Microsoft­’s Steve Ballmer is the God­fa­ther of our age. His let­ter to Yahoo’s board in their unso­licit­ed takeover attempt is the twenty-first cen­tu­ry white col­lar rewrite of The God­fa­ther’s “I’ll make him an offer he don’t
refuse”:

“Depend­ing on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right
to pur­sue all nec­es­sary steps to ensure that Yahoo’s share­hold­ers are
pro­vid­ed with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ize the val­ue inher­ent in our
proposal.”

Are the chills going up your spine? Flickr, Del​.icio​.us, Yahoo Pipes, heck half my uni­verse would sud­den­ly be run by the boys from Red­mond, coders not par­tic­u­lar­ly known for their Web 2.0 sleek­ness or social ingenuity.