It was fairly early in my career. I was the de facto lead speechwriter for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) – at that time, the number two computer company in the world. The event was DECWorld, a one-company trade show that brought in some 10,000 senior corporate and government officials from around the globe. One of my roles at that year’s DECWorld was to manage an event – “An Evening with Bill Gates,” then still a very active chairman of Microsoft – for 1,000 Digital customers.

Working to outline content and messages for Gates’ presentation with the very smart, very focused, and utterly uncompromising Microsoft team was painful. After protracted negotiations, we reached a last-minute accord on content that would work for both our companies and our customers.

The review of the material with Bill Gates took place only a short time before he was to speak. At the table were Ken Olsen, DEC founder, chairman, and computer industry pioneer and legend, Bill Gates, utterly respectful and clearly admiring of Olsen, Gates’ personal PR person and me.

We walked Gates through the presentation: the audience, messages and key points, explaining our rationale, logic, and understanding – why we thought it would all work.

Gates listened respectfully, nodding his head, understanding.  Then, after a long pause, Gates looked at us, and said, “No.” No? “I don’t want to say that.”  Excuse me? “I want to talk about something else.”  What?  “My house.”  Your house? “My house.”

His house: a custom-built, 66,000 square foot monster boasting a beyond state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, and a world-class collection of digitalized art, masterpieces for which he had garnered exclusive digital rights.

Gates was relaxed, boyishly charming, and very likeable. The talk flowed easily, and featured no discussion of business, technology, or DEC, for that matter.

And yet…. somehow… a very strong message came across: Microsoft can and should be your corporate partner (independent of whether you go with DEC or not!). I heard it loud and clear. So did our customers.

Not good. For DEC. Or Me. And not what we had negotiated.