“Our hiring was always focused on people right out of school. We had a few key hires like Charles Simonyi who came in with experience. But most of our developers, we decided that we wanted them to come with clear minds, not polluted by some other approach, to learn the way that we liked to develop software, and to put the kind of energy into it that we thought was key.”
Bill Gates
Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates (Primary source)
Bill Gates reflects on the early personal computing revolution, Microsoft’s role, and how software shaped the industry in this Smithsonian oral history interview from the Computer History Collection.
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“The axiom that you learn more from your failures than your successes is trite but absolutely true.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Any company that stays the same will be passed by very quickly.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Anytime we have new forms of communication it changes behavior whether it is political or business or any type of behavior.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“The type of person who comes up with the brilliant idea isn’t often the best person to turn it into a business.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“These Secret Service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“I thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Silk and satins and scarlets and velvets put out the kitchen fire.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source