The Hamssa is an Israeli symbol for luck. Photo by Ronit Geller.
Bill Gates Answers Students' Most Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What kind of role did fate or luck play in your success?
A. I
get a lot of questions about my success, so I'll answer several and then
reflect on the importance of mistakes, the flip side of success.
Luck played an immense role. Some of it came after I entered the business world,
but my lucky streak started much earlier than that.
I was fortunate to have family and teachers who encouraged me. Children often
thrive when they get that kind of attention.
I was incredibly lucky to become boyhood friends with Paul Allen, whose insights
proved crucial to the success of the company we founded together. Without Paul,
there would have been no Microsoft.
Our timing in setting up the first software company aimed at personal computers
was essential to our success. The timing wasn't entirely luck, but without great
luck it couldn't have happened.
The importance of being born at the right time is a point I make in the revised
edition of my book, The Road Ahead:
“My friend Warren Buffett, who's often called the world's
greatest investor, talks about how grateful he is to live at a time when his
particular talents are valuable.
“Warren says if he'd been born a few thousand years ago,
he'd probably have been some animal's lunch. But he was born into an age that
has a stock market and rewards Warren for his unique understanding of the market.
“Football stars should feel grateful too, Warren says. ‘There
just happens to be a game,’ he says, ‘where it turns out that a guy who
can kick a ball with a funny shape through goal posts a fair percentage of the
time can make millions of dollars a year.’ ”
Like Warren and today's football stars, I was born at the right place and time.
When you're lucky and successful, it's important not to get complacent. Luck
can turn sour, and customers demand a lot of the people and companies they make
successful. Big mistakes are rarely tolerated. I hope to remain successful, but
there are no guarantees.
Q. In the history of Microsoft, what was your happiest moment?
A. If I had to pick one it was the launch of the IBM PC
in 1981. Either that or back in 1976 when our version of BASIC first ran
on the Altair, the very first personal computer.
But I don't much celebrate milestones such as these because I view my job as
a job only partly done. Computers aren't on every desk in every home yet, and
they're not as easy to use as they should be. When we achieve these goals, I'll
have something to really be happy about.
Like everybody, I hope that my very happiest moments are ahead of me.
Q. How do you spend your time?
A. I spend less time in the office than I used to, partly
because I have family now but more because electronic mail has freed me
to work at home in the evenings and on weekends. I still work 10 or more
hours each weekday, not including business-related social functions, and
another 10 or so hours most weekends. And I'm still keenly conscious of
how I use my time. I always ask: “Am
I doing the things that are the most important?”
As I have for years, I spend about half of my work time with product groups.
I spend another quarter of my time in customer-related activities where I get
feedback. I spend the rest in general management activities such as board meetings,
press interviews, hiring, budget reviews, and writing.
I put in about three hours a day working on my computer. Half of that time may
be spent browsing the Web or trying out software, and half may be spent reading
and writing e-mail, including reports.
Fortunately, e-mail has given me the flexibility to do many kinds of work from
nearly anywhere—and in little snippets of time. If I'm enjoying a nice
Saturday or Sunday at home and I come up with a good idea, I can write it up
and send it off in half an hour—and then get back to my family.
Once quality-of-service guarantees are available, you'll
pay a slight premium for priority communications guaranteed to arrive on time.
You won't want or need to guarantee instant delivery of e-mail, voicemail messages
or many kinds of Web pages. But for Internet-based “phone” calls, videoconferences,
and many kinds of entertainment communications, you'll pay a little extra for
top-quality service.
I used to work all night in the office, but it's been quite a while since I lived
on catnaps. I like to get seven hours of sleep a night because that's what I
need to stay sharp and creative and upbeat. I envy people who thrive on three
or four hours of sleep a night. They have so much more time to work, learn, and
play.
Because there aren't enough hours in the day, it's tempting to try to do two
things at once. Right now I'm perfecting reading a newspaper and riding an exercise
bike at the same time—a very practical form of multitasking.
Q. What do you think is more important to your success, raw intelligence
or hard work?
A. Hard work, without a doubt. But not just my hard work.
What really matters is the hard work of people who come to work with me.
Raw intelligence weighs most heavily in a little contest like a math puzzle.
But over a period of years, when you're in business building complex projects
and working with customers, success is much more a result of dedication
and persistence than brilliance.
I don't mean to discount intelligence. I value it highly, and it is essential
to many kinds of success.
But even when intelligence appears to be the reason
for a success, hard work probably had a lot to do with it, too. Thomas
Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” I believe that.
