PART 14: Famous Quotes of Bill Gates -I
I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.
Anytime we have new forms of communication, it changes behavior whether it is political or business or any type of behavior. Radio and TV did that. The PC will be classed as or bigger advancement in communications than those devices were.
I think all students start off with incredible ability and curiosity, and if they're given the opportunity to pursue that if they're given a chance to see the neat things about the world in terms that they can appreciate and enjoy, their abilities will be reinforced and that we'll really achieve so much more potential out of the great students we have than we do today.
I'd say that my job, throughout all this, has been, I think, the most fun job I can imagine having. And partly the people I've gotten to work with outside the company. Certainly, there are great people inside the company. And certainly, for at least a decade or so, that will just continue to be the case.
If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?
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.
If you get healthy, then you have an opportunity for literacy. Health first, then literacy. Once you have literacy. then you have a chance to bring in new tools of communication. Let people reach out and have access to the latest advances.
If you give people tools, [and they use] their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.
I see a lot of change and a lot of opportunity. We're not just talking about taking the advances of the past and suffusing them out into 100 per cent of companies. We're talking about new waves and new ways of thinking about the Internet, and that's going to keep all of our jobs very. very exciting.
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.
I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.
I'm committed to one company. This is the industry I've decided to work in.
I'm in the same traffic as everybody else. I'm in the same aeroplane delay as everybody else. I sit in the same coach seat as everybody else.
In most companies, you don't get too much mail where people are saying, 'Hey, we lost this account.' But that's what you really need to know about because it might change what you're doing. You need to know about competitive activity. You need to know about customer feedback that says things should be better.
In terms of fast food and a deep understanding of the culture of fast food, I'm your man.
In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone.
Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
It is really gratifying, for example, to visit India now and see that because they've had good educational institutions, and they've had a focus on it, there are more and more people in India participating in the world economy.
If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
Four or five years from now, you will wonder when somebody called up to get technical support how they just used the phone to try and describe what was going on with their PC.
As I look forward, I'm very optimistic about the things I see ahead.
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Because we now have a research group, and we are out there working with lots of universities and are able to continue to hire great people, I'm very optimistic about our future. But, it is a future full of change and surprise.
Certainly, we are trying to preserve all of that culture, and get the advantages of being a large company with a broad product line, with stability, worldwide presence, great support, and yet have the advantages that a small software company has.
Electronic mail has been a huge phenomenon for us. It gives us a little bit of a closer feel. Even if somebody's office is in another building, you're always sending them messages. And even if they're off in another country it makes that easy. So, we are not as big as our size suggests.
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.
I see if people are around, and see what they put up on the walls. I want a little sense of what the feeling is, how lively, and 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.
Everyone who has been in this industry has had a chance to participate in something very exciting. It is kind of like early steam engines or factories or something. The timing was right for the people who got to do it. And that is a lucky thing for them. Certainly, Microsoft got to play that role and involved a lot of people, and it's been fun. The impact it's there, but compared to what the potential is, it is still quite modest.
Let's drive not just breakthroughs in new products. but new ways to give more and more people access to these inventions and their benefits. This is a broad and important mission, and I believe we all have a part to play in it.
As I look forward, I'm very optimistic about the things I see ahead.
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Because we now have a research group, and we are out there working with lots of universities and are able to continue to hire great people, I'm very optimistic about our future. But, it is a future full of change and surprise.
Certainly, we are trying to preserve all of that culture, and get the advantages of being a large company with a broad product line, with stability, worldwide presence, great support, and yet have the advantages that a small software company has.
Electronic mail has been a huge phenomenon for us. It gives us a little bit of a closer feel. Even if somebody's office is in another building, you're always sending them messages. And even if they're off in another country it makes that easy. So, we are not as big as our size suggests.
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.
I see if people are around, and see what they put up on the walls. I want a little sense of what the feeling is, how lively, and 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.
Everyone who has been in this industry has had a chance to participate in something very exciting. It is kind of like early steam engines or factories or something. The timing was right for the people who got to do it. And that is a lucky thing for them. Certainly, Microsoft got to play that role and involved a lot of people, and it's been fun. The impact it's there, but compared to what the potential is, it is still quite modest.
Let's drive not just breakthroughs in new products, but new ways to give more and more people access to these inventions and their benefits. This is a broad and important mission, and I believe we all have a part to play in it.
There's a lot that can be done for people who are using technology in a better way.
This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.
This is a very exciting time in the world of information. It's not just that the personal computer has come along as a great tool.
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