The point is, Internet Explorer is popular and widely used. And yet, among Silicon Valley elites, it might as well be invisible. Google Chrome, with its six-week update cycles and unabashed geekiness, is the default browser of web developers, the tech press, and hipsters in general. IE is a tarnished brand, considered old, slow, and tragically uncool. It’s the browser everyone loves to hate. It doesn’t matter that Internet Explorer 9 is a modern browser, with excellent performance and a level of security that is arguably higher than its rivals. No one in Silicon Valley would even think of running IE. It's literally a non-starter. IE is not the only brand that was born in Redmond and now suffers from negative public perception. There’s also Hotmail, the original free webmail service, which celebrates its 16th birthday this week. Microsoft bought the service back in 1997, when it was just over a year old. Today, hundreds of millions of people use Hotmail every month. But having Hotmail.com as part of your primary email address suggests to the world—at least that part of the world that is bordered by San Francisco on the north and San Jose on the south—that you spend your days feeding pigeons in the park and screaming at little kids to get off your lawn.