A spectacular failure
By day 2, it became clear that strategy was failing spectacularly. As New Yorker writer Ken Auletta once noted, Gates had never in his life groveled for a job or suffered many of the indignities most of us experience on a regular basis. He regularly berated reporters for asking what he’d say were stupid questions. Publicly lauded as the wise sage, consummate businessman, and industry visionary, Gates was accustomed to being treated with obsequious deference from all but a small number of peers. As such, he had little or no experience tolerating—let alone encountering—dissent, criticism, or challenges to his authority.
The lack of experience played right into the government’s hand. Instead of portraying a leader in control of his domain and confident in his case and his company’s legal and ethical righteousness, the courtroom videos showed a side of Gates that had never been on public display before. He was petulant, petty, flustered, and dour. He was ineffectual. He was, in a word, beaten.