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比尔·盖茨The Bill Gates Interview
A candid conversation with
the sultan of software about outsmarting his rivals
"The Wallet PC is a futuristic device. Instead
of having tickets to the theater, your Wallet PC will digitally
prove that you paid. It's our vision of the small, portable PC of,
say, five years from now."
"If we weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead,
it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear
should guide you, but it should be latent. I consider failure on
a regular basis."
"We bet the company on Windows and we deserve to benefit. It
was a risk that's paid off immensely. In retrospect, committing
to the graphics interface seems so obvious that now it's hard to
keep a straight face."
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A youngish man who looks like a graduate student sits on the door
of his unpretentious dormlike room, spooning Thai noodles from a
plastic container. His glasses are smudged, his clothes are wrinkled,
his hair is tousled like a boy's. But, when he talks, people listen.
Certainly no person on the campus can talk about the future, as
he does, with the riveting authority of someone who not only knows
what's in store for tomorrow but is a major force in shaping that
future as well.
Yet this is an office, not a dorm room. And, while everyone calls
the complex of 25 buildings a campus, it's not a college or university.
It's the sprawling Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
And the speaker is no grad student. He's William H. Gates III, chief
executive and co-founder of the largest software company in the
world, which made $953 million last year on sales of $3.75 billion.
As Microsoft's largest stockholder, he's worth nearly $6.1 billion,
making him this country's second wealthiest man and, at 38, its
youngest self-made billionaire. (Gates pal, investor Warren Buffett,
is first, though they occasionally trade places depending on stock
prices.)
Microsoft's wealth and power just grow and grow,
asserts Fortune magazine. CEO Bill Gates could buy out an entire
years production of his 99 nearest competitors, burn it, and still
be worth more than Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. Microsoft's $25
billion market value tops that of Ford, General Motors, 3M, Boeing,
RJR Nabisco, General Mills, Anheuser-Busch or Eastman Kodak.
With size comes power. Microsoft dominates the PC
market with its MS-DOS operating system, the basic software that
lets the computer understand your commands and carry them out. MS-DOS
runs on 90 percent of the worlds IBM and IBM-clone computers. Microsoft
has extended that presence with Windows, a graphics interface environment
that runs on top of MS-DOS and will, according to Gates, replace
DOS in future versions. Microsoft also supplies about 50 percent
of the worlds software applications: programs such as Excel (spreadsheets),
Microsoft Word (word processing) and Access (data bases). It is
also in the business of networking. And multimedia. And CD-ROMs.
And books. And as an early supporter of the Macintosh computer,
Microsoft virtually owns the Mac application market.
The future looks equally promising. Gates recently
announced that Microsoft and McCaw Cellular Communications will
form a joint 840-satellite global communications network. At the
same time, Gates also acknowledged that he was in high-level negotiations
with AT&T about a series of ventures that could include interactive
television, on-line computer services and software. This is in addition
to a previously announced joint venture with Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone, the worlds second-largest phone company, and with cable
giant John Malone and his Tele-Communications, Inc. aimed at launching
a digital cable TV network for computer users. Viewers would be
able to interact with programs, download software and shop for products
and services. Other partnerships loom as well, including ones with
publishing companies and Hollywood studios.
Gates insists that Microsoft has to keep running
full speed just to stay in place. But that hasn't stopped his enemies
from engaging in constant Bill-bashing. His competitors accuse Microsoft
of unfair business practices, and his allies consider themselves
fortunate to be on his good side. Given the fluidity of partnerships
and strategic alliances in the computer industries, today's friends
could easily become tomorrows foes and vice versa, if Gates thinks
it advantageous.
Nor is Gates immune from official attack, as evidenced
by a three-year Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible
monopolistic tendencies stemming in part from the success of Windows
over IBMs OS/2 created in tandem with Microsoft. The FTC dropped
the case but, uncharacteristically, it was picked up again, this
time by the Justice Department. Gates insists "the hard-core
truth is that we've done nothing wrong." But the investigation
continues, and Gates has other problems as well. Microsoft recently
lost a $120 million lawsuit led by Stac Electronics and is planning
an appeal. Stac claimed Microsoft's Doublespace hard disk compression
utility infringed on its patents for Stacker, the compression utility
Microsoft had originally wanted to include with its new versions
of MS-DOS. (Its worth noting, though, that Stac also had to pay
Microsoft $13 million in damages for misappropriated trade secrets.)
Gates is part scientist, part businessman and he's
surprisingly good at both roles. If he's not flying off somewhere
(he often travels coach despite his wealth), his day is an endless
series of meetings. Gates cruises the Microsoft campus at a breakneck
pace to check on the progress of his young, idealistic and fiercely
competitive programming jocks: Wired magazine calls them Microserfs.
He listens to presentations, praises some ideas and criticizes others
as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard".
Since founding Microsoft in 1975 with Harvard pal
Paul Allen, Gates has been described as everything from a capitalist
brainiac to a plain old nerd. The New Yorker wrote: To many people,
the rise of Bill Gates marks the revenge of the nerd. Actually,
Gates probably represents the end of the word nerd as we know it.
Maybe that's why a software competitor and friend once called him
one part Albert Einstein, one part John McEnroe and one part General
Patton. (Must be somebody who likes me, mused Gates.)
Bill Gates was born into a well-to-do Seattle family.
His father, William H. Gates II, is a prominent attorney. His mother,
Mary, is a University of Washington regent and a director of First
Interstate Bank. Hoping to alter young Bills rebellious streak,
his parents put him into Lakeside, an academically rigorous private
school in Seattle. It was there that he met eventual business partner
Paul Allen and discovered computers. Soon Gates was programming
in his spare time and making money at it. He was in the eighth grade.
Gates entered Harvard in 1973, and dropped out two
years later when he and Allen wrote a version of BASIC computer
language that worked on the new Altair computer. He and Allen moved
to Albuquerque, where the Altair was built, and started Micro-soft.
In 1979, Gates and Allen moved the company, but not the hyphen,
to Seattle. In 1980, when IBM turned to Microsoft in its search
for an operating system, the modern PC era began in earnest.
Allen left the company a few years later when he
was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, but he has since recovered
and re-emerged. With his own Microsoft billions, Allen now owns
the Portland Trailblazers basketball team, his own software company
(Asymetrics), Ticketmaster and a large chunk of the America Online
service.
We sent Contributing Editor David Rensin to Redmond
to speak with Gates. Rensin, who wrote our Bill Gates profile in
1991, reports:
"A couple of years ago you checked in at Microsoft
simply by giving your name to the receptionist. Now you type your
name and destination into a Compaq notebook computer at the front
desk and it prints out your building pass."
"However, not much had changed inside Gates'
office since my last visit. A poster for the Russian version of
DOS 4.01 had been replaced by a poster of Intel's Pentium chip.
His coffee table had been cleaned up and the computer and monitor
were different. Gates uses a Compaq 486/25 Lite notebook (he has
docking stations at the office and at home) and is looking forward
to getting a Compaq Concerto notebook. Otherwise, Gates doesn't
have lots of time to tinker with the newest computer hot rods."
"When Bill is talking about computers, technology,
business strategy, biotechnology, or his vision of the future, youre
amazed at the amount of information in his head, and at his facility
at sifting through it and drawing surprising conclusions. On his
personal life, he can be somewhat defensive, reluctantly talking
about his parents, his recent marriage to co-worker Melinda French
and his life away from the campus."
"True to his reputation, Bill would rock furiously
at times. Other times he would stand and pace or stare out the window.
Once, as we were talking about his problems with IBM, he picked
up a heavy rulersome kind of paperweight or award and slapped it
repeatedly into his hand."
"I decided, at least for that moment, to stick
with less controversial questions."
PLAYBOY: Let's start small. Explain the future.
GATES: OK. [Laughs] Today, the PC is used as a primary
tool for creating documents of many types; word processing, spreadsheets,
presentations. But by and large, when you want to find a document,
archive it or transmit it, you don't really use the electronic form.
You get it out on paper and send it. In the coming information age,
access to documents, broadly defined, will be done electronically,
just by traveling across a network that people now call an information
highway. It's also called digital convergence, a term popularized
by John Sculley, and information at your fingertips, a term I use
a lot. I'm quite content this will happen. I could be wrong about
how quickly.
