Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

Famous: Mario Andretti, William Shatner, Lou Gerstner – CEO of IBM. All were speakers at Conferences, so I got to meet them. All were gracious and nice. I ate dinner many times with Chet Hanson, assistant to 5 Star General Omar Bradley. I worked with his daughter at IBM. I was a personal friend of Gina Smith, of Good Morning America, and the author of iWoz. She worked for me before she became famous.

Infamous: Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. I also met them at computer conferences. I put them in the infamous category for what they’ve done to people. I would have avoided them if I could, but the situation forced us to be together.

Regarding Bill Gates, I worked on the same hall at IBM with Dave Bradley, the inventor of Ctrl-Alt-Del. At the 20th anniversary roundtable of the introduction of the IBM PC. Dave said he wrote the program during his speech, but Gates made it famous. Everyone but Gates laughed.

Although I didn’t meet them, I was in line next to Muhammad Ali at LaGuardia. He was in the late stages of Parkinson’s, so I left him alone. I saw Joe Frazier and Marvin Hagler in Vegas, but I didn’t bother them. They were smaller than I thought. I ate dinner at the table next to Bo Derek right after the movie 10 was released. I was surprised at how small she was. I wasn’t surprised at how hot she was. Joe Namath and I checked in together at the same hotel in Boston. He was also smaller than I thought. We just talked like guys do about sports. Dan Marino was a star at the time, and we talked about his quick release.

I got stared down by Ann Coulter at an airport for way longer than normal. It was almost like I reminded her of someone she had looked so long, and she was trying to figure out who I was. I knew who she was, but couldn’t figure out why she would look at me. I smiled, and so did she. It was one of those smiles a girl gives you when you’re the one, not a hello, how do you do smile. Then we went to our flights and that was that.

Famous people are tough to deal with. They come with a squad to keep people away. Everyone wants a piece of them, so I just walk on by.

I had to schedule famous speakers for events I ran, but I rarely talked to them. Their handlers were difficult to deal with, so by then, I didn’t want to deal with them.

Fame is a curse. You can’t go anywhere without being mobbed. and your private life is removed forever. I’ll take the peace and quiet.