If you've ever been to a press conference, technology show or expo you will notice that the CEOs and other executives of IT companies are often surrounded by minders.
These public relations people aren't there to shield their delicate executives from their customers and the braying press. No, they're there to ensure their charges don't say anything daft enough to cause a PR embarrassment or a dip in the company stock price.
Thankfully, they don't always succeed as our list of the top 10 quotes from the past year shows. Even better, occasionally, just occasionally, they even some say something interesting and insightful. Here's our top 10 in chronological order:
"One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that."
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, speaking at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit back in March. He was probably joking.
"Just avoid holding it that way."
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, in an email allegedly sent to an iPhone 4 customer back in June about the antenna reception issues that plagued Apple's latest smartphone.
"CEOs are leaning on CIOs hard. If you don't know, being a CIO is I think one of the toughest jobs on the planet. You are asked to be knowledgeable about the business and knowledgeable about IT simultaneously and how those two interconnect. And I think the pressure is huge to get costs down, to keep the lights on. Because CEOs want IT to be an utility. I want to turn it on, I want it to work, but I also want it to cost less. At the same time, I want money to be able to go innovate. And both are problems today and I think that is not unique across banking versus a retailer, and I don't think it is unique to China versus the US. The meeting I have with a CIO in New York is, other than the accent, roughly the same that I have in Beijing."
Mark Hurd, then-CEO of HP, speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch technology conference back in June.