PLAYBOY: How soon?
GATES: Optimists think three years. Others think
ten. I'm a convert. I'm spending almost $100 million a year to build
the kind of software that will help make this thing work, make it
easy to use, protect privacy in the right way. I think it's possible
that in three or four years we'll have millions of people hooked
up.
PLAYBOY: Coming soon: a nation of couch potatoes?
GATES: You can already stay glued to the box. But
this box is a facilitator. It can save time, which you can then
put into the things you want to do. For a lot of people that will
mean getting away from the box.
PLAYBOY: Besides finding documents, what will we
be able to do?
GATES: 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. But thinking of it only in terms of movies
on demand trivializes the ultimate impact. The way we find information
and make decisions will be changed. Think about how you find people
with common interests, how you pick a doctor, how you decide what
book to read. Right now, its hard to reach out to a broad range
of people. You are tied into the physical community near you. But
in the new environment, because of how information is stored and
accessed, that community will expand. This tool will be empowering,
the infrastructure will be built quickly and the impact will be
broad.
PLAYBOY: What about those who say things won't change
that much, that it's mostly blue-sky?
GATES: It's as blue-sky as the PC was six or seven
years before it became a phenomenon.
PLAYBOY: How will Microsoft participate in the information
highway?
GATES: The current interactive user interface doesn't
consist of much. It doesn't have the shared information and the
reviews, the niceties that will make people want the systems. Microsoft
is spending a lot of money to build software that we think is better.
It will run in the box in your home that controls your set as you
make choices. We're involved in creating the much bigger piece of
software at the other end of the fiber-optic cable, the program
that runs on the computer, which stores the movie data base, the
directory and everything else.
PLAYBOY: The mainframe?
GATES: The successor to the mainframe. But its speed
and data capacity go beyond what's now used to do airline reservations
or credit card data bases. Watching a movie doesn't require much
computer power. Youre just picking the information off the magnetic
disc, putting it on the wire and sending it. But if you're synthesizing
a 3-D scene, kind of a virtual reality thing, with 20 people in
a multiplayer game, then you have some computation. Or say the President
is making a speech. Everybody in the nation gets to push little
buttons to say yea or nay, and gathering all that information so
it can be displayed within a second or two is tricky. But it's all
within the state of the art. You don't have to be a dreamer to know
that the technology will not limit the construction of the information
highway.
PLAYBOY: How will being able to respond directly
to the president alter our system of government?
GATES: The idea of representative democracy will
change. Today, we claim we don't use direct democracy because it
would be impractical to poll everybody on every issue. The truth
is that we use representative democracy because we want to get an
above-average group to think through problems and make choices that,
in the short term, might not be obvious, even if they are to everybody's
benefit over the long term.
PLAYBOY: Do you agree?
GATES: Yes. When making choices, or setting policies
about the economy, education or medicine, society is best served
by electing people who are particularly hardworking, intelligent
and interested in long-term thinking.
PLAYBOY: You're giving our current elected officials
a lot of credit.
GATES: What we have may be less than ideal, but
it's still better than direct democracy. Anyway, we'll no longer
be able to hide behind the excuse that we don't have the technology
to gather the opinions.
PLAYBOY: What else is Microsoft involved in? Weve
heard about software that can control washing machines, for instance.
GATES: [Laughs] The washing machine example is extreme,
but people do sometimes kid us that we see an opportunity to sell
our software in broad areas. 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. We're also working on software that runs in printers.
We've worked with people on car navigation systems. 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 todays personal
digital assistants. Instead of using keys to enter your house, the
Wallet PC identifies that you're allowed to go into a certain door
and it happens electronically. Instead of having tickets to the
theater, your Wallet PC will digitally prove that you paid. When
you want to board a plane, instead of showing your tickets to 29
people, you just use this. You have digital certificates. Digital
money. It has a global positioning thing in it, so you can see a
map of where you are and where you might want to go. It's our vision
of the small, portable PC of, say, five years from now.
PLAYBOY: Do you use a PDA?
GATES: I carry a standard 486 portable machine with
me whenever I travel, because I have my e-mail on it. I used one
of the original Newtons for a week, and its available if you'd like
it.
PLAYBOY: Whats your problem with it?
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, its not a useful device as far
as I'm concerned, so it'll probably set the category back.
PLAYBOY: You've been meeting with people such as
QVC head Barry Diller, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, agent Mike Ovitz,
John Malone of TCI and Gerald Levin of Time Warner to mastermind
the future. Who sought out whom?
GATES: Its a good mix. Ovitz called me. He understands
the opportunities of the new media. He thought it would be valuable
to see how our visions meshed. He wants to make sure that when he's
doing deals he's reserving rights for his clients in the best way.
He wants us to think about licensing rights as were doing titles.
PLAYBOY: That's what you can do for Ovitz. What
can he do for you?
GATES: So many things. He can help us get the word
out in Hollywood that we want to team up with people to do multimedia
titles. Mike can help us create ways to explain how these new tools
are the studio of the future.
PLAYBOY: We hear so much about Ovitz, but never
from him. What kind of guy is he?
GATES: It's strange when you read a lot in the press
about somebody before you meet him. I don't know that much about
Hollywood and its dynamics, so when I read this long piece on Ovitz
in The New Yorker, it made me go, Whoa! I better be careful. Actually,
he's a pretty personable guy. And, when you think about it, how
could he be successful in that business without that kind of skill?
PLAYBOY: One might think he would be intimidated
by you.
GATES: Sure. Not that I hoped for that. We've had
lots of long dinners, and I went down and saw Creative Artists Agency.
Its actually been almost two years since we first started talking
with each other. We come from our own domains, where we're clearly
hardworking, focused, quite successful. The issue is, what's the
opportunity to work together? I've gotten to know a lot of these
people over the past 18 months, and they are much more down-to-earth,
practical, even humble, than you'd expect.
PLAYBOY: For instance?
GATES: Murdoch's a fairly quiet guy. Clearly brilliant,
but quiet. Malone is straightforward in terms of talking about technology
and strategy. He and I are damn similar. He worked at Bell Labs
and understands both business and technology. We have a lot more
in common than some of the other people these joint-venture things
have exposed me to. I've met Diller several times. He came up here
twice before landing at QVC, when he was just driving around and
looking at the possibilities. He spent a lot of time here. He's
a very sharp guy. He asked good questions. Not everybody loves him,
but they all respect the hell out of him. Apparently he's a tough
manager.
PLAYBOY: Meet any movie stars yet?
GATES: No. [Pauses] Actually, I did. I went to this
Golden Plate thing where there were quite a few movie stars: Barbra
Streisand, Dolly Parton, Kevin-what's his name?
PLAYBOY: Costner?
GATES: That's a mental lapse, just to completely
embarrass myself. I talked to Michael Crichton quite a bit, but
he's not a movie star.
PLAYBOY: Did any of the celebrities recognize you?
GATES: I don't think so. But some of the scientists
did. And a lot of the kids did, because kids tend to use computers
more.
PLAYBOY: They had no idea they were shaking hands
with the second richest guy in America?
GATES: No.
PLAYBOY: By the way, how much are you worth at this
moment?
GATES: Well, remember, I don't own dollars. I own
Microsoft stock. So it's only through multiplication that you convert
what I own into some scary number.
PLAYBOY: Are people more intimidated by your brains
or your money?
GATES: Not many people are intimidated by either.
Here at work we're all just trying to get a job done. My people
have the confidence of their convictions and they know their skills.
And that occupies most of my time. The people I buy burgers from
aren't intimidated, either. [Laughs] We all suffer from being hyped
up in the press. These markets are very competitive. When people
say things like, Bill Gates controls this or Malone controls this
or Ovitz controls that, I hope people don't really believe it. Because
every day were saying, How can we keep this customer happy? How
can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't,
somebody else will? If anything, people underestimate how effective
capitalism is at keeping even the most successful companies on the
edge.
PLAYBOY: Since you and Paul Allen started Microsoft
in 1975, the company's capacity for renewal has been unerring and
wildly profitable. If you could sum up the corporate ethos in one
sentence, what would it be?
GATES: Lets use our heads and think and do better
software than anyone else.
PLAYBOY: How soon did it become more business than
fun?
