Remember last year, when Rupert Murdoch and Harvey Golub played phone tag? Rupert left a message for Harvey on March 29, but Harvey was out of the country. When Harvey returned Rupert’s call on April 4, Rupert was out of the country. They finally spoke on April 11, thereby saving the cost of an international phone call.
That rather pathetic story looks positively efficient, however, in comparison to Carl Icahn’s attempts to get Steve Ballmer on the blower:
So far, Mr. Icahn hasn’t been in touch with Microsoft — though he tried to call the company’s chief executive, Steven Ballmer, through the main switchboard at Microsoft’s headquarters and was turned away, according to a person briefed on the call.
Carl, you’re a billionaire. You have people. How hard can it be to get Steve Ballmer’s phone number? At least force him to personally make the decision not to take your call!
Of course, the obvious way to communicate with Ballmer is via email – but Icahn "doesn’t even use a personal computer". It seems the only way Icahn really likes to communicate is by "grumbling in his raspy voice as he slurps shark fin soup". What a perfect guy to take over Yahoo’s board of directors!