No, you don't have that chart. Earnings went up under Ballmer.

He didn’t say the chart was accurate, just that he has it :)

By that kind of logic almost any argument can be made masquerading as the truth :)

It’s a more humorous “no true Scotsman”.

The Ballmer peak is a theory of coding productivity as a function of alcohol consumption.

https://xkcd.com/323/

Anecdotally I’ve found that I often can’t get started on a new piece of work because for every possible solution I imagine all the possible ways it could go wrong. After a glass of wine I lose my hang-ups and I can “just get started” and bang out some code.

I suspect it’s the same as the well-known “social lubricant” effect of alcohol, where it eases anxiety and uninhibits nervous people.

However, while I’ve noticed it gets me going it has the same deleterious effects as in social contexts: the code I end up writing is not as clever as I thought it was the night before.

No matter, had sex! I mean… got an MVP working that can be nurtured into a relationship… I mean product.

I have a very fond fond memories of codind near the that peak.

Somehow I can't replicate it for years and I have a couple of projects in dire need of that spirit insight.

sigh