“You've got to give great tools to those small teams. So, pick good people, use small teams, give them excellent tools; vast compilation, debugging, lots of machines, profiling technology, so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing. Make it very clear what they can do to change the spec. Make them feel like they are very much in control of it.”
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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“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“The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other.”
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— Bill Gates Primary source“Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Just as animals flourish in niches, people who specialize in the business world—and get very good because they specialize—frequently find good economics that they wouldn’t get any other way.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“Good criticism is very rare, and always precious.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source