong.

This comment is exactly the type of attitude that Apple executives routinely project at that company's revival tent-style product introductions. And the type of attitude that Google's more passive aggressive executive likewise project at their own events.

But what bothers me, as more of a Microsoft watcher, is that this is exactly the attitude that the previous Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer provided. It is the not the image that Nadella has been pushing relentlessly.

It doesn't make any sense.

So there can only be one of two answers to this problem. One, that Nadella was simply joking, as people do, with a someone they know. And as a man, I see elements of the type of humor that men often adopt with each other. It's aggressive, an attempt at getting at someone else more personally.

Two, the whole Satya Nadella "agent of change" thing is a lie. That is, Nadella is pushing for a so-called cultural transformation at Microsoft because the company has been pushed into a corner by its competitors. It's not changing because it's the right thing to do. It's adopting change as a story, and is in fact just as horrible as it's ever been.

That's the only reason I'm writing about this. Literally.

That some are offended by this statement---Oh my God, he insulted an iPad! The humanity!---is beyond ridiculous. And yet that is out there.

So let's ignore that.

And let's wonder about a man who has now made two high-profile and public mistakes like this. Remember? Three years ago, he actually advised a woman not to ask for a raise.

The backlash from that event was, of course, much more severe, and Nadella was briefly side-tracked by having to apologize for his insensitive comments.

But you have to ...