GATES: Pretty early, when I hired four guys and
one of them didn't come in for a couple days. I said, Damn it, we're
not going to get this stuff done. People are going to be upset.
I've got salaries to pay. Fun became a serious responsibility. Back
then I used to compute how much software we had to sell each day.
I was directly involved in everything. I knew at ten in the morning
if I'd already sold that days worth of software. If I had, then
I wanted to take care of a weeks worth of sales.
PLAYBOY: A true businessman.
GATES: I have to admit that business-type thoughts
do sneak into my head: I hope our customers pay us, I hope this
stuff is decent, I hope we get it done on time. The little additions
and subtractions that one has to do. Take sales, take costs and
try to get that big positive number at the bottom.
PLAYBOY: Do you dislike being called a businessman?
GATES: Yeah. Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe
ten percent to business thinking. Business isn't that complicated.
I wouldn't want to put it on my business card.
PLAYBOY: What, then?
GATES: Scientist. Unless I've been fooling myself.
When I read about great scientists like, say, Crick and Watson and
how they discovered DNA, I get a lot of pleasure. Stories of business
success don't interest me in the same way.
PLAYBOY: How come you're not in a lab coat somewhere?
GATES: Part of my skill is understanding technology
and business. So lets just say I'm a technologist.
PLAYBOY: If business is ten percent, how does the
other 90 percent break down?
GATES: [Blows a big raspberry]
PLAYBOY: Come on!!
GATES: This gets far too ephemeral and private.
It is an interesting question, I will admit. But applying it to
myself in a public way is probably
PLAYBOY: But you brought it up.
GATES: I did. OK. Ninety percent to all other.
PLAYBOY: [Blows raspberry]
GATES: This percentage thing is too hard because
you always forget something important. Whoops, I forgot about my
family. I mean, come on, this is too difficult.
PLAYBOY: Its hard to believe we found something
too difficult for you.
GATES: There must be another metric to explain what
I mean when I say that business is not the hard part. Let me put
it this way: Say you added two years to my life and let me go to
business school. I don't think I would have done a better job at
Microsoft. [Stands] Let's look around these shelves and see if there
are any business books. Oops. We didn't need any.
PLAYBOY: How do you define smart?
GATES: [Rolls his eyes] Oh, come on. It's an elusive
concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts.
To walk into a situation, have something explained to you and immediately
say, Well, what about this? To ask an insightful question. To absorb
it in real time. A capacity to remember. To relate to domains that
may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows
people to be effective.
PLAYBOY: Whew. Are you smart?
GATES: By my own little definition I'm probably
above average.
PLAYBOY: Why do some of your critics say you and
by extension, Microsoft are not innovative, that you are evolutionary
rather than revolutionary? Here's a quote: Bill is just a systems
guy who has been able to fund a wider range of me-too applications
on the basis of one extremely lucrative product MS-DOS practically
handed to him ten years ago by IBM. All he's done since is hang
in.
GATES: [Smiles] DOS has been as much as 25 percent
of our profit. But believe me, those profits go to the bottom line.
If the company weren't profitable you could say, Ah, DOS, they're
using it to fund the other stuff. The fact is, everything is very
profitable here. And we're doing so many innovative things now,
even my harshest critics will never say that again.
PLAYBOY: Perhaps. But why did they say it in the
first place that, along with vision, luck, timing and an unrelenting
need to win, you've succeeded by picking up the fumbles of your
competitors? You were given the right to license MS-DOS by IBM because
it thought the future was in hardware, not in software or operating
systems.
GATES: [Stands, paces] So here's our management
meeting: Well, I don't know what we're supposed to do. Has anybody
fumbled anything recently? I mean, come on! Hey, Digital Research:
I hear they're fumbling something. Let's go do something there.
What was the first microcomputer software company? Microsoft. The
very first! Who were we imitating when we dropped out of school
and started Microsoft? When we did the Altair BASIC? When, early
on, we did CD-ROM conferences and talked about all this multimedia
software? And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word?
When we did Excel? It's just nonsense.
PLAYBOY: It's said that you have nothing less than
industry domination in mind.
GATES: But what does it mean to win? If I were a
guy who just wanted to win, I would have already moved on to another
arena. If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think
I would have crossed it years ago?
PLAYBOY: Do you want to dominate the software industry?
GATES: No. We're only healthy if the industry as
a whole is healthy and thriving. Most types of software aren't appropriate
for us to do. For those that are, well always have competition.
Its so simplistic. Whenever a company is successful, people say
it's out to dominate. Take Disney. Its a wonderful company, but
there are people within the entertainment industry who wonder about
Disneys goals. Or IBMs, when it was successful. People impute all
sorts of ridiculous motives and plans.
PLAYBOY: Such as Disney being called Mauschwitz
because of the tough deals they drive?
GATES: They do great products and they're good businessmen.
In our industry, some people are afraid of us because were so good.
Outside the industry people say, Wow! This software stuff is confusing.
You bet I want to go with a company that's going to be around and
has proved it has things that work together and are pretty good.
Actually, that scares successful companies in the industry. You
get a good enough reputation and you're like an incumbent.
PLAYBOY: And vulnerable to incumbent-bashing?
GATES: Yes. The industry press has been tough on
us for as long as we've been the largest company. We're involved
in setting some fairly key standards and people are afraid of us
because they think, Geez, they are quite capable. It's daunting,
I suppose.
PLAYBOY: You suppose?
GATES: One thing people underestimate is how markets
don't allow anyone to do anything except make better and better
products. There's not much leeway. The world is a lot more competitive
than most people think, particularly in a high-technology area.
If a company takes its eye off improving its products, if it tries
to do anything that would be viewed as an exercise of power, it'll
be displaced very rapidly.
PLAYBOY: You're not suggesting you've never exercised
your power.
GATES: OK, so we tried to get everybody to write
software for Windows. If we discouraged people from writing software
for Windows we would be hurting ourselves a lot.
PLAYBOY: And now Windows is so popular in the stand-alone-PC
market that you've blown away competitors like IBM's OS/2 and HP's
New Wave. Has Windows won?
GATES: If you define the term narrowly enough, you
could say yes. Windows has a substantial share of the volume on
DOS-based PC's. But we keep doing versions. And despite its current
success, unless we keep the price low and keep improving the product
dramatically, then it will be supplanted. Of course, we think there
are enough improvements in the next version, 4.0, code-named Chicago,
to extend Windows success another couple of years. And then we'll
have a version after that.
PLAYBOY: Do you have an unfair advantage over your
competition because your systems people who do things like MS-DOS
and Windows exchange data freely with your applications programmers,
thereby breaching the Chinese wall, the ethical boundary that's
supposed to separate them? Its been an oft-repeated charge.
GATES: [Strongly] Chinese wall is not a term we've
ever used. And companies often have more than one product. Kodak
makes film and cameras, and those two parts of the company can work
together. IBM makes computers, some peripherals, and software and
applications. Ford not only makes cars, it makes repair parts. The
day it thinks of a new car, it doesn't call in all the other repair-parts
companies to build those repair parts. We're actually more open
than any other company that has multiple products. We take lots
of affirmative steps to help other companies. Naturally, our applications
group is the most committed to Windows. In the early days they didn't
hesitate when I said, Hey, we're going to do Windows. Other companies
did, even though we begged them to write for Windows. That gave
us a leadership position, which we've continued to increase over
the years. We bet the company on Windows and we deserve to benefit.
It was a risk that's paid off immensely. In retrospect, committing
to the graphics interface seems so obvious that now it's hard to
keep a straight face. But the big beneficiary of the whole PC phenomenon
has been the users. Individuals can now get these tools at very
low prices. This is the market working exactly as it should. And
yeah, that's been tougher on some producers, and it means we have
to keep working hard. We can't rest for a second.
PLAYBOY: Let's talk about the recent government
investigations. Last year the Federal Trade Commission concluded
a three-year look into Microsoft's affairs. During that time many
of your competitors complained about alleged Microsoft strong-arm
business tactics and monopolistic practices. After two votes the
FTC decided not to proceed with any action. Now the Justice Department
has picked up the ball. Is Justice asking questions different from
the FTC's?
GATES: It's the same stuff.
PLAYBOY: Why don't you just refer them to the FTC
files?
GATES: That's millions of pieces of paper.
