Bill Gates lives inside of Facebook CEO

The second coming

Knife the Beacon

And here we have the Gates clone proof.

You all remember the Gates of the Microsoft anti-trust trial, swaying back and forth in his chair, appearing like the Oscar the Grouch of Bismarckian software delivery. You remember the Gates of many CES speeches, pounding the audience with boredom via Kermit the Frog's voice. You remember the unwashed kid horrifying all those around him with his unwashedness and general disregard for human niceties.

The Zuckerberg creation replicated almost all of Gates' least charming traits during the interview through his Beacon chatter and later, for example, when 60 Minutes asked the simple question, "Do you own any suits?".

"Zero. I don't think so," he said.

Zuckerberg then turned to an off-camera public relations person - who is apparently employed by Facebook's competitors - and asked, "Do I?". And, as it turns out, Zuckerberg does in fact own one suit.

We're all for the absent-minded engineer/computer scientist/programmer. The Register loves many of these folks. It is, however, sad to see some supposed, young brainiac claim that he can't remember whether or not he owns a suit. This has to be the work of a tremendous stoner or, as we all know, a new Gates formed in a petri dish.

We think it's time for Facebook to confess about Zuckerberg's true past. Such a move would go a long way to explaining his behavior and toward helping the public deal with his personality.

If Facebook fails to do this, they'll have to keep confronting the fact that Zuckerberg doesn't come off as the quirky, odd geek next door but rather a creepy, reality-abandoning homonculus.

So, please, just tell us the truth. ®

Otto Z. Stern is a director at The Institute of Technological Values - a think tank dedicated to a more moral digital age. He has closely monitored the IT industry's intersection with America's role as a world leader for 30 years. You can find Stern locked and loaded, corralling wounded iLemmings, talking, drinking and driving, reflecting on Anna Nicole Smith's American chest, fearing Intel Inside Chinese golf clubs, suppressing Bill Gates U, digesting head mash, developing strong Mexican engineers, fearing pink Yahoo!, corrupting his youth in Sadville, masticating beta culture, finding the new Bill Gates at Facebook, booing our soccer team, following Jimmy Wales, despising U-Haul, nursing an opal-plated prostate, spanking open source fly boys, Googling Bro-Magnon Man, wearing a smashing suit, watching Dead Man, dropping a SkyCar on the Googleplex, spitting on Frenchmen, and vomiting in fear with a life-sized cutout of Hilary Rosen at his solar-powered compound somewhere in the Great American Southwest.