#174 Bill Gates (Overdrive)

#174比尔·盖茨(超速)

Founders

商务

2021-04-05

48 分钟
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单集简介 ...

What I learned from reading Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace by James Wallace.

单集文稿 ...

  • A few years earlier, there might have been great concern among Microsoft senior managers about the condition of Bill Gates when he showed up the next morning after a restless night before the launch of Microsoft Excel in New York City in May 1985, Gates had shown up for the big event without sleep, without a shave, and without a shower, he looked as bad as he smelled.

  • There was no need to worry this time.

  • Gates had been 29 years old that day in New York City.

  • Now he was a couple months shy of his 40th birthday.

  • The computer geek once ridiculed for his personal appearance had cleaned up, literally.

  • The personal changes in Gates had been as dramatic as the increase in his wealth, which was now approaching a staggering $20 billion.

  • Forbes had recently named him the world's richest individual.

  • He was also one of the world's most powerful.

  • He was so well known internationally that he conducted his own foreign policy calling on China's president and other world leaders.

  • During business trips, he socialized with Warren Buffett.

  • He played golf with the president.

  • He wanted to be taken seriously as a visionary, as a statesman, and as an adult.

  • But for all the changes, he was still very much that intense young college dropout who had founded Microsoft at age 19.

  • Neither marriage nor fame nor fortune had diminished the white hot competitive fire that consumed him.

  • That was an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Bill Gates and the race to control cyberspace by James Wallace.

  • As you can probably tell from that subtitle, this was a very old book.

  • This book was published all the way back in 1997.

  • And the way I found this book is because James Wallace was also one of the authors that wrote the book that I talked to you back, that I talked to you about all the way back on founders number 140.

  • And that book is called Hard Bill Gates and the making of the Microsoft empire.

  • It is one of my favorite books that I've read for the podcast so far.