PLAYBOY: Did these investigations take you by surprise?
GATES: At some point, with the kind of success we've
had, it's both expected and appropriate for one government agency
to review what's going on in the industry. The fact that we have
a second one doing it, sort of double jeopardy, is unprecedented.
But fine, we'll go through another one. It may take many years.
PLAYBOY: Are you hoping that it takes many years?
GATES: No. It would be better if it were over soon.
PLAYBOY: What was the toughest part of testifying
before the FTC? GATES: No real problem. I was quoted once. I think
the quote was misinterpreted as answering the question, What's the
worst case in your dealings with the FTC? with, Well, if I trip
on steps when I'm walking in and break my head open, that's the
worst case.
PLAYBOY: It does seem rather cavalier.
GATES: It does. What I meant was that you multiply
low-probability events by their probability. That's how you judge
them. You don't just take this one-in-a-billion thing and spend
everybody's time elaborating on it. In any case, we had no problem
with a company as successful as Microsoft, in an industry as important
as ours, being looked at by a government agency to make sure we're
competitive and that things work the right way. In fact, we spent
three years providing the FTC with millions of documents and explaining
our industry so that it could be sure the status quo was being maintained.
That's perfectly legitimate.
PLAYBOY: Does the FTC have to go through all that
trouble to understand your industry?
GATES: Yeah. It takes some time. But if it hadn't
looked at the software industry, then the status quo still would
have been maintained.
PLAYBOY: This also happened to IBM and AT&T,
with the latter being broken up. Do you fear that?
GATES: No. The government decides when something's
important enough to look into. Then it allows all your competitors
to call it up and say, Please hold them back this way. Please make
it harder for them to create good products in this way. Please tell
them not to compete with us anymore. Microsoft makes a little mouse,
so we had these guys who make mice saying, Why don't you tell them
not to do mice. They do Windows and they do mice. Some guy who does
Arabic software layers complained that he didn't like the way we
were doing Arabic software layers. The government looks at all the
mud that gets thrown up on the wall. We did have one competitor
who launched a paranoid political attack against us with the FTC
in an attempt to persuade the government to help it compete.
PLAYBOY: Everybody knows that was Ray Noorda, chief
executive of Novell.
GATES: That was disappointing.
PLAYBOY: Careful word, disappointing. Didn't it
piss you off when you thought Noorda was working against you?
GATES: To the degree that he failed, we can be magnanimous
about it.
PLAYBOY: Was the outpouring of negative sentiment
hurtful?
GATES: No. This is a very competitive business.
PLAYBOY: You're blase about it.
GATES: It's cheap for a competitor to pick up the
telephone and say, in effect, Please hurt my competition in the
following way. It's straightforward. It's absolutely to be expected.
PLAYBOY: Is there nobody you'd like to restrict
or retaliate against? For instance, one of your most vocal critics
is Borland chief executive Philippe Kahn. It seems he goes out of
his way to attack you.
GATES: When we got into the Apple lawsuit, he said,
Oh, Windows, it's like waking up and finding out that your partner
might have AIDS. That was his quote in Time. In another magazine,
I think it was Business Week, he chose to compare us to Germany
in World War Two.
PLAYBOY: And your response?
GATES: That was so extreme. I don't think it will
mislead people in any way. People who do that discredit themselves.
It's so outrageous and so offensive and inappropriate. Just think
back to the Holocaust and all the tragedy. But what bothers me more
is when facts are twisted so that people can't tell what's right
or wrong. You won't find us ever doing anything like that with any
of our competitors. Philippe is a smart guy. I've been critical
of his company's inability to make more money, but that's something
I do to his face. Everything I'm saying to you about Philippe, I've
said to him directly.
PLAYBOY: Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus, says Microsoft
has won and now the industry is the kingdom of the dead.
GATES: I have immense respect for Mitch. We've agreed
and disagreed on many things but stayed friends through the years.
After he said that, I saw him and asked, Hey, Mitch, what was that?
PLAYBOY: Had he really said it?
GATES: He has strong opinions, and I think that
the remark was taken out of context. He's given us good feedback
on our software for a long time.
PLAYBOY: Is Microsoft so big that you never go on
the offensive?
GATES: Never. And as we move onto this information
highway, believe me, most of the companies involved are far bigger
than we are. We're dealing with the German telephone company and
with British Telcom. We're dealing with NTT, the worlds highest-valuation
corporation. Are they going to compete with us? Work with us? Were
a small, small company in that arena. There may be some point when
we feel that somebody is using market muscle against us and wish
we had a way to avoid it.
PLAYBOY: How long do you anticipate staying active
with Microsoft?
GATES: At least for the next ten years, I see myself
being in very much the role I am in today. Then there will be a
point where somebody younger, probably younger, should be given
the prime role here. I'd still have a role, but it wouldn't be as
CEO.
PLAYBOY: Does depending on someone else's vision
make you nervous?
GATES: No, I just have to pick the right person.
PLAYBOY: Would that have to be somebody like you?
GATES: No. You have to be open-minded. Somebody
could do it differently and still do it well. You can't have this
bias that they need to do things the same way. Of course, it'll
be somebody who understands technology very well and has high energy
and likes to think ahead. There are certain requirements.
PLAYBOY: Like your management style? We hear you're
brusque at times, that you won't hesitate to tell someone their
idea is the stupidest thing you've ever heard. It's been called
management by embarrassment challenging employees and even leaving
some in tears.
GATES: I don't know anything about employees in
tears. I do know that if people say things that are wrong, others
shouldn't just sit there silently. They should speak. Great organizations
demand a high level of commitment by the people involved. That's
true in any endeavor. I've never criticized a person. I have criticized
ideas. If I think something's a waste of time or inappropriate I
don't wait to point it out. I say it right away. It's real time.
So you might hear me say, That's the dumbest idea I have ever heard
many times during a meeting.
PLAYBOY: What do you mean when you say something
is random?
GATES: That it's not a particularly enlightened
idea. [Sarcastically] So, how do you have a successful software
company? Well, you get me and Microsoft executive vice president
Steve Ballmer and we just start yelling.
PLAYBOY: Do your employees stand up to you?
GATES: Oh, sure.
PLAYBOY: In the beginning, why did you and Paul
Allen decide to do only software when everyone else was doing hardware?
GATES: Paul and I believed that software would drive
the industry and create substantial value. And we understood it
best.
PLAYBOY: Didn't Paul originally want to do hardware?
GATES: Hardware and software, and I thought we should
do only software. When you have the microprocessor doubling in power
every two years, in a sense you can think of computer power as almost
free. So you ask, Why be in the business of making something that's
almost free? What is the scarce resource? What is it that limits
being able to get value out of that infinite computing power? Software.
Another way to look at it is that I just understood a lot more about
software than I did about hardware, so I was sticking to what I
knew well and that turned out to be something important.
PLAYBOY: Your big move into operating systems was
when you did the 16-bit MS-DOS operating system.
GATES: We always knew that we were going to do operating
systems, though we initially thought just high-end. When we were
helping to design the original IBM PC hardware, the question was
whether we would do the operating system.
PLAYBOY: And now MS-DOS runs on more than 90 percent
of all personal computers, or about 100 million, and it made Microsoft.
Was the partnership the key to winning?
GATES: Our restricting IBM's ability to compete
with us in licensing MS-DOS to other computer makers was the key
point of the negotiation. We wanted to make sure only we could license
it. We did the deal with them at a fairly low price, hoping that
would help popularize it. Then we could make our move because we
insisted that all other business stay with us. We knew that good
IBM products are usually cloned, so it didn't take a rocket scientist
to figure out that eventually we could license DOS to others. We
knew that if we were ever going to make a lot of money on DOS it
was going to come from the compatible guys, not from IBM. They paid
us a fixed fee for DOS. We didn't get a royalty, even though we
did make some money on the deal. Other people paid a royalty. So
it was always advantageous to us, the market grew and other hardware
guys were able to sell units.
PLAYBOY: By 1986, DOS had won.
GATES: Right. Subsequently there were clone competitors
to DOS, and there were people coming out with completely new operating
systems. But we had already captured the volume, so we could price
it low and keep selling.
PLAYBOY: Has DOS peaked?
