Bill Gates, wearing his signature blue sweater, kicked off his last CES keynote as a full time Microsoft employee with a hilarious, celebrity-packed film about what his last day at work might look like.
Introduced by NBC anchor Brian Williams, the movie showed Gates making various failed efforts to do things other than his Microsoft job. You see him working out with film star Matthew McConnaughey as his personal trainer ("Am I ready to take my shirt off yet?"), in a studio with rapper JayZee, and calling U2 frontman Bono on the phone ("I can't replace Edge because you got a high score on Guitar Hero, Bill").
Steven Spielberg calls George Clooney about a Bill Gates movie ("I can't play Bill Gates... ask Russell Crowe," Clooney says). The Daily Show's Jon Stewart turns him down as a co-anchor.
He's turned down as running mate by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ("Bill Shatner of Star Trek? Bill Clinton?" a puzzled sounding Obama says into his phone). Al Gore gets a call ("It's not an inconvenient moment...That was a good one.") And in a separate film, Bob Costas tells Gates to stop bugging him about a job on NBC's Beijing Olympics team ("Lose my number!")
Such self-deprecating and funny videos have been a hallmark of Gates' speeches and they will be missed. Nothing else in this speech will be as entertaining, even the news that MGM is bringing its film library to on-demand delivery via XBox Live.
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