Why Microsoft Office's Clippy had to die, according to the Microsoft exec who killed him

This week at the Microsoft Build conference, CEO Satya Nadella spent a lot of time talking up chat bots, robots that help you get stuff done through normal human conversations. But for those of us who remember using Microsoft Office in the 1990s and early 2000s, the concept raises the specter of Clippy -- the paper-clip-shaped, animated help tool that was supposed to answer basic questions in plain speech, but became an icon of annoyance. Clippy debuted to much fanfare in Microsoft Office 97 and appeared in other products, such as Microsoft Publisher. But the negative reaction to Clippy caused Microsoft to gradually phase him out. And by 2008, Clippy had disappeared completely, without a trace or any explanation.