GATES: I don't know. DOS continues to be sold on
a high percentage of PC's. But within a few years it will be replaced
by a next-generation operating system. This is a case where we're
obsoleting our own product I hope. Or somebody else will. Actually,
it would have been obsolete some time ago if we hadn't come along
with Windows and sort of built it on top of DOS, to renew its capabilities.
The fact that we did that as an add-on to DOS allowed people to
keep running DOS applications. We thought that would be of some
benefit to people.
PLAYBOY: And to yourself. Perhaps to buy time.
GATES: No. People wanted to run their DOS applications.
Believe me, it would have been a lot easier to write Windows so
it didn't run DOS applications. But we knew that we couldn't make
the transition without that compatibility. In fact, the next version
of Windows further enhances our ability to run DOS applications.
PLAYBOY: What happened to IBM? According to one
book, you supposedly told a group of Lotus employees over too many
drinks that IBM would fold in seven years. IBM is still here, of
course, but it's restructuring and streamlining. So you were partially
right.
GATES: In this business, by the time you realize
you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless youre
running scared all the time, you're gone. IBM could recover, but
in terms of what it was, it'll never have a position like that again.
It was during the glory years, its years of greatest profit and
greatest admiration, that it was making the mistakes that sowed
the billions of dollars of losses that came later.
PLAYBOY: What were those mistakes?
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.
PLAYBOY: That's what IBM said.
GATES: That's right. But did IBM try to renew its
vision, did it really look at the early signs that things weren't
going right? Did management really focus on those things, or did
they let themselves get a little complacent about their success?
Were they working hard, were they hiring new people? And remember,
when IBM was run by its founder it thrived and for several generations
of management after that. When you have a founder around, or if
that founder picks the right successor, companies can do well. But
we have to prove ourselves. I can't prove that decay hasn't set
in. Five years from now you can call me and say, Well, Bill, it
looks like the decay didn't set in. At least I hope the evidence
will show that.
PLAYBOY: What was your first meeting like with Lou
Gerstner, IBM's new chief?
GATES: It was my chance to tell him what Microsoft
is.
PLAYBOY: He didn't know?
GATES: I'm not saying that. I wanted to talk more
about the company. It was a bit awkward because when I went there
they said, Thank you for coming, Mr. Manzi. [Laughs] Jim Manzi [current
head of Lotus, a Microsoft rival] and I don't look alike, so that
set me back a little. Then we went into this room, the famous Tom
Watson Library, a place I'd been probably a dozen times and know
the history of pretty well. Gerstner took some time explaining it
to me, though I already knew. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed
to stop him or not. We eventually talked about the business. I did
not endeavor to give him any advice. He knew I'd been talking to
the board and chided me a little about that.
PLAYBOY: Do you expect to get along?
GATES: Microsoft and IBM are perfectly complementary
companies with the exception of one small group IBM has that does
PC system software.
PLAYBOY: Where does the relationship stand today?
GATES: IBM is our best customer. It's porting a
lot of its key software into the Windows environment. Every month
we find more and more things we can do together.
PLAYBOY: Over the years, have your youthful looks
been more help or harm?
GATES: Its hard to say. If you're asking whether
I intentionally mess up my hair, no, I don't. And certain things,
like my freckles, they're just there. I don't do anything consciously.
I suppose I could get contact lenses. I suppose I could comb my
hair more often.
PLAYBOY: We are talking about knowing that your
youthful, or can we say nerdish? looks would throw potential competitors
and partners off balance and give you an advantage going in.
GATES: [Smiles] I think that my looks were a disadvantage,
at least back then. But once our competitors had to admit we knew
what we we're doing, they had a hard time knowing what category
to put us in. We were young, but we had good advice and good ideas
and lots of enthusiasm.
PLAYBOY: You recently got married, an event many
of your competitors have fervently wished for. Now, they say, you'll
concentrate less on work.
GATES: They're just joking. If they really think
I'm going to work a lot less just because I'm married, thats an
error.
PLAYBOY: Isn't there a kernel of truth in any joke?
GATES: Married life is a simpler life. Who I spend
my time with is established in advance.
PLAYBOY: You were one of the world's most eligible
bachelors. No doubt there are many women who would love to be in
Melinda's place.
GATES: What? They want to do puzzle contests with
me? They want to go golfing with me? How do they know its interesting
to be around me? They want to read the books I read?
PLAYBOY: What was it that attracted you to Melinda?
GATES: Oh, I don't know. That's probably too personal.
Even before I met Melinda, if someone asked me a question like that
I'd always say I was interested in people who are smart and independent.
And I'm sure I'll continue to meet lots of interesting, smart, independent
people.
PLAYBOY: Something about Melinda must have made
you turn the corner. Don't tell us you're just getting older and
it was time.
GATES: There's some magic there that's hard to describe,
and I'm pursuing that.
PLAYBOY: Can you describe how she makes you feel?
GATES: Amazingly, she made me feel like getting
married. Now that is unusual! It's against all my past rational
thinking on the topic.
PLAYBOY: We know you're kidding and not kidding.
Let's go back farther. Which parent most influenced you?
GATES: My mom was around more, but my dad had the
final say on things. They were both major influences. I was raised
pretty normal. We didn't get to watch TV on weeknights. We were
encouraged to get good grades. Our parents talked a lot about the
challenges they were dealing with and treated us as though we could
understand and appreciate those things. My parents took us around
and traveled some. When we were young our grandparents read to us
a lot, so we got into the habit of reading. My sister is two years
older than I am and we learned a lot of stuff together.
PLAYBOY: How were you encouraged to get good grades?
GATES: We got 25 cents for an A. It was kind of
funny because there was a whole period when I got terrible grades
and my sister got straight A's. That was until I was in eighth grade.
Then my sister discovered boys. She never got straight A's again.
My grade point average went from a 2.2 to a 4.0 over the summer.
I wanted to get straight A's. I decided to get straight A's.
PLAYBOY: Why?
GATES: There was no reason. It takes a little bit
of effort. I guess I didnt want people to think I was dumb. And
when you get straight A's once, its easier.
PLAYBOY: Were you a discipline problem?
GATES: People thought I was a goof-off, a class
clown at times. That was OK, not really a problem. Then I went to
private school, and there was no position called the clown. I applied
for it, but either they didn't like my brand of humor or humor wasn't
in that season. In fact, I didn't have clear positioning for a couple
of years. I was trying the no-effort-makes-a-cool-guy routine. When
I did start trying, people said, Whoa, we thought he was stupid!
Better reassess.
PLAYBOY: Did your parents wonder if you might be
stupid?
GATES: Oh, no. They just thought I was underachieving
dramatically. When I did get into trouble in school, they sent me
to this psychiatrist. He gave me a little test and books to read,
and he would talk to me about psychological theories just getting
me to think about things. He said some profound things that got
me thinking a little differently. He was a cool guy. That's why
I always liked the movie Ordinary People, because this guy was just
like the psychiatrist in that movie. I only saw him for a year and
a half, and never saw him again, and I haven't been to anybody like
that since. But my mind was focused appropriately.
PLAYBOY: What did he say to you?
GATES: I said, Hey, I'm in a little bit of a battle
with my parents. He said, Oh, you'll win, don't worry. I said, What?
What's the story here? He said, You'll win. They love you and you're
their child. You win.
PLAYBOY: And the implication was?
GATES: That if you think you need to put more effort
into winning with them, don't. It's a fake battle. It's ridiculous.
It was enough to get me to think, Hmm, that's interesting. He also
had me read all this Freud stuff.
PLAYBOY: How old were you?
GATES: I was 11. But he was an enlightened guy.
He was always challenging me. He would ask me questions, but he
would never tell me whether my answer was right or not. He would
say, That's an OK answer. Then our time would always be up and he'd
give me more stuff to read.
PLAYBOY: Ever wonder what might have become of you
if you had gone to public school instead of Lakeside, where you
met Paul Allen and fell in love with computers?
GATES: I'd be a better street fighter.
PLAYBOY: When did you know you had something special
to offer? When did you become aware you were different?
GATES: [Big raspberry] I have something special
to offer, Mom! Mom, I just figured it out: I have something special
to offer! So don't make me eat my beans.
PLAYBOY: You know what we mean.
