I’ve been watching the keynote address live from the MIX08 conference. Steve Ballmer is being interviewed by Guy Kawasaki. While I like Steve Ballmer, I already miss Bill Gates as he begins reducing his activity with Microsoft. Bill’s interest in technology and the industry was/is like a “little-kid” type of mentality–he’s always excited about the technology–about what it could do and how it could benefit people and just how “cool” everything is to “play” with to improves peoples’ lives. In keynotes I’ve heard with Bill, he always sounded that way anyway. Steve seems to come off a little bit more focused on the value to Microsoft and its shareholders…very important, but maybe not as “endearing”. Bill, we miss you already. (not sure about copyright issues, but Brett Favre pic was borrowed from ESPN).