Bill Gates is just about done at Microsoft. I feel very fortunate just have been in the same room when he did the keynote at Mix06. I don't think the guy is evil in any way. I think he's f'ing brilliant, and he deserves every bit of his success. He's not always right, but he's a smart guy.
I really dig this quote from this interview:
I mean, that's the greatest surprise to me of all in my whole business career is that you find people who are so good at one thing, and where the principles and models and approaches in that and in the other area are actually very similar, very similar, and yet they're very poor at the one and just beyond brilliant at the other.
I've seen this very phenomenon countless times, and in terms of technology, I think it's the thing that at the root of so much technological failure. I would even theorize that it's the reason some of the "best" people I've worked with were not academically rooted in computer science, but came from a broader set of experiences. It's staggering how many brilliant code monkeys don't get even the most basic marketing principles.
It'll be interesting to see how the culture at Microsoft evolves post-Gates. I think it has already been changing for the better, just in the last five years that I've had exposure to the company. Regardless, you have to admire someone who started by taking a serious risk like dropping out of school and going on to lead one of the biggest, and arguably most influential, companies in the world.
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