GATES: When I was young we used to read books over
the summer and get little colored bookmarks for each one. There
were girls who had read maybe 15 books. I'd read 30. Numbers two
through 99 were all girls, and there I was at number one. I thought,
Well, this is weird, this is very strange. I also liked taking tests.
I happened to be good at it. Certain subjects came easily, like
math. All the science stuff. I would just read the textbooks in
the first few days of class.
PLAYBOY: Even though your parents are well off on
their own, how have they reacted to your extreme wealth?
GATES: I don't show it to them. I hide it from them.
I have it buried in the lawn. It's bulging a little bit, and I hope
it doesn't rain.
PLAYBOY: Bad bet, living in Seattle.
GATES: My money is meaningless to them. Meaningless.
It has no effect on anything I do with my parents. [Pauses] If somebody's
sick we can get the best doctors, so it has that impact. But we
talk about things that money doesn't affect.
PLAYBOY: We're not suggesting that you talk only
about money.
GATES: We never talk about money.
PLAYBOY: Does your net worth of multi-billions,
despite the fact that it's mostly in stock and the value varies
daily, boggle your mind?
GATES: It's a ridiculous number. But remember, 95
percent of it I'm just going to give away. [Smiles] Don't tell people
to write me letters. I'm saving that for when I'm in my 50s. It's
a lot to give away and it's going to take time.
PLAYBOY: Where will you donate it?
GATES: To charitable things, scientific things.
I don't believe in burdening any children I might have with that.
They'll have enough. They'll be comfortable.
PLAYBOY: Youll give them only a billion, maybe?
GATES: No, no, are you kidding? Nothing like that.
One percent of that.
PLAYBOY: But they'll grow up thinking, Gee, if Dad
leaves me some of the money. . . .
GATES: I'll make it clear that it'll be a modest
amount.
PLAYBOY: So you want them to be as self-made as
you?
GATES: No, that's not the point. The point is that
ridiculous sums of money can be confusing.
PLAYBOY: In general, or only to the young or inexperienced?
GATES: I think to anyone.
PLAYBOY: Is it confusing to you?
GATES: I'm very well grounded because of my parents
and my job and what I believe in. Some people ask me why I don't
own a plane, for instance. Why? Because you can get used to that
kind of stuff, and I think that's bad. It takes you away from normal
experiences in a way that is probably debilitating. So I control
that kind of thing intentionally. It's one of those discipline things.
If my discipline ever broke down it would confuse me, too. So I
try to prevent that.
PLAYBOY: So why not give the kid a billion dollars
and let him try to control it as well?
GATES: Not earning it yourself, knowing you have
it from a young age, being so different in that respect from the
other kids you grow up with, would be very confusing.
PLAYBOY: Won't your being their dad be confusing
enough?
GATES: I will seek to minimize that in every way
possible. I'll be as creative as I can. That experience is bad for
a kid.
PLAYBOY: How do you entertain yourself with your
money?
GATES: I swallow quarters, burn dollar bills, that
kind of thing. I mean, when I buy golf balls I buy used golf balls,
and that entertains me. Ha, ha, ha.
PLAYBOY: Seriously.
GATES: I'm building a house. It has serious functions,
but entertainment is most of it. It has a screening room. And I'm
putting in these huge video screens and buying the digital rights
to the world's masterpieces and all sorts of art. I guess that's
indulgent.
PLAYBOY: Rumor has it the house is mostly underground.
GATES: Completely false.
PLAYBOY: When will it be done?
GATES: I thought it would take four years. It will
take five, then I'll move into the project.
PLAYBOY: What else entertains you?
GATES: I like to learn. I like puzzles. Ive even
played some golf the past year and a half, because everybody else
in my family does. Actually, right now I'm a little addicted. I
get a kick out of being out there on the green grass. I'm just getting
into the 90s now.
PLAYBOY: We hear you don't watch TV.
GATES: I do watch television. I don't have any TVs
with their over-the-air receivers connected in my house. But when
I'm in a hotel room or other places that have a TV, then I turn
it on and flip the channels just like everybody else. I was watching
cartoons on Nickelodeon on Sunday. Its amazing.
PLAYBOY: What was on?
GATES: Ren & Stimpy and Rugrats. Great! Cartoons
have improved a lot since I was a kid. I'm not immune to the lures
of television. I just try to stay away from it because I like to
read. PLAYBOY: What do you read?
GATES: The Economist, every page. Also The Wall
Street Journal and Business Week. And I read Time. If I'm traveling,
every once in a while I'll pick up an issue of People. I read USA
Today.
PLAYBOY: What's the most random thing you read?
GATES: Fiction. That's true randomness. My older
sister has read all the trashy books. So, occasionally, I have her
recommend one. Otherwise, I'm in the same traffic as everybody else.
I'm in the same airplane delay as everybody else. I sit in the same
coach seat as everybody else. Yeah, I'm here in meetings all day.
Here at Microsoft I work hard. There are a lot of experiences I
haven't had. There are a lot of sitcoms I haven't seen. I haven't
had a child yet. There are religions I don't belong to. I think
we all have our own slice of life. I eat at McDonald's more than
most people, but that's because I don't cook.
PLAYBOY: You're back to eating meat?
GATES: Yes. That was only a three-year period when
I was proving to myself I could do it. But in terms of fast food
and deep understanding of the culture of fast food, I'm your man.
PLAYBOY: Jack-in-the-Box? McDonald's?
GATES: Well, McDonald's is more pervasive around
here. We also have Jack-in-the-Box. I'm not the kind of guy who
decides that just because a few people got sick, it's necessarily
going to happen to me. It wasn't very crowded for a while, but I
thought that was fine.
PLAYBOY: The recent biographies of Bill Gates and
Microsoft, Gates and Hard Drive, both explore the mythology that's
developed about your quirks, habits and exploits. We'd like to sort
the actual from the apocryphal.
GATES: Fine.
PLAYBOY: We'll start with an easy one. It's always
written that you rock compulsively in your chair, and we can attest
that you're doing it now and have been for most of this interview.
GATES: Right.
PLAYBOY: What about your penchant for driving fast
and accumulating speeding tickets?
GATES: [Smiles] I get fewer speeding tickets than
I used to.
PLAYBOY: Did you once get a cop fired for giving
you a speeding ticket?
GATES: Thats false.
PLAYBOY: What about the story that while driving
from Albuquerque to Seattle, you got three speeding tickets in one
day from the same cop?
GATES: No, no, no. I've always told the truth about
that one. I got twospeeding tickets from the same cop. Two. Not
three. I got three tickets on the drive, but only two from the same
cop. But I don't think anybody ever suggested that I said I got
three from the same cop.
PLAYBOY: There's the story that your mother chooses
your clothes and helps you color-coordinate by pinning them together
this from a former girlfriend, who seems to repeat it without incurring
your disapproval.
GATES: There was one point in my life when my mother
was trying to explain to me about what color shirt to wear with
what ties. But this goes way back. And I think people listen to
their mother's advice when it relates to fashion. It's not an area
in which I claim to know more than she does. And it's not that much
effort to pick one shirt versus the other. I don't look down at
the color I'm wearing during the day. So if it pleases other people
that I know a little bit more about which shirt to pick with which
tie, thats fine. At that time I didn't know much about it. I think
I know a little bit about it now, but below average.
PLAYBOY: Is it true that you cornered the market
in McGovern-Eagleton buttons after Eagleton was dumped as a running
mate?
GATES: It's certainly true that I made a lot of
money selling McGovern-Eagleton campaign buttons. I'll be glad to
show them to you, but I don't think it matters how much I made.
It doesn't aggrandize me when things get less and less accurate
the farther they get from the source.
PLAYBOY: Next: the $242 that you supposedly paid
for a pizza to be delivered one night.
GATES: That is just reporters' randomness to the
max.
PLAYBOY: Did you have a million-dollar trust fund
while you were at Harvard?
GATES: Not true. [Throws up his hands, stands and
starts pacing] Where does this randomness come from? You think it's
a better myth to have started with a bunch of money and made money
than to have started without? In what sense? My parents are very
successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle
area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind,
though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive.
PLAYBOY: How did he feel when you dropped out?
GATES: I told him it was a leave of absence, that
I was going back.
PLAYBOY: Nice move.
GATES: Hey, if I had completely failed I would have
gone back, of course. Harvard was willing to take me back. I was
a student on leave.
