[pjmlp]

> 3. To keep very senior employees from jumping ship to competitors.

If I am not mistaken Bill Gates once mentioned in an interview that in the old days, Microsoft would rather pay someone to sit around than letting them work elsewhere.

[dschiptsov]

And the second part of the joke is that these people usually are not real techies who produce, like Wozniak, Ritchie, Thompson, etc. but socially skilled, manipulative talking heads, who inevitable raise to topmost positions if an organization is old enough - the useless ballast of pointy haired managers. There is no better example of that kind than Balmer himself.

[carterehsmith]

Excellent. Keep those characters around, then unleash them when a competitor is looking for a CEO or something. Sit back, get popcorn, watch a competitor crumble. Laugh maniacally?

It's just like that time when Marissa... nah, I was just kidding :)

[pjmlp]

If you are referring to the whole Nokia episode, don't forget it was the Nokia board itself that placed a big sum of money on Elop's contract if he managed to get someone to buy the company.

[carterehsmith]

I was not thinking Elop, wasn't he more of a Trojan Horse, a smart guy planted to do evil stuff?

And anyways, I was just joking... I even mentioned that :]

[unfunco]

Google, Yahoo, Verizon, Marissa Mayer, all spring to mind.