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- Every year I set aside at least one "think week" to get away and update
- myself on the latest technical developments -- reading PhD theses, using
- competitive products, reading books, newsletters and anything I can get
- my hands on. Several valuable thoughts have come out of these retreats
- (tables for Word, outlining in Excel, treating DOS as more of an asset),
- however the complexity of the industry and its techology means that a lot
- of my time is spent just trying to keep up rather than coming up with new
- product ideas. It is no longer possible for any person, even our "architects",
- to understand everything that is going on. Networking, processors, linguistics,
- multimedia, development tools, and user interfaces are just a subset of the
- technologies that will affect Microsoft. My role is to understand enough
- to set direction. I enjoy these weeks a great deal -- not because I get
- away from the issues of running Microsoft but rather because I get to
more
- think more clearly about how to best lead the company away from problems
toward
- and toward opportunities. A lot of people choose things for me to read. By
- the end of the week I make an effort to synthesize the best ideas and
our
- make our technical strategy clear.
[...]
Recently a long time employee mentioned that we seem to have more
- make our technical strategy clear.
- challenges facing us now than ever before. Although I agree that it feels that way
- I can say with confidence that it has felt that way every year for the
- last 15. We decided to pursue a broad product strategy from the very
- beginning of the company and that means we have a lot of competitors.
[...]
RIGIDITY/PRICING: In the Autodesk memo, Walker talks about the short term
- beginning of the company and that means we have a lot of competitors.
- thinking that high profitability can generate. He cites specific examples
- such as a very conservative approach to giving out free software or a desire
- to maintain fixed percentages for the wrong reasons. Microsoft priced DOS
- even lower than we do today to help it get established. I wonder if we would
- be as aggressive today. This is not a simplistic advocacy for just lowering
- our prices -- our prices in the US are about where they should be. However
- the price of success is that people fail to allow the kind of investments
- that will lead to incredible profits in the future. For example we have
- gotten away without funding any internal or external research. Nathan
working
- is working with me to put together a
- plan that will end up costing $10M
- per year about two years from now. I have no plan to reduce our spending
- in some other category by $10M. Microsoft is good at investing in
subsidaries
- new subsidiaries and even at investing in new products (database, mail, BBU,
- networking). Most of our rigidity comes when we have a very
product
- profitable product and when the market changes. In these circumstances we should
- spend more or charge less, but our systems locks us into staying the same and
- losing share.
[...]
When the US Goverment DOD moves software procurement to a separate contract,
- losing share.
the
- the price per user of software will end up around 0. Why shouldn't some small
- organization price their product at say $1M for the entire US Government for
- all time? We would if we were small and hungry. Fortunately most organizations
- don't force cheap software on their end users.
Another price concern that I have is that companies will eventually equip
- don't force cheap software on their end users.
- all the employees that need software with a full complement of packages,
- and our only revenue opportunity will be upgrades or ephermeral information.
- although this problem is over five years away, I think it is important to
- keep in mind. [Nathan: They've now moved to a subscription model for Microsoft Office.]
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- 2014.03.14 - American Enterprise Institute - A conversation on poverty and prosperity
- 25:40 - Gates points out that a lot of African children are not developing to their cognitive potential because of malnutrition / cerebral malaria / etc.
- 29:40 - Gates gives advice on choosing a philanthropic interest that seems equally relevant to choosing a career
- 31:30 - Someone asks him why he supports the common core
- ~45 - Bill Gates starts talking about software substitution
- 59 - Gates says they focus on two things: education in the US and global health
- 2013.05.12 - CBS News with Charlie Rose - Bill Gates 2.0
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- Bill shows off his book collection. He has a huge collection of Teaching Company lectures on natural sciences. He carries around a big sack of paper books and likes to write comments in the front of the book.
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- Charlie Rose asks about Bill's old aggressive behavior; Bill says that it was because he was treating other people the way he treats himself, which is to be very tough on himself when he makes a mistake. He says he's learned that other people don't always respond to that tough response the same way he does (which is to get motivated to do better).
- 2016.10.17 - The David Rubenstein Show - Bill Gates Full Interview