Maybe he can digitally alter the Giants' record

So Bill Neukom is the San Francisco Giants' new managing general partner. Interesting.

Press accounts have highlighted many of Neukom's impressive titles, including President of the American Bar Association (current) and General Counsel of Microsoft (former). They have by and large failed to note, however, the conduct of the litigation team that he led in the 1999 federal antitrust suit against his old corporation.

The following is not disputed: Neukom and the Microsoft defense presented a video that they claimed showed a few dudes making some modifications to Windows in the span of ten minutes or so--but that actually consisted of several videos, which had taken many hours to make, spliced together. David Boies figured this out, and, um, embarrassed a Microsoft executive on the stand. Neukom's quoted response at the time: "We make very good software, but we didn't make a very good videotape."

The presiding judge in the case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, was--in keeping with his approach to the bulk of the trial--mainly just confused. By contrast, Howard Shelanski, former chief economist to the FCC and UC Berkeley antitrust professor, has said of the episode: "I'd have thrown the whole legal team in prison."

Best case for the Giants: Neukom digitally alters Barry Zito's contract, thereby un-fucking-over the team for the next five to seven years.