The Biggest Sonnings in Tech History

The Facebook kingpin shared his vision of getting everyone on a global scale online and claimed it was “one of the most important things we all do in our lifetimes." Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist extraordinaire begged to differ, providing a more cynical reaction to his pupil’s vision: "As a priority? It's a joke. I certainly love the IT thing. But when we want to improve lives, you've got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition.” Another case of teacher schooling student.

How many CEOs you know can tell something "everything you've ever done in your life is shit" and hire them shortly after? Only Steve Jobs. Sometime in the 1980s, dude still had enough clout to belittle Xerox hardware designer Bob Belleville and ask later him on "so why don't you come work for me?" Belleville took him up on the offer. Sucker!

Larry Ellison once viewed former Oracle VP Marc Benioff in the highest regard, naming him "Rookie of the Year” at the age of 23. Then the relationship went down the shitter once Benioff left the company and started his own business, Salesforce.com, and took shots at Oracle’s cloud computing strategy at OpenWorld 2010. So Ellison decided to extend the invite to its latest conference, only to cancel Benioff's keynote last minute and perform his own presentation for an hour and forty-five minutes.

Lack of 4G, OS performance issues, and weak battery life—the iPhone 4 took on many criticisms after its launch. Samsung saw the perfect opportunity to attack its opponent’s mobile flaws, while poking fun of its diehard fanboy faithful via Galaxy S II TV spots. The ads featured a line of i-Marks waiting outside an Apple store nine hours before the latest iPhone launch, making comments like “I am so amped, I could stand here for three weeks” and “If it looks the same, how will people know I upgraded?" One of them even asks, "Is this what adultery feels like?" after startng at the GS II. Talk about hitting it right on the nail.

The Sun Microsystems co-founder was never one to hold his tongue and put the entire world on notice when asked about the privacy concerns of his company's Jini technology platform. “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it," said McNealy to a group of analysts and reporters. One-shot sonning!

Soon-to-be-retired CEO Steve Ballmer took a ton of heat for his aggressively outspoken demeanor and wild on-stage antics. And while his hatred for competitive products like every i-Device was ridiculously overzealous, dude touched a technical nerve with Apple and all iPod owners when discussing Digital Rights Management protection: "We’ve had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is stolen." Truth hurts.

During Apple’s early years, co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak tried convincing Atari President Joe Keenan to purchase their latest computer, but were thrown some serious shade and belittled in the process. "Get your feet off my desk, get out of here, you stink, and we're not going to buy your product," said Keenan. Fortunately for the duo, they took it all in good stride and went on to change the personal computer landscape forever.

Thought Jobs verbal sparring session with a Gawker writer over an iPad ad was a sonning? Oracle capo Larry Ellison ethered Fortune writer Philip Elmer-Dewitt with a simple email entitled “Hey Jerk,” which questioned the journalist's work ethics and integrity: “Adelyn Lee went to jail for a year for falsely accusing me of sexual harassment. Why did you leave that out of your story you scum bag? Let me guess … your job is telling half-truths. Fortune Magazine must be very proud of you. Classy!" Should've known Ellison ain't nuthin' to F' with.

The Apple vs. PC wars in the mid-Millennium would be best compared to the Ja Rule/50 Cent battle. And we all know how that turned out. In this case, Apple straight played its competiton, pumping out over 66 TV ads in four years and making all Windows-operated machines look nearly obsleste and straight whack. Hence the high demand for MacBooks with the consumer public over the past several years.

Author of the Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson, has stories for days regarding the Apple CEO. He went on to describe one where Jobs spazzed on one of Apple’s manufacturing partners—a chip company called VSLI Technology—for being behind schedule with its CPU production. Word is he stormed into a meeting and labeled them “f*cking dickless assholes.” VSLI not only delivered the chips on time, but also had all its executives sport jackets saying “Team FDA” on the back.

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington felt the wrath of former Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz, after questioning her accomplishments in comparison to Steve Jobs at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC conference. Her response: “You are involved in a very tiny company. And it probably takes you a long time to convince yourself what the hell to do…so fuck off!” That was only 15 minutes into the conversation.

The Apple vs. Samsung patent legal battle was a massive joke that made a mockery of both tech staples. But it reached a new low when the Cupertino Clan’s attorney presented a 75-page list of last-minute witnesses to Federal Judge Lucy Koh order, who responsded to lawyer Bill Lee with the following: "I mean come on. 75 pages! 75 pages! You want me to do an order on 75 pages, (and) unless you're smoking crack, you know these witnesses aren't going to be called when you have less than four hours." You can't write this stuff.