Sometimes, they even slap you about the chops while sniggering: "Heh, heh, heh."
And so it is that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken some of Tim Cook's words and gently wafted them right back at him.
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Nadella mused on the increasing success of the Surface.
He painted it as an example of Microsoft's risk-taking nature. He also contrasted this attitude with that of his competitors.
"Three years ago, the two-in-one as a form factor was questioned," he said. "Does anybody need one? And now guess what, even our competition has decided that it's not a refrigerator and a toaster, but it's actually a two-in-one."
Actually, it was four years ago. Should you not be familiar with the subtext here, Cook was on a 2012 earnings call when he mused about hybrid computers. He said converging two different products involved too many trade-offs.
Then he added, quite immortally: "You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going be pleasing to the user."
This may not have been quite right. Indeed, in its August launch of the iPad Pro, Apple expressly claimed that it was a computer. Which confused a lot of people, as Apple had always insisted it was a tablet.
Read more: Microsoft CEO laughs at Apple for making iPad Pro like Surface
And so it is that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has taken some of Tim Cook's words and gently wafted them right back at him.
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Nadella mused on the increasing success of the Surface.
He painted it as an example of Microsoft's risk-taking nature. He also contrasted this attitude with that of his competitors.
"Three years ago, the two-in-one as a form factor was questioned," he said. "Does anybody need one? And now guess what, even our competition has decided that it's not a refrigerator and a toaster, but it's actually a two-in-one."
Actually, it was four years ago. Should you not be familiar with the subtext here, Cook was on a 2012 earnings call when he mused about hybrid computers. He said converging two different products involved too many trade-offs.
Then he added, quite immortally: "You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going be pleasing to the user."
This may not have been quite right. Indeed, in its August launch of the iPad Pro, Apple expressly claimed that it was a computer. Which confused a lot of people, as Apple had always insisted it was a tablet.
Read more: Microsoft CEO laughs at Apple for making iPad Pro like Surface
