Bill Gates – A name is known to almost every person in existence. The billionaire has an estimated personal net worth of $80 billion. His foundation set up by his wife and him in the year 1997, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gives away about $4 billion a year; proving that he has the power to help more people than any other individual. But a person does not get successful overnight. Through 20 interviews, reporters have been able to get an inside view of how this successful man thinks, and these quotes taken out of context are sure to give us a tour of the mind of Mr. Bill Gates.
01. In the Rolling Stone magazine, March 13, 2014: Gates talks about how he has seen the world turn from technology-less to computers being a part of our everyday life. Computers having this impact on our lives were his dream. In fact, he thought that by now there should have been more machines than there are.
02. On BBC, on June 19, 2008: Gates spoke about his competitors preferred to have one product that would be a hit, but wouldn’t be perfect in terms of engineering. This is what makes him stand out as he concentrates on efficiency and improving the software to get this product suitable for the next generation.
03. When interviewed by AllThingsD on May 31, 2007: Gates spoke about his progress with Macintosh. The factors like price, quality and work schedules were uncertain but their faith in the graphics interfaces let a cheaper model of it be unleashed, and they were happy with it.
04. Again in AllThingsD, May 31, 2007: Gates expressed his faith in his company, Microsoft during 1975. They expected computers to be taken by every company and every house but never wondered if they can achieve it; instead, they planned on doubling sales.
05. Gates is one for doing work on his own: he has helped, but some things are most satisfying when done by himself, in Reddit on February 10, 2014.
06. Success makes smart people: think that they can’t lose so one shouldn’t let success get the best of him, in The Road Ahead in 1995.
07. In Reddit, on February 10, 2014: he said his plan was his guilty pleasure. It might be excessive, but it’s what gets him places comfortably, and he finds nothing wrong in it.
08. In The Financial Times on November 1, 2013: we saw the human side of Gates. He compared the Infosys of Bangalore and the places close to it where people were well on the poverty side. He told us that having the best technology is not what everyone needs; there are those out there still searching for the basic comforts of life.
09. In The Telegraph UK, on January 18, 2013: he spoke about his interest in seeing eradications happen. He prefers zero than anything else even close to it because if it’s not zero, then it’s just going to come back again. Then everything else is a waste of money, activity, and credibility.
10. He goes on to say that money is only a factor to him: to build his organization and get resources to the poor of the world who need it.
11. In All ThingsD on May 31, 2007: Gates confessed that no matter what he does, his work on computers will always be special to him; he was so obsessed that he delayed a lot in life until he succeeded, even marriage.
12. In Rolling Stone on March 13, 2014: Gates tells us that a government needs highly qualified people because with having the right metrics, the government can be a perfect tool.
13. In the same edition: he says that developed is taken as a project that has less effect that is true, but then shouldn’t venture capital be considered insignificant too? But we do know that venture capital funded right could bring in big gains, so is development if you work hard enough.
14. In Forbes, March 4, 2014: he says that unhappy customers are the best sources of learning from mistakes.
15. In InfoWorld on October 1, 2004: he boasted that Microsoft did have competitors before and is forgotten by most; but not by them.
16. In the TIME on January 13, 1997: he jokes that it feels like the universe is meant to help him succeed, and he sure is happy about it.
17. In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 7, 2011: he says that intellectual property barely lasts long so make the most of it.
18. In the Playboy in July 1994: he says that he spends 10% of his time dwelling on business; it isn’t complicated and doesn’t need to be over thought about.
19. On TED Talk in February 2009: he explains that the market can only be used to do right things by brilliant people’s efforts to bring people in to make progress instead of expecting the government, the communicators and the scientists to do it for us.
20. On the Rolling Stone of March 13, 2014: he said that politics did not create our modern lifestyle. Before the year 1700, everybody was poor with hard lives. It wasn’t politicians that changed us, but the invention of steam engines, electricity, medicine, microprocessors, genetic study, etc. that did. Though education and stability are important, it was innovation that brought us here.
