HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from Steve Ballmer Laughs At The iPhone Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Steve Ballmer Laughs At The iPhone

Sander Duivestein
Comedy
YouTube
Cited on HN 6 times, 2018–2023, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as a joke or cautionary reference when a company or analyst confidently dismisses a product that later succeeds.

A one-minute clip of Steve Ballmer laughing at the original iPhone and dismissing its price and appeal.

1 critical · 5 jokes · Comedy

6 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@fossuser Oct 2020 Pushes back
on HN thread How Microsoft went from “Linux is a cancer” to “Microsoft loves Linux”
Yeah, while Google immediately scrapped their blackberry like phone project to quickly accelerate an iPhone-ish design for the first android phone, Ballmer made MSFT's probably largest strategic mistake: [this video] I don't buy the 'things were in motion' while he was there, I think if they were it was in spite of his direction, not because of it.
@onetimemanytime Jul 2018 Makes a joke
on HN thread Apple Reports Third Quarter Results
Major congrats to them and to the late Jobs. I'd be in the Ballmer category... [this video] Making telcos "subsidize" it, must be right there with the "pay just the minimum on your credit card" business wise. Brilliant.
@rcMgD2BwE72F Nov 2018 Makes a joke
on HN thread The $6T Barrier Holding Electric Cars Back
> Is there another choice? Not yet, I guess. But the $35K Model 3 should be delivered mid 2019 and the first used sales should be available soon after. I doubt Tesla will decrease its prices (they're slowly securing the industry's profits, à la Apple). I'd expect most people to spend more on EV than did on ICE. I wonder if this legitimate question (when people wonder how much to spend on an EV vs cheap ICE) will be later compared to the famous 2007 Ballmer moment: [this video] :)

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close