Slashdot Reader Analyzes BBC Interview With Bill Gates

The Dodger writes "I've just finished watching the Bill Gates interview on BBC. The first conclusion I came to is that he's very intelligent and quite good at controlling the conversation. Luckily, [BBC's] Jeremy Paxman is a very good interviewer. He's not afraid of asking difficult questions and he's prepared to risk antagonising his interviewees instead of sticking to nice safe topics. He challenged Gates on various issues, even mentioning Linus Torvalds, but unfortunately Jeremy isn't a technology expert, so the topic of open standards and protocols wasn't raised, and when Gates' asserted that the field was wide open for anyone to do what he and Microsoft have done, Jeremy didn't know enough to point out that when someone begins to look like they might challenge Microsoft's position, they get driven out of business or acquired." (More from The Dodger below).

However, the interview has enlightened me as to Gates' motivations. Some people have said he's motivated by money. I don't think so. Others say that he's power-hungry. I don't think he comes across as the sort of person who's massively concerned about power.

One significant thing I noticed was that Gates seems to believe that Microsoft is responsible for the success of the personal computer and he seems to believe that it's because of his company's software that the Internet has become as popular as it has. He asserted, during the interview, that Microsoft's software empowers people to publish their thoughts on the Internet, yet he later admitted that he didn't like the fact that others might use that same software to incite race hatred. He also spoke quite enthusiastically about what lay ahead and the sort of technologies (e.g. speech recognition) that Microsoft is currently working on.

I think Gates believes that he and Microsoft have, almost single-handedly, advanced the human race to the brink of the information age. I think he credits himself and his company as being directly responsible for the fact that there is "a computer on every desk and in every home".

I believe that Bill Gates sees himself as some kind of custodian. Because Microsoft has been so successful and because its software runs on nine out of every ten of the world's computers, he's come to the conclusion that he knows better than anyone else and, therefore, he has assumed the responsibility for leading humanity into the information age.

I think that he sees Microsoft as a tool - it is the company which will do the research, develop the technology and market the software which will help the human race advance. He sees himself as its custodian, rather than its owner. The fact that he has decided to leave his money, not to his children, but to a charitable institution which will fund research into health and education, supports this theory. Bill Gates does actually see himself as having been chosen, in some way, to help humanity.

I'm not saying that he sees himself as some sort of Messiah or genius; just that he has this perception of himself as someone who can change things for the better.

The problem is that he thinks he knows best and this explains his willingness to stomp all over any potential competition who might pose a threat to Microsoft's position (and thus, to his plans and vision of the future), as well as his arrogance towards the US Government.

Let me make it clear that I don't think Bill Gates is evil. I don't think his motivations are selfish. I merely think that he is misguided. He thinks that he knows best and he uses this belief to justify what he does, in effectively forcing the world to adopt the standards which his company has developed, under his supervision, not because he wants to be rich or powerful, but because he believes that he knows best than everyone else.

I don't blame Gates for his actions or the actions of his company. I think his intentions, deep down, are good. But I think that he may suffer from some psychological condition which blinds him to the fact that he doesn't have the right to disregard others just because he thinks he knows best. I suspect that he may believe that the end justifies the means. However, whilst I don't believe that Bill Gates' ultimate intentions are dishonourable, I do believe that he is dangerous because of the immensely powerful position Microsoft holds. Furthermore, I suspect that the people he has appointed to senior positions within Microsoft share his vision. As a result I really hope that the Department of Justice wins their antitrust court case against Microsoft, and that Microsoft is either broken up or has limits placed upon it which will prevent it from single-handedly controlling the development of the software, protocols and networks which will form the basis for the information age.

To be honest, the thought that Microsoft might be left intact or unfettered, to pursue its and Gates' goals, scares me. Not so much because their goal is a bad one, but because that, in achieving it, they could irrevocably stunt the development of the information age.

- The Dodger

Thanks, Dodger. An artful piece piece of writing. Please send your real name, shipping/mailing address, and t-shirt size to roblimo@nojunk.slashdot.org (minus the "nojunk") and we'll send you a Slashdot t-shirt from Copyleft, as we now do to all readers who contribute features or reviews.

Comments

I see.

