Hard Drives

Apparently they are all used to store porn.

Unexpected candidness is a recurring theme of our CE-Oh no! series of posts, but this latest example from Bill Watkins, the CEO of Seagate, truly takes the biscuit. At a recent corporate dinner in San Francisco, the Texan CEO produced a quotable line edgy enough to give any PR people in the immediate vicinity an instant heart attack. In his exact words: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn." We're gonna have to give the guy a break for two reasons: a) alcohol was readily available, and b), all those naughty digital photos have gotta be stored somewhere, and Seagate is in the digital storage business. Besides, the rest of Watkin's quotes are relatively thought provoking: his views on media distribution ("It's the content that's important"), Dell's problems -- no, not those ones -- ("They don't understand the consumer"), and other areas of the technology industry appear to be fresh and honest. Maybe just a bit too honest this time around.