“A new competitor ‘born’ on the Internet is Netscape. Their browser is dominant, with 70% usage share, allowing them to determine which network extensions will catch on. They are pursuing a multi-platform strategy where they move the key API into the client to commoditize the underlying operating system.”
Bill Gates
The Internet Tidal Wave (Primary source)
The Internet Tidal Wave memo, sent to Microsoft’s executive staff and direct reports on May 26, 1995, is one of the most consequential internal documents in the company’s history—less a visionary essay than a detailed competitive war plan written under a sense of strategic urgency.
More about “The Internet Tidal Wave” →
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Few skills are more important than knowing how to distinguish what’s true from what’s false.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“The axiom that you learn more from your failures than your successes is trite but absolutely true.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Capitalism works best when there is trust in the system.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“The key to the competition in operating systems was getting lots of applications.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Let every new year find you a better man.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source