[cdlu]

That's an eye-opener of an article. It makes me wonder, we have interviewed so many other people on slashdot - would it be possible to send a list of questions to Bill Gates that we would like answers to? Among them could be the points listed in this article that were omitted, but perhaps we could all learn a lot about who he really is if we actually got to interact with him as group.

I wonder if he gives Apple any credit

[bgarland]

This is NOT meant as flamebait...

But I firmly believe that had Apple not introduced the world to Macintosh, computers would be much harder to use. Gates has got to give them some credit.

Had the Mac never existed, we would still probably have some sort of GUI-based system today since the concepts and even limited implementations were in place before the Mac was born, but I guarantee you it wouldn't be like what we see today in Mac OS, Windows, KDE/Gnome, BeOS, etc.

Even Windows users need to recognize the importance that Apple holds in the marketplace. You might not agree with Apple's business practices, the limited customizability of Macintosh hardware, or the lack of choice when it comes to running a Mac OS-based system, and that's fine. I'm not going to argue with you there, and I'm a die-hard Mac user (though I know my Linux too!). Wishing Apple would go away is another thing entirely.

What EVERYONE must realize is the extreme importance that Apple still holds EVEN TODAY. Think about it. They are Windows' ONLY competition when it comes to an easy to use GUI-based Operating System experience.

Do you really think Windows 95/98 would be as good (a subjective term of course) as it is today had Apple not survived to offer them some real competition?

Even with the recent screwups that Apple has had, such as the G4 delays, the Apple Store order fiasco, etc the future looks bright. Apple is finally back on their feet and at the forefront of new technologies (ie. Firewire/1394) producing some kick ass new equipment.

So next time you see Bill Gates talking about how Microsoft is changing the world, remember who he is following.

"Where do you want to go today?" -- Microsoft

"Where are we going tomorrow?" -- Apple


Ben

Paxman not at his best

[mhouston]

For those who do not get to see UK Television Jeremy Paxman has a fearsome reputation for making politicians squirm.

What was completley missing from the Bill Gates interview was any element of cross-examination. Take the DOJ case against Microsoft, something hugley important in that it's very prescence has enabled many companies to support alternatives to Microsoft when before they would have dared not.

Bill was allowed to simply brush this off. A politician would never have been allowed to get away with that!

Much was made of the 'promise' that Bill is going to give away his billions but there was no though given to how decisions about what projects in what countries are going to benefit. As any politician knows promises of 'aid' are a powerful bargining tool. Decinding how billions are to be spent gives a terrifying amount of power in the hands of one man. Even if Bill Gates started out as a nice guy I think we will all find the truth of the old saying: "Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutley"

Paxman, Linus/free, vision, and a worm's eye view

[Morgaine]

I'm afraid we couldn't really expect any better from Jeremy Paxman, he's just not technical enough, and you could see him not wanting to push certain subjects because it might take him outside his area of competence. We did learn that Paxman can with great authority state that Gates earns a lot of money ... we had that point thrust home again and again, ad nauseum.

I *was* slightly impressed that Paxman managed to say "Linus Torvalds" and "free software" without sneering. (Sneering is his forte.) And Gates responded very well, not by denigrating free software but simply by making the point that Microsoft is in the business of making money, so "free" wasn't relevant. [No, there's no way in which Paxman could have brought up the other meaning of "free". Wrong planet altogether.]

Bill Gates certainly came across as genuine. He even corrected Paxman's assertion that Microsoft was responsible for 90% of Internet machinery, clarifying that it was 90% only of the client side.

I agree that Gates thinks that he and Microsoft have taken the world into the information age almost single-handedly. While we know that that isn't anywhere near to being The Truth or even being representative, for people without our exposure to the history of the Internet and a wider view of computing then his arguments must seem very strong, at least statistically.

My take on BG is that maybe he's suffering from the worm's eye effect: he's so close to the ground in Microsoft that maybe he genuinely believes that Microsoft does only good and nothing bad. If this is so then that's a little sad in part, but it can also be exceedingly dangerous. There is no reasoning with people who "know" that they are in the right.

Fortunately, there is the little question of the Halloween documents to spoil that rosy picture. Nice interviews notwithstanding, we know that Microsoft is not populated with angels, so BG is either not Mr Nice Guy at all or else he's out of touch with ongoings at Microsoft. Either way, that's a million light years better than the messiah that Paxman appeared to be interviewing.