Q. Please explain the secret of your success.
A. There is no one secret to success. But certain attitudes
and approaches contribute to success. I'll describe three that help me.
First, I am acutely conscious of the value of time.
For example, when I go to a meeting I keep specific objectives in mind.
There isn't much small talk, especially if I'm with colleagues I know well.
We discuss accounts we lost or where overhead is too high, and then we're
done. Bang! There are always more challenges than there are hours, so why
be wasteful?
Second, I watch the competitive landscape carefully.
Microsoft is always searching for the new thing that is coming along, whether
it is in a research lab or at another company. We try to understand what
other people are doing, even if their apparent mission is so distant that
it is not obvious competition.
We focus on what companies do well, as opposed to what they do poorly.
We don't dismiss a company as unimportant just because a lot of things
about it may be less than perfect. The company may be doing something important;
it may not even know that it is important.
We end up looking at a lot more potential threats than ever become real,
and there's a constant flurry of memos from employees who are alarmed about
one thing or another. We don't cry wolf too often, though.
Third, I don't settle for platitudes when discussing management challenges.
There is a kernel of wisdom in certain platitudes,
such as “Listen to your customers” or “Capture all the information.”
A well-chosen platitude can get people thinking in
an appropriate framework. At times a manager makes a valid contribution by
saying, “Hey, let's think of this from the customer's point of view.”
What annoys me is the manager whose only contribution
is spouting platitudes. I've been in meetings where clear-cut issues are on
the table, and the total contribution of a participant is to say things like,
“Well, we should only do what the customer wants. Let's keep that in
mind.”
This is a poor substitute for thoughtfulness. Of course you want to please
customers, but how? What are the trade-offs involved?
In a large company, translating the sentiment behind a platitude into effective
action often means setting up a system. This can be a non-trivial problem.
One platitude I embrace is that a company should be customer-driven—it
should pay close attention to what customers say they want, and then put that
knowledge to work. At Microsoft we pursue the goal through systematic effort.
For example, we log every telephone contact with each customer, and analyze the
results both to provide better customer service and to improve our products.
We're far from perfect at it, but we're better off with these systems than
we would be if we settled for platitudes alone.
Q. When do you think the first computer will become as intelligent as
a human?
A. Sometimes when I use software I get the feeling there
is something there behind the screen. Could some kind of consciousness
emerge from all this information processing? After all, isn't that just
what the brain does?
I don't know when computers will become intelligent.
A lot of people, including me, have been optimistic that we could teach
a computer to learn the way a human does. But progress has been incredibly
modest over the last 20 years.
Today's computers can play a pretty good game of
chess. But computers and humans couldn't be more different in the way they
go about trying to win. Any results that appear to be “learning” on
the part of a computer are achieved purely through the brute-force enumeration
of different possibilities. This is not intelligence.
For the next 20 years, I expect the computer to remain a tool rather than
become a fellow thinker. Computers will become truly intelligent someday—but I
question whether this will happen in my lifetime.
On the other hand, computers are on the verge of being able to talk, and
when they do it will be easy to imagine that they are intelligent.
Within a few years, even small, affordable personal computers may have
personalities and possibly idiosyncrasies. These machines will speak rather
naturally in a human voice, if that's what we want.
They will behave as if they understand many of the verbal commands we give.
They will try to be helpful. They may even act sympathetic when we face
frustrations.
Giving computers the trappings of intelligence will make them easier to
use. But it won't mean they really think—yet.
Q. Do you regret not finishing college?
A. I quit college to start Microsoft, and I don't
regret that. But I enjoyed college a lot, and I wish there had been
time for me to finish.
When you hear success stories about people who quit college, it may be
tempting to believe that education doesn't matter for the entrepreneurially
minded. But unless a person has an idea that's very time-critical, and
is concerned that he or she might never have as good an idea ever again,
it's probably better to finish.
For one thing, it is unusual for a person to be taken seriously in business
when he or she is very young. It is hard for a teenager to raise money
and hire good people.
More importantly, college is full of lessons. Besides coursework, there
is valuable learning outside the classroom during the college years.
Certainly having a degree can be critical for getting a desirable job later
on, For example, even though Microsoft was founded by a couple of college
dropouts, it's pretty unusual for us to hire somebody for a key position
who is interrupting his or her educational career.
Q. Who coined the name Microsoft?
A. I did, but I don't think coming up with the name was
an achievement. It was the obvious name for a company devoted to microcomputer
software. One of the benefits of being the first in a field is that you
can claim the obvious name.
– Microsoft Visitor Center Information for Students