PLAYBOY: When you were at Harvard, did you frequent
the Combat Zone, home of hookers, drugs and adult films?
GATES: That's true. [Laughs] But just because I
went there doesn't mean I engaged in everything that was going on.
But I did go there. It's easy, you just take the subway. And it's
pretty inexpensive. I ate pizza, read books and watched what was
going on. I went to the diners.
PLAYBOY: Ever take LSD?
GATES: My errant youth ended a long time ago.
PLAYBOY: What does that mean?
GATES: That means there were things I did under
the age of 25 that I ended up not doing subsequently.
PLAYBOY: One LSD story involved you staring at a
table and thinking the corner was going to plunge into your eye.
GATES: [Smiles]
PLAYBOY: Ah, a glimmer of recognition.
GATES: That was on the other side of that boundary.
The young mind can deal with certain kinds of gooping around that
I don't think at this age I could. I don't think you're as capable
of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your
body as you get older. However, I never missed a day of work.
PLAYBOY: Here's the wildest rumor: You once trolled
Seattle in a limo looking for hookers.
GATES: No, no, that is not true. A Korean friend
of mine in high school rented a limousine one night, and we went
to Burger Master. He liked one of the girls there, so he thought
it would be fun to pull up in a limousine and leave a big tip at
this drive-in place. But that is quite a metamorphosis from this
nice hamburger girl to something more lurid. This isn't the rock-and-roll
industry. The computer industry doesn't have groupies like rock
does.
PLAYBOY: Really? You've been described by one of
your own people as Bill Gates, rock star. Wasn't there a young woman
in Mensa, from Atlanta, who said she needed some software for her
Mac which you delivered personally?
GATES: Who told you that? I sent it to her. There
are elements of truth in all mythology, along with a good dose of
exaggeration that I have not contributed to. Here's the point: People
think, Hey, here's this guy, he's single, has all this success,
isn't he taking advantage of it a little bit? I mean, geez, just
a little bit?
PLAYBOY: And the answer?
GATES: Those people wouldn't be completely disappointed.
They'd be somewhat disappointed because at night they'd find me
sitting at home reading the molecular biology of the gene or just
working late, or just lying around doing new deals and things like
that. My job is about the most fun thing I do, but I have a broad
set of interests, going places, reading things, doing things.
PLAYBOY: And when you do fly, you fly in coach.
GATES: It's quite a mix there. I fly coach when
I'm in the U.S. on business. But when I fly to Europe, I fly business
class. When I go to Trailblazers games with Paul Allen, I fly on
the plane he owns. I also drive my own car.
PLAYBOY: Does privilege corrupt?
GATES: It can, I've noticed. It's easy to get spoiled
by things that alienate you from what's important.
PLAYBOY: Are you afraid it would look bad to the
people at Microsoft?
GATES: No, it's for me personally. I wouldn't want
to get used to being waited on or driven around. Living in a way
that is unique would be strange.
PLAYBOY: Do the rumors bother you?
GATES: Rarely. But its difficult. Microsoft being
well known and having people know we do great software and getting
people enthused about new things, that's an important part of Microsoft,
challenging these new frontiers. It's natural for a company to be
associated with its co-founder and leader. But as far as my personal
life goes, its kind of a drawback. Even so, my experience with being
exposed to the public is nothing like that of really well-known
people.
PLAYBOY: Are you ready for celebrity?
GATES: No. I haven't even taken the introductory
course.
PLAYBOY: Why not write your own book?
GATES: If I were to, I'd do it about the future
instead of the past. When I reach a ripe old age, like 60 or something,
then maybe I can be reflective.
PLAYBOY: You can set the record straight right now.
GATES: [Sighs] That some degree of oversimplication
occurs is unavoidable. It's not like I'm complaining. Actually,
my only complaint is that I wish somebody had written a decent book.
And perhaps in the future somebody will. I just don't happen to
like the ones that exist. They're incredibly inaccurate. Worse,
they don't capture the excitement, the fun. What were the hard decisions?
Why did things work out? Where was the luck? Where was the skill?
You just don't get a sense of it. In fact, at one point we wanted
to encourage a writer of reputation to do that, but we decided against
it because we didn't want to put the time into it.
PLAYBOY: Don't you think people would want to read
your Iacocca?
GATES: [Peeved] Now what does that mean? I think
the answer is no to all such things. And when I do, I'll do it a
hundred times better than any book done so far. But right now I
don't want to be huger. I'm huger than I want to be. I'd like to
shrink a little.
PLAYBOY: Then why are you talking with us?
GATES: For the message that personal computers can
do neat things, that software is great stuff, that there's an exciting
opportunity here and Microsoft is involved in it, that's a worthwhile
message for Microsoft to get out. And if you want to just put Microsoft
spokesman next to all those comments, that would be fine, except
I know that people are more interested in human stories than they
are in what technology can do for them.
PLAYBOY: Perhaps thats a strong clue to what should
be done with emerging technologies.
GATES: That's true. We should let people communicate
with other people.
PLAYBOY: Communicate with us: Who is Bill Gates?
GATES: I don't think theres a simple summary of
anyone.
PLAYBOY: That said, give it a try.
GATES: [Laughs, then grudgingly, almost by rote]
I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around
smart people who are trying to gure out new things. I like the fact
that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things
that actually have an impact. I don't like to waste time where I'm
not hearing new things or being creative.
PLAYBOY: Like these questions?
GATES: Some of them I've heard before. Certainly
the history of the company has been widely discussed.
PLAYBOY: We mean questions about who you are.
GATES: Nobody's ever asked me the question in that
form before. Who are you? Just get right to the meat of the issue.
Lets make it multiple choice.
PLAYBOY: Make it a free-association test. It must
conjure some thoughts.
GATES: [Long pause] No, I don't know if I'm thinking
of anything.
PLAYBOY: Try again.
GATES: OK, I have a nickname. My family calls me
Trey because I'm William the third. My dad has the same name, which
is always confusing because my dad is well known and I'm also known.
If they'd realized that would occur, they wouldn't have called me
the same name. They thought I'd be unknown so they said, Hey, just
use the same name, what the heck. When people say Bill, that's work,
mostly, and I think of all the stuff I should be doing. When people
call me Trey, I think of myself as the son. I think of myself as
young. I think of my family, of just being a kid, growing up.
PLAYBOY: Do you like the public Bill that we've
described to you?
GATES: I think the observations about me are all
over the map, so it's hard to respond to that. When I got engaged,
the Star said that I had a little contest for Melinda and that as
soon as she finished the contest, I asked her to marry me. And then
she said, Yes, oh yes! I find that humorous because it's so unreal
and so ridiculous. The National Enquirer hired an astrologist Id
never met to say various things about me. That struck me as ridiculous.
Forbes does this whole thing about who's wealthy and what they think.
I thought what they wrote about me was silly, but this year they
had a nice article on my friend Warren Buffett that I thought was
pretty good. So I guess it's easier reading about other people.
My guideline has always been to avoid a focus on me personally.
Not because of any deep, dark secrets. Rather just a sense of privacy.
I guess it's kind of silly in a way.
PLAYBOY: People see what you have wrought and want
to know what kind of person becomes a guy like you.
GATES: You mean if they have the same kind of personal
life then maybe they'll become like me?
PLAYBOY: Come on. Isn't this whole information highway
based on wanting and having access to more information?
GATES: Yeah, but there are lots of things you can
be interested in.
PLAYBOY: And this is one of them.
GATES: But it's sort of prurient, isn't it?
PLAYBOY: Maybe only to the guy who's the center
of attention.
GATES: When we have the information highway, I'll
put it out there. Everybody who wants to pay, I don't know, one
cent, can see what movies I'm watching and what books I'm reading
and certain other information. If I'm still interesting, I'll rack
up dollars as people access that part of the highway.
PLAYBOY: How many buildings are on this campus?
Have you visited them all?
GATES: Twenty-five. Yeah, I've been to all of them,
but there are a few I've been to only once.
PLAYBOY: Do you wander around here late at night?
GATES: Actually, I'll do that tonight. It's Friday
and I have no plans.
PLAYBOY: Do you look in people's offices?
