Granted, he probably would have chosen Apple instead, but it looks like U2's Bono would have fit in well at Microsoft, if that rock-n-roll thing hadn't worked out for him. Time magazine's cover story about its "Persons of the Year" explains the impression Bono left on Bill Gates during their first meeting:

Such is the nature of Bono's fame that just about everyone in the world wants to meet him -- except for the richest man in the world, who thought it would be a waste of time. "World health is immensely complicated," says Gates, recalling that first encounter in 2002. "It doesn't really boil down to a 'Let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be all that valuable."

It took about three minutes with Bono for Gates to change his mind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another computer nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts and data with a tenderness most people reserve for their children, and Bono was hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up. "He was every bit the geek that we are," says Gates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who helped broker that first summit. "He just happens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician."

Coverage of Time's "Persons of the Year": Associated Press, CNN, and Reuters.