Bill Gates's Playboy Interview (1994)

http://www.playboy.com/articles/bill-gates-playboy-interview/index.html

by omaranto • 16 years ago

65 20 16 years ago

bmalicoat• 16 years ago

> Say you want to watch a movie. To choose, you'll want to know what movies others liked and, based on what you thought of other movies you've seen, if this is a movie you'd like. You'll be able to browse that information. Then you select and get video on demand. Afterward, you can even share what you thought of the movie.

One of the founders of Netflix definitely had a subscription to Playboy.

patrickaljord• 16 years ago

Or Lastfm.

alanh• 16 years ago

> PLAYBOY: What's your problem with [the Apple Newton]?

> GATES: It was supposed to do handwriting recognition. But based on the initial product, people are skeptical about whether handwriting recognition really works. They did some nice technical work on the product. Unfortunately, it's not a useful device as far as I'm concerned, so it'll probably set the category back.

Gates, in the article, also described wallet-size pocket computers that, he hoped, would serve also as keyless entry systems, ticket stub replacements, etc. It’s up to the reader to wonder if his reaction to the Newton was partially disappointment to its lack of physical-world interactions/value, partially the competitive mindset, and/or really due to distaste for its handwriting recognition.

Of course, the Win CE / PocketPC line is susceptible to a lot of the same criticisms.

* * *

I find it interesting how much Gates talks about people ascribing certain motives and goals to him, Microsoft, Disney, and other companies. He says really, they are responding to competition and customers. Pretty much the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

This is part of why corporations can be so dangerous: not that they are evil, but that they aren’t guided by morality as much as simply responding to environments in potentially harmful ways.

* * *

(Aside: Boy is it weird reading articles on Playboy.com. Here's something for the intellect, dear reader; may we up-sell you on some pornography? Thank goodness for the Readability bookmarklet. At least in the magazine — I understand — the articles get pages to themselves!)

gaius• 16 years ago

Hence the visceral hatred of corporations from some quarters - a corporation is a mirror of society. People may say they want mom'n'pop stores, but they shop at Walmart, for example. How people choose to spend their own money reveals the truth about what they believe. Some don't like that being held up for the world to see.

10ren• 16 years ago

Interesting point: What was the first microcomputer software company? Microsoft.

But both these were third-generation copies: And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel?

samg• 16 years ago

Interesting that in 1994 6.1 billion made you the second richest man in the country. And that Microsoft's $25 billion market cap is compared with Kodak.

Jun82• 16 years ago

This interview is gold in so many different ways. Of course, there's the predictions that are laughable now:

>We are involved in a new generation of fax machines that we think will be better and easier to use. And a generation of screen phones [a standard phone with a minicomputer] in which the typically cryptic buttons are replaced with a graphics interface. And in the home environment, something you can carry in your pocket called the Wallet PC.

>PLAYBOY: In your pocket?

>GATES: It's a futuristic device unlike today's personal digital assistants.

But it also shows the human side of Gates (his family nickname is Trey) and how really intelligent and quick he is. A lot of clueless people think he's just a corporate raider, incomparable to Jobs, they're quite wrong. I've heard many stories from my friends at Microsoft about him interacting directly with engineers, asking very sport on questions. Believe me, this kind of thing is rare in some other tech companies, where MBA types rule. Not many people could have handles an interview like this one.

I also remembered once again how good the articles and fiction on Playboy used to be. Yea, yea, "I read it for the articles" is a common joke, but do you realize that many top writers, including Oates, Updike, Nabokov, and (this seemed incredible) Borges have published stories there?

vecter• 16 years ago

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic about his prediction, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are :)

As for Bill Gates being a "smart guy", he's actually a brilliant guy, in the math sense: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1420612

apu• 16 years ago

It's not just in the math sense. Everyone I know who's met him (including some of the very smartest people I know) have been very impressed by his ability to quickly grasp the fundamentals and even the minor consequences of a particular idea or action.

Jun82• 16 years ago

Actually I wasn't :-) What I thought funny were (i) the concept of futuristic fax machines (do people realize that most of these still have internal modems at 9600 baud?) (ii) the naiveté of the term "screen phone", it's so much more charming than "smart phone", and (iii) the description of it as a "phone with a minicomputer". Minicomputer indeed, today's 1GHz phone processors are more powerful (and probably have more memory) than the Compaq laptop Gates was using then.

sprout• 16 years ago

>GATES: The idea of how you run software development properly is not something you can capture in a few sentences. It's how you hire people, organize people, how you plan the spec, how you let it change, how you do the testing, how you get feedback from customers. IBM's only real software success had been with mainframes, where they were the only choice. Consequently IBM didn't develop those processes very well.

>PLAYBOY: Could that be happening to Microsoft now? In terms of corporate power, your company has been called the new IBM.

>GATES: I've thought about that, but I don't think so.

I'd like to hear his answer to that from 2000, 2005, and today. I feel like most people would agree Microsoft has fallen victim to a similar lack of bureaucratic vision.

dylanz• 16 years ago

OT: I'm on 8th street in Bellevue today, and I swear Bill pulls up right next to me at the stop light. I shout, "Whoa! Bill Gates!"... and my 5 year old says. "I don't know Bill Gates". A chip off the ol' block :)

zandorg2• 16 years ago

I once read (in maybe 2003) that Bill Gates stopped his limo downtown in some slum and was boasting to some rough 'homeys' about being the richest man in the world. His PA told him to get back in the car as he was in danger.

I just wish I could find the original story but it's gone offline now.

pgbovine• 16 years ago

uhhhh that seems incredibly unlikely to me, given his public persona, at least. i can't imagine how a man who started the Gates Foundation would ever do such a thing.

alexitosrv• 16 years ago

That's one of the best interviews made to Mr. Gates I had ever read. The interviewer was knowledgeable enough to ask right questions and the style was great. Nice to see that in perspective.

Kluny• 16 years ago

I couldn't find a byline on the article, but I have a feeling the Playboy interviewer was this guy: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Interview-Lessons-Master-Craft/dp/... .

That book is an excellent read. It kind of startled me to discover that one of the best interviewers I've ever read worked for Playboy. I guess it really is worth reading "for the articles"?

Anon84• 16 years ago

    We sent Contributing Editor David Rensin to Redmond to 
    speak with Gates. Rensin, who wrote our Bill Gates 
    profile in 1991, reports:"

d_c• 16 years ago

I'm not a native speaker, so here it goes:

What's up with the raspberries?

jdale27• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_a_raspberry

Bill Gates's Playboy Interview (1994)

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