Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Thursday gave the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) thumbs up, hailing the contributions of their students and wanting to see some of the “finest and brightest” Indian minds with him at his office.
On a visit to the IIT-Delhi, he closeted with the faculty of the Computer Science Department, getting to know from them the research being done on computers and other technologies. “Before coming here, I met with the faculty of the Computer Science Department. I got to know the kind of research being done... I have been hearing about the IIT for many, many years, and we have a lot of IIT chaps at Microsoft,” he told 1,000-odd budding engineers.
In his 40-minute speech, Mr. Ballmer referred to the faculty of the IIT-Delhi twice, when he mentioned his interaction with them and the research being done by the students.
On the first day of his job at Microsoft, Mr. Ballmer said, he was asked to read some 70 letters written by a “crazy” IIT-Delhi student to Bill Gates on why he should be recruited by the company. “I read the letters...that was my first job at the Microsoft...The letters were full of passion, and the guy talked about why he should be at Microsoft. After reading that, I decided he should be the guy whom I should recruit first,” he said.
