Gates Gets Government Guards for Gala

Nick Irelan writes "The home of the world's richest man was a 'temporary security zone' when he held a party for members of the National Governors Association. Bill's guests included Newt Gingrich, Tommy Thompson, and Leon Panetta. Gates also put in $150,000 for the governors' meeting held the next day. News.com covered this story very well." If your invitation to Gates' place got "lost in the mail", you can read about a Microsoft intern who got to have dinner with the big cheese.

Comments

In all fairness.....

[BWJones]

From the linked interns blog and speaking of Bill Gates: "His response (verbatim, might I add), "well it was the dumbest thing I've ever read!". I have actually heard him say this very statement with a crass addendum or modifier in response to an engineers rather thoughtful bit of insight into a problem. Perhaps he was having a bad day, but I found this to be more than a little arrogant and perhaps may go part way in explaining why Microsoft has problems with innovation. As to the title, "Gates gets government guards for gala", I would suggest in Bill's defense that the guards are for some of the guests which is not unusual. I've not been to a soiree at the Gates compound, but I have been to plenty of other events with government folks who pack their own "escorts". Gates likely has his own security detail which if they work like other security details, will usually defer to the secret service (or other federal) detail supervising any government officials who may be present.

Eyeball Bill's house at cryptome

[alanxyzzy]

Read the Department of Homeland Security's notice of the Security Zone Regulations it enforced for Elliot Bay and Lake Washington, WA.

See aerial photos of his house.

(mirror site) http://cryptome.sabotage.org/gates-eyeball.htm
(main site) http://cryptome.org/gates-eyeball.htm

Another Gates-dining intern

[mclove]

I too got to have dinner with Bill a few years ago. (though they didn't hire me full-time, so I can now spill corporate secrets with impunity :-) The basic format was pretty much as Metanoya describes, but here are some more notes:

• The event actually took place over the course of four different nights - they opened it to all Microsoft interns who were graduating the following year, and as Bill's backyard is not all that enormous it would have been difficult to squeeze us all in there at once.
  
• I didn't get a tour of the insides, but from the outside and the staircase/walkway the house looks like a big expensive log cabin - a very sleek and polished-looking one, but nevertheless burdened by the fact that the overall theme the architect was given was "log cabin". Which I suppose makes it a very good metaphor by Microsoft's products :-) I give it high marks for blending in with the overall surroundings/style of the area, but there are dozens of other much less monstrous houses around there that blend in just as well.
  
• The backyard was exquisitely landscaped - there was a little path on one side through some trees and over a little bridge with a waterfall, an impressive-looking (and fenced-off) private playground for the kids, and the sand on his private beach was raked like a Zen garden.
  
• One other interesting house detail: through one of the glass windows you could see an exercise room, but the equipment was so piled up and crowded together that it was pretty clear that no one actually uses it. The indoor/outdoor swimming pool had a couple of pieces of pool equipment floating in it, though, so it appears someone is making use of that at least.
  
• Security was indeed very tight - one intern managed to sneak a camera in past the security guards, but all of us got a pissed-off e-mail about it the next day and that particular intern was never seen or heard from again :-)
  
• Bill and his toroidal structure actually weren't the only attractions - most of the Microsoft brass seems to have made it a point to show up to at least one of these, and I got to have an interesting conversation with Microsoft speech recognition guru and former Apple VP Kai-Fu Lee. I don't think Ballmer showed up to any of them, but if I remember the schedule sheet correctly most of the other VP's like Allchin, Ayala, et al did come to one of them. (plus all the XBox people, in spite of the appalling difficulty of getting a job with that group)
  
• The food was quite good - I was disappointed that it was caterers and not Bill himself out there with a spatula and a "hail to the chef" apron, but still one of the best hamburgers I've had that wasn't cooked on a 30-year-old grill.
  
• I didn't spend much time with Bill but here's one little throwaway comment: some wag asked him where the bathroom was and he said he didn't know. I don't know whether he was reacting to the guy being a smartass or genuinely didn't know where the guest bathroom was, but it seemed funny either way.
  
• Also, according to Bill there are fifty-some copies of Windows running at various locations in his house. (though bear in mind that they use it for eHome demo's too)
  

That's about all I can think of at the moment, it was an interesting experience but I didn't come away as impressed as some people have. If I had that much money to spend on a house I'd have hired a better architect and told him to do something genuinely innovative.