Gates discusses the coming “information highway” with characteristic confidence, predicting video-on-demand with recommendation systems, networked polling that could reshape representative democracy, and a pocket device he calls the “Wallet PC” — a digital identification, ticketing, payment, and navigation tool that anticipates aspects of the modern smartphone. He also forecasts that DOS will be supplanted within a few years, including by Microsoft itself.
On business, Gates is combative. He dismisses claims that Microsoft merely capitalised on competitors’ fumbles, defends the IBM licensing deal that built the company, and pushes back on accusations from Novell’s Ray Noorda and Borland’s Philippe Kahn—the latter having compared Windows to AIDS and Microsoft to Nazi Germany. He calls the parallel federal investigations “double jeopardy” and “unprecedented.”
The interview also captures Gates’ contradictions: flying coach and driving his own car while building a house with a private screening room and digital rights to famous artworks; deflecting personal questions while admitting to past LSD use and a childhood psychiatrist. Memorable lines include “Fear should guide you, but it should be latent” and “by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself.”
“Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe ten percent to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want to put it on my business card.”
— Bill Gates Primary sourceDavid: “What do you read?”, Gates: “The Economist, every page. Also The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. And I read Time. If I'm traveling, every once in a while I’ll pick up an issue of People. I read USA Today.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“Fear should guide you, but it should be latent.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“If I think something’s a waste of time or inappropriate I don’t wait to point it out. I say it right away. It’s real time. So you might hear me say That’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard many times during a meeting”
— Bill Gates Primary source• Title: Playboy Interview: Bill Gates
• Author: Bill Gates, David Rensin (interviewer)
• Type: Interview
• Publisher: Playboy
• Publication time: July, 1994
• Publication place: United States
• Link: https://www.playboy.com/magazine/articles/1994/07/playboy-interview-bill-gates
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