Steve Keen on sincerity (a close proxy for passion):

Class was largely open discussion, the instructor rarely engaged. Except for one session, where students were discussing a politician, and said, "Well, at least he's sincere." And the class sort of murmurs, "Oh, yeah, nobody can deny the guy's sincere." The teacher, who normally kept quiet, piped up from the back of the room, "Don't overrate sincerity. The most sincere person you'll meet in your life is the maniac chasing you down the road with an ax trying to chop your head off."

Renegade Economist interview http://fixyt.com/watch?v=7F2FKxxN_IE

I... love... this... company YEAAAAAHAHH

The Ballmer impersonator free runner a few years back at the company meeting was good.

Having been at Microsoft in the past, I always remember this infamous video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

Sure. I would argue that that "passion" led him to make some poor decisions, though.

Anytime you care desperately about a cause or entity you branded as "yours", a certain irrationality has to go hand in hand with that. Without that emotional attachment to something that leads you to make those decisions, you wouldn't get some of the best gut decisions either. Give and take.

What I mean is that the company would be in a better position now if he had left five or more years ago, because he is not a very good leader.

How are you measuring leadership ability? If it's just stock price then I think there are far more appropriate words to use.

I'd argue that he'd likely make a poor decision regardless of the passion involved.

His spelling needs a bit of work, though. There's only one 'e' in 'bled.'

"Bleed" is fine. He's referring to both the past and present. You can replace "bleed" with "ooze", if that helps.

Or "squirt". (Do MS still do that, or did it stop with the demise of Zune?)

Why are you past tensing him though?

It's a joke (I think).

In the old days Doctors used to bleed a patient who was ill to let out the poison "I bled him but unfortunately he died".

That or he is implying that he did nothing but suck the blood for 30 years while others did the actual important work.

Good point. Opaque but that does make snarky humor sense.

My first thought too - had to re-read to see that he wasn't saying he'd bled it dry.

You mean, like in: “I bled MS to death”?

He's just an inherently passionate person. His energy levels are just off the charts. One day we will map the Ballmer genome and see where exactly all this energy comes from.

Potentially rivaled.

I submit: Howard Dean's "BYAHHHH"[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5FzCeV0ZFc