From the Editor’s Desk: Spectacle and Substance ⭐

My wife and I spend a lot of time sitting at bars, both here in Mexico and in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. This isn't about drinking, though that obviously occurs. It's really about socializing with the others alongside you and behind the bar. We've made more friends than I can count during these experiences, and we have many stories. One of them reminds me of a tech topic I've been quietly obsessing over lately.

Like any business, bars have busy and slow times, of course, and that creates a paradoxical situation for us. We want these places and the people who work there to be successful, and that can only happen if they're busy. But we also really enjoy when our favorite bars are slow, with few patrons, because that lets us spend time with the bartenders and others who work there and get to know them better. We exchange stories, and here in Mexico, especially, we exchange drinks: I can't count how many times bartenders have racked up shot glasses in front of us, joining in themselves in a sign of affection, appreciation, and friendship.

On a previous trip, we were hanging out at one of our favorite bars on a particularly slow night, and the talk turned to Mexican-based wines and alcohols. A bartender friend kept offering me various drinks, including the mezcals he knows I don't like because they're smoky. It's just not my thing. Regardless, on this particular occasion, he slammed a bottle of mezcal on the bar and insisted that I try it.

"You know I don't like mezcal," I said.

"Yes, I know," he replied. "But you should like it!"

I laughed and agreed, as I knew this was one of his favorites and he just wanted me to enjoy it too. "I should like it," I replied. "The problem is, I don't."

This reminds me of the way Microsoft has spent the past three years---and, yes, it's been three very long years---jamming Copilot down its reluctant customers' respective throats. But even more so, it reminds me of that thing I've been obsessing over recently. Which is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's increasingly insistent posture on what he sees as the future of the company.

Satya Nadella is blogging.

The man who gave up most of his CEO duties to Judson Althoff last October, who to my mind ceded the rest of those duties to CFO Amy Hood years ago, apparently has so much spare time in "founder mode" (gross) that he's now committing his thoughts to the printed word. This is a man, I will remind you, who cannot speak effectively, whose robotic presence is far more distracting than it is inspiring.

I've tried to avoid discussing this in detail because I find it so revolting, though I did succumb to at least mentioning it by burying this fact in an editorial about another topic entirely. But as noted, I am obsessing over this. Obsessing over a man I do not trust or like, a man who let Windows wallow for years before turning his attention to it and finally enshittifying it thoroughly. His words matter, if only for the clues they give us to...