Re:The power thing

[Surak]

Anyone who has read Stephen Manes'(of PC Magazine fame) excellent biography of Bill Gates, Gates,(a very gutsy book...Billion-dollar Billy had very little input on the direction of the book...this book was written before Windows 95 became a reality), will realize that Gates is not driven by money or power. He's a game player who is driven to win. At all costs.

From Gates' perspective, in order for him to win, everyone else playing the game has to lose. This why Microsoft has driven everyone out of business that has tried to compete with them. When Netscape threatened Microsoft's business by declaring Navigator a software platform, Gates saw this as a potential for Netscape to win. Since he didn't want to see that happen, he ordered the development of Internet Explorer, and its subsequent integration into Windows, as a way of marginalizing Netscape's competitive advantage.

Putting Netscape out of business was not done for the sake of putting Netscape out of business per se...Netscape had a possibility to win (with Navigator), and Gates wanted to see that they couldn't win. The fact that they staked their whole business on turning Navigator into a platform to take on Windows was the reason they were put out of business, and that's basically Netscape's fault, not Microsoft's.

(This is of course, my own extrapolation from what I've read in Gates and does not in anyway represents the author's or anyone else's opinions)

Gates' view that Microsoft is responsible for the personal computer revolution is understandable from a limited point of view. Windows is what put PCs in gramdma's house. Of course thinking that the point-and-click GUI interface that is responsible for this feat is the sole ordinance of Microsoft is just silly. GUIs were invented at Xerox PARC years before Microsoft or even Apple had anything to do with them.

Re:Credit where it's not due.

[code4444]

Why does no one remember that MS actually moved the whole industry many years back? The IBM PC was the answer of the established computing world to home computers, and it managed to combine the worst of both worlds.

Like Linus, I once owned a Sinclair QL. Same vintage as the original IBM PC. Yes, it was cheapskate hardware - uncle Clive would never use a 245 if you could just ploink 8 resistors in the data lines. But it had a decent operating system.

It wasn't the perfect OS, but it was at least done by people who understood the basics of OS design, and applied them. It had did multi processing, had decent device drivers, and was relatively simple to code for even in assembler. Other home computers from that era had decent OSes too - the amiga guys are still lyric about theirs :-)

Home computers were moving from 8 bit / 64K into 16 bit systems, and evolving. Unix was more then 10 years old by then, and the same way that all 16 processors except the 8086 were basically 32 bit processors cut down to what was technically possible the operating systems were mature if cut down to what hardware of the day could handle.

Except for MS-DOS. It was a badly done clone of CP/M. It couldn't do process management. It couldn't do memory allocation. Its device drivers were fundamentally flawed, so everyone bypassed them. It couldn't do serial ports beyond 2400 baud, due to MS-DOS being too stupid. It couldn't handle alternate file systems. It pretty much couldn't do anything except imitate CP/M.

PC hardware was done by someone masturbating over an intel catalog. It had interrupt controllers and DMA controllers, terribly expensive dream parts in those days. MS-DOS defeated their purpose by blocking on every I/O call.

After some years, paying the rent meant programming for MS-DOS. It made everyone who'd ever seen a decent OS puke. Everything was complicated, involved directly accessing hardware, and trying to figure out which of 12 'standards' was currently in use on the machine.

It was no surprise that everything crashed, was difficult to install, and couldn't coexist with anything else.

That lowly QL could have grown quite nicely as more powerful hardware became available - because its OS was a simple and decent abstraction layer. Not so MS-DOS. Remember how many years between the 386 and MS-DOS-alter-ego-windows doing 32 bit most of the time. How many years to virtual memory? How many years and how many horrors before decent networking was possible?

Oh, did you notice that Bill Gates managed to loose BASIC along the way. Home computers of the day always had a simple programming environment available - there was no big gap between users and programmers in those days. It was considered normal that users did a little programming of their own. People didn't do $2000 courses to 'learn' programming - if you had a computer and a bit of talent it was unavoidable to pick it up along the way. We got batch files in return.

COMPUTERS ARE NOT COMPLICATED. It doesn't require magic to get everything to work right. Standards do not have to change every two years. You don't need wizards to protect you from the evil complexity of it all. Simple programming is, in fact, simple.

MS-DOS and Windows made things complicated and frustrating. I'm serious when I say Bill Gates deserves to be tortured to death for pushing MS-DOS down our throats. It caused misery to millions.