GATES: I see if people are around, see what they
put up on the walls. I want a little sense of what the feeling is,
how lively, how much people personalize things. They put industry
articles up on the walls, ones that are particularly rude to us
or particularly nice to us. They put up their progress, their number
of bugs or new things that work. And you run into people. Even on
a Friday night there'll be a bunch of people here, and I'll get
a chance to ask what they're thinking.
PLAYBOY: Let's start to wrap up with a more global
perspective. What should our attitude be toward the Japanese?
GATES: This Japanese-bashing stuff is so out of
control. It's almost racist the way people have these stereotyped
views of why Japanese companies are successful, without gathering
many facts.
PLAYBOY: Even though they're in a slump now, why
have the Japanese been so successful?
GATES: For good reasons. Great products. A long-term
approach. Focus on engineering and what it takes to turn products
around quickly. Being able to adapt to what's necessary to sell
effectively in markets around the world. Believe me, they have some
challenges ahead. But what they did with no natural resources and,
essentially, no world power is a miracle.
PLAYBOY: And we did none of the above? What were
our mistakes?
GATES: Actually, America has also done pretty well
during this period. Some American companies made mistakes, and there
are things we could do to improve our products. For instance, we
could improve our education system. Also, get rid of short-term
thinking. Focus on product engineering instead of financial engineering.
We could fine-tune. But we've contributed a lot, too. America and
Japan are the two leading world economies in terms of technology
and innovative products. And in software, information-age technology
and biotechnology, our second most important business, the U.S.
has an amazing lead.
PLAYBOY: Our auto business is recovering. We're
finally focused on making better cars instead of on holding down
Japanese imports. But what in the American psyche let our lead slip
away?
GATES: I don't think it's the American psyche. We
don't have to dig that deep to find rot. The way those car companies
managed their engineering process and their manufacturing process
was wrong. It was out of date, and it took an unbelievable amount
of time to get those processes reformed. It really took Ford to
set the pace.
PLAYBOY: Does Microsoft follow the Japanese model?
GATES: There are aspects. Look, our workers are
all Americans, so we don't sing company songs and things like that.
The idea of taking a long-term approach, taking a global approach,
many fine American companies have done that, and have that in common
with the Japanese. But in no sense would I say were following some
broad set of Japanese approaches.
PLAYBOY: How should our society think about the
future?
GATES: More optimistically. As there is progress,
which is partly advances in technology, in a certain sense the world
gets richer. That is, the things we do that use a lot of resources
and time can be done more efficiently. So people wonder, Will there
be jobs? Will there be things to do? Until were educating every
kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there
is no shortage of things to do. And as society gets richer, we can
choose to allocate the resources in a way that gives people the
incentive to go out and do those unfinished jobs.
PLAYBOY: One story about you suggested that if Microsoft
manages to write and deliver the software running inside the box
it will, on the most basic levels, influence how we interact with
the information highway. How does it feel to know you can have the
same impact in the next 20 years as you had in the first 20?
GATES: Because we've had leadership products, we've
had an opportunity to have a role. But this would have happened
without us. Somebody would have done a standard operating system
and promoted a graphics interface. We may have made it happen a
little sooner. Likewise, the information highway is going to happen.
If we play a major role it'll be because we were a little bit better
a little bit sooner than others were.
PLAYBOY: If you don't take the next step, are you
concerned about falling from the heights you've achieved?
GATES: There may be a better way to put it. If we
weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed,
it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear
should guide you, but it should be latent. I have some latent fear.
I consider failure on a regular basis.
PLAYBOY: Personally, are you slowing down any?
GATES: I used to take no vacations. I used to stay
up two nights in a row. I don't do that anymore.
PLAYBOY: What about keeping up with the technology?
Overwhelming?
GATES: No. But it's harder than when I was young.
PLAYBOY: What's the last thing you didn't understand?
GATES: The quantum theory of gravity. [Laughs] Look
at this office. Who can read all this stuff? Maybe tomorrow I'll
return the hundreds of e-mail messages that are in my in-box right
now.
PLAYBOY: People might find it hard to believe that
you just barely keep up.
GATES: How would they know? I can tell them that's
the truth. The same with the degree of success I have had. I never
would have predicted it. I didn't set out to achieve some level
of wealth or size of company. I remember in 1980 or 1981 looking
at a list of people who had made a lot of money in the computer
industry and thinking, Wow, that's amazing. But I never thought
I'd be on that list. It's clear I was wrong. I'm on the list, at
least temporarily.
PLAYBOY: Temporarily?
GATES: I'm waiting for the anticlimax. I hate anticlimax.
In terms of being able to do new and interesting things, I would
hate to lose that. That's partly why I work as hard as I do trying
to stay on top of things.
PLAYBOY: Is the one success of Microsoft enough
for you?
GATES: Microsoft has had many, many successful products.
It's like saying to somebody whos been married 50 years, Well, hell,
you've had only one wife. What's wrong with you? You think you can
do only one? I mean, I'm committed to one company. This is the industry
I've decided to work in.
PLAYBOY: An interesting metaphor you choose, the
wife thing.
GATES: You're welcome to print it.
PLAYBOY: Put it this way: You're 38, a billionaire,
you co-founded the world's largest software company and transformed
the industry. What do you want to do for an encore if there is one?
GATES: Encore implies that life is not a continuous
process, that there's some sort of finite number of achievements
that defines your life. For me, there are a lot of exciting things
in front of me at Microsoft, things that we want to see if we can
make happen with technology. There are great people here who are
fun to work with. And in the next decade the most interesting industry
by far will be information technology, broadly dened. We have a
chance to make a major contribution to that. Its very competitive.
We won't know until late in that period whether we did it right
or not. I'm excited about that. And were still on a pretty steep
curve in terms of making even better word processors or figuring
out how an electronic encyclopedia or movie guide should work, guring
out what sort of tools for collaboration we should offer to people.
That will be my focus for the foreseeable future.
PLAYBOY: What about tomorrow? Any plans for Saturday?
GATES: [Smiles] Work.
★ 《梦码:春华秋实》
★ 中国的码家军
★ 中文输入法基础
★ 输入法通用超级技巧
★ 各种传统输入法的优缺点比较
★ 破译汉字密码，再创汉字辉煌
——郑易里教授和计算机全汉字信息处理
IT业界精英（转）
☆ 1.金山电脑公司董事长求伯君
☆ 2.金山电脑公司总经理雷军
☆ 3.用友新总裁何经华
☆ 4.孙家广与清华同方
☆ 5.东大阿尔派股份有限公司总裁刘积仁
☆ 6.七喜电脑公司总裁易贤忠
☆ 7.张静君 从零开始
☆ 8.美女CEO王树彤
☆ 9.Napster创始人肖恩·范宁
☆ 10.托普集团总裁宋如华
☆ 11.真实的张朝阳
☆ 12.天极网的掌门人--李志高
☆ 13.吴士宏自传
☆ 14.蝶公司董事长兼总裁--徐少春
☆ 15.“软件狂”：梁肇新的成长之路
☆ 16.周志农和“自然码”的故事
☆ 17.瑞星电脑公司总工程师刘旭
☆ 18.原新浪网总裁王志东
☆ 19.北京王码电脑总公司总裁王永民
☆ 20.北京江民新技术有限公司总经理王江民
☆ 21.联想-柳传志
☆ 22.王文京，用友总裁
☆ 23.史玉柱：东山再起？
☆ 24.海尔集团总裁张瑞敏
☆ 25.亚洲首富孙正义 我的发达之路
☆ 26.与深圳一起成长起来的财富英雄
☆ 27.王兟：爱笑的Tom掌门
☆ 28.勤·信·智·诚·李东生
☆ 29.李嘉诚（上）
☆ 30.李嘉诚（下）
☆ 31.李嘉诚的人生感悟
☆ 32.李嘉诚的交易艺术
☆ 33.李嘉诚与理财秘诀
☆ 34.网络少年--丁磊
☆ 35.alibaba CEO马云
☆ 36.互联网先生——思科系统公司总裁约翰·钱伯斯
☆ 37.商海女王----惠普公司总裁兼首席执行官卡莉·菲奥里纳
☆ 38.戴尔1000美元起家，34岁拥有250亿
☆ 39.王选最大的人生梦想
☆ 40.比尔·盖茨 The Bill Gates Interview
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