Putin Makes Rude Remark At Davos
So a bunch of fancy world leaders gathered at Davos to discuss the "world economy," such as it is, and generally be lame together this year. The "headliners" were such sexy globe-trotting humanitarian starlets as Vladimir Putin and Wen Jiabao. Putin said something mean to Michael Dell, because that is something Putin loves doing: publicly humiliating dopey Americans.
Putin apparently gave a speech about all sorts of stuff on the first day of the conference -- currency, energy, blah blah blah. Then at the end he was all, "Any questions?" and Michael Dell, the founder of a company that makes fairly crappy PCs for not very much money, said basically, "How can we sell more cheap electronics into your impoverished nation of drunken computer illiterates?"
Putin's withering reply to Dell: "We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity." The slapdown took many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up the country, including remote villages in Siberia. And, in a final dig at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected not for their hardware, but for their software.
Ha ha Michael Dell, what a tool. His family has been "disappeared" and he has been sent to a gulag where he will enjoy the next 10-15 years sorting rocks.
Putin-Dell slapdown at Davos [Fortune]