Satya Nadella has the brains and experience to become Microsoft’s CEO — but does he have the pointy tongue of Gates or Ballmer? Match these Microsoft CEO quotes to their outspoken owners.

Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has some big shoes to fill. He faces great expectations with regards to innovation and profit, his predecessors set the bar very high, yada yada yada… But that is not what I’m talking about.

Microsoft’s new leader will play follow-as much as two of one of the most prolifically quotable CEOs in history. Nadella, displaying a passion for cricket, a powerful intellect, and a borderline-hipster wardrobe, is already carving out an identity. But he has nothing at the cult of personality that formed around Gates. When a satirical website claimed the Microsoft founder told a reporter, “I provide you with 1,000,000 bucks, and that i get to sever your arm here,” and “Let’s accept it, the common computer user has the brain of a spider monkey,” many perceived the statements as fact — really, some wounded PC users were still lamenting the faux comments years later.

[Will Satya Nadella and Bill Gates click? Read Nadella, Gates: Right Team for Microsoft?]

Nadella’s public persona can’t compare to Ballmer’s, either — no less than not until the recent boss has had a gamble, as Ballmer did on several occasions, to spit on an Apple product that subsequently goes directly to redefine the industry. No, when it comes to headline-grabbing outlandishness, Nadella remains a rookie among wizards.

Need a refresher on Gates’s and Ballmer’s most outrageous and insightful statements? Take our quiz, which features 12 zingers from not just Microsoft’s first two CEOs, but additionally Nadella, who’s already offered a couple of noteworthy statements as he’s risen during the ranks. The answers are at the next page (no peeking.)

When you’re done, use the comments section to jot down to your vote for the wackiest tech CEO quote of all time. It’d be this type of — or one from an excellent more colorful character. We can report back at the write-in winner. Do bring your humorousness; just keep it safe for work.

Now put your Microsoft cred at the line. Which Microsoft CEO said:

1. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

2. “Our industry doesn’t respect tradition — it only respects innovation.”

3. “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That is the way that the license works.”

4. “You may hear me say ‘That’s the dumbest idea I actually have ever heard’ mostly during a gathering.”

5. “i will f**king bury that guy. i’ve done it before, and that i will do it again.”

6. “About three million computers get sold annually in China, but people don’t pay for the software. Someday they’ll, though. So long as they will steal it, we’d like them to steal ours. They’ll get type of addicted, after which we’ll somehow work out how one can collect sometime inside the next decade.”

7. “Legacy is a stupid thing! i do not desire a legacy.”

8. “They yell at you, they’ll scream at you, they’ll variety of say you’re crazy and you’re destroying this place. And all of the melodrama aside, you come at it with the information, with the — together with your own conviction, because a variety of that stuff is all to check whether you recognize what you’re talking about.”

9. “What’s it about sarcasm in a gathering? Or simply going, ‘This is absolutely screwed up’?”

10. “There is not any chance that the iPhone goes to get any significant market share. No chance. It is a $500 subsidized item.”

11. “All in, baby… We’re winning, winning, winning, winning, winning.”

12. “Now everyone is saying, ‘Hey, where did you return from? You guys were getting your ass kicked by VMware.’ “

Wow! (We resisted any mention of cream pies or developer dances.) See page 2 for the answers…

Michael Endler joined InformationWeek as an associate editor in 2012. He previously worked in talent representation within the entertainment industry, as a contract copywriter and photojournalist, and as a teacher. Michael earned a BA in English from Stanford University in 2005 … View Full Bio

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