I found this at Forbes entitled "Why More CEOs Should Drink Beer", a column about about that guy who said he had too much beer a bit, odd or at least unusual:
Mason is 31 years old and running a hot tech company in Chicago. Hot tech companies are filled with smart, young people like Mason who work hard and play hard. This is a generation that has grown up under an avalanche of rules and supervision laid down upon them by their boomer-era parents, many who believe that it was fine for them to smoke dope and protest authority but would never let their children do the same. Because now they’re the authority. How does a guy like Mason, and all the employees of his generation, show their “rebellious” side? They have a beer at a company meeting. Big deal. It’s cool. It safely demonstrates their defiance. I’m sure his insurance broker was having a heart attack. But it’s not over-the-top crazy. Which is why drinking beer and then joking about it at a company meeting to build camaraderie with his employees makes perfect sense. Only a 31 year old CEO could know this.
Really? I can't think of a time in my working life where I have not had a beer with the bosses once in a while. Tends to be because the bosses all pretty much like beer. The real twist in this story is not that the guy is 31 or that it is a tech company or that the "generation" of folk who have been involved with IT for, let's count fingers, at least 30 years according to my circle of experience are especially cool. They actually represent a group which is less inclined to drink to any great degree if I think about it. A long time ago a pal who was a drummer put it that he did not have much interest in drinking because he didn't need to. The drumming filled that place for him. Some interests are just like that. IT guys. Hockey goalies come to mind. They are focused.
It strikes me that maybe what the CEO was expressing as much was a loss of something. Absolute control of his company given the need to kiss up to investors and other business folk? The separation from familiar others with whom the rapidly growing had been built? Maybe just silent slinking realization that being 31 isn't being 23. These things can distract the focused mind. Or maybe he's just a little clumsy socially. As in he doesn't have all that much time for beer. Maybe he actually just had a bit too much.






Comments
Ron Pattinson - May 6, 2012 5:28 AM
Mmm.. My experience of working in IT is that a high percentage of IT people (at least the British ones) are pissheads. The classi obe being designing a new application on the back of a beermat, because the discussion was in a pub.