Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across the room when Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky told Ballmer that he was leaving to join Google. This is according to an article by Verne Kopytoff of the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting on court documents containing statements by  Lucovsky in the Microsoft-Google contretemps over the hiring by Google of former Microsoft researcher Kai-Fu Lee.

Ballmer has stated that Lucovsky's version of what transpired is a "gross exaggeration." Kopytoff reported that "Lucovsky recounts that Ballmer erupted violently after Lucovsy told him he was resigning to join Google. He threw the chair across the office and then launched into profanity...(and) said of Google's chief executive that he would 'bury that guy--I have done it before and I will do it again,' according to the (court) filing."

Kopytoff also reported that Ballmer issued a statement saying that Lucovsky's "account of our conversation last November is a gross exaggeration of what actually took place. Mark's decision to leave was disappointing, and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate."

           
Mark Lucovsky                      Steve Ballmer

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