"There are many phenomenally successful people who, because they are desperate to get the thing they can't just buy, do things that they think will never get found out." @​pablotorre, the journalist who broke the Clippers-Ballmer story, explains how the former CEO of Microsoft got himself into this mess: "There are a lot of people being told by the Clippers and Ballmer's crisis PR handlers, 'This weird podcaster is clout chasing. None of this makes sense. Steve would never do this — he's Steve Ballmer.'" "The less surprising version, though, is a common one. Which is, 'He can't be this dumb.' And I dare say that one of the things you learn when you investigate financial impropriety in our great country is that that is something you should never assume." "And the problem, in this case, across these four companies and their employees, and across my reporting, is that he trusted people that he should not have trusted. And also, he maybe shouldn't have tried to do it in the first place." ▻