In today's world of high profile multi-national corporations, where some companies quite literally have more power and wealth than many small countries, the heads of these companies, the CEOs, are celebrities. But unlike celebrities, CEOs are often as hated, as they are loved. The world is filled with WTO protestors, NAFTA opponents, disgruntled former employees and jealous competitors, not to mention stalker fans and old-fashioned nut-jobs. Once someone has reached the status and notoriety of a Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison or Bill Gates, they must be on guard at all times. Unfortunately, many of them are not adequately prepared.

On December 2, 1999 Bill Gates, the richest, most powerful businessman in the world, encountered a dangerously obsessed and very bright assailant. Although Mr. Gates did have a security team with him at the time, this team was not enough to save him. The task in an open environment such as a park in an urban metropolis was difficult, but far from impossible. When something goes wrong there are always plenty of excuses, some of them are even valid. However, when lives are on the line and your job is to protect those lives, there can be no mistakes, no excuses.

I am not in the habit of criticizing events which I do not have first hand knowledge of, however, we can see the roots of Mr. Gates' security problem all the way back in 1998 when Mr. Gates was attacked in Belgium. That time it was only with pies. However, in that incident, a drunken hell-raiser was able to physically put a cream pie into Mr. Gates' face.

In viewing the videotape footage of the "pie incident", you can plainly see that there were at least a half-dozen people dangerously close to Mr. Gates at the time of the attack. The pie-ing itself could have been prevented by an alert security officer giving a simple "Mr. Gates, step toward me" and then dealing with the threat appropriately. If, instead of a pie, that hand had held a knife, or a gun, it wouldn't have been such a humorous affair.

The attacking force (which reportedly consisted of over 30 team members plus a Microsoft insider tipping them off) was passionate about their work, but they were not trained, they were not willing to die for their cause and they were admittedly drunk on Trappist ale. For such a low-level threat to actually get through and touch their client tells me that either Mr. Gates did not believe in tight security (an attitude most often found in "overnight celebrities") or his security team failed him miserably. Judging by the security team's half-hearted reaction to the pie-ing (the sum total of which was a confused glare by one bodyguard in the direction of the attacker), I am compelled to believe he had hired inadequate, under-trained security. According to what we know of the MacArthur Park attack, which occurred almost two years later, I further believe he was perpetually ill-advised in his security preparations.

With that said, I admit, we will never know all the details of Bill Gates' assassination. Furthermore, we will never know the full extent of Microsoft's security measures, and justifiably so. Microsoft has other officers to protect and divulging too many details would jeopardize ongoing security efforts. I only hope that Mr. Gates' tragic death has served as a warning to other companies. CEOs need to be treated, as the world leaders that they are and protected the way presidents would be.