I've just watched the first 10 mins, but it's amazing how he's incredibly aware all of the technical details, and combines a strategy perspective ("unified email client") with all the technical details (low level networking details) to make those strat decisions a reality.
Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
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Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#22"There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". Netflix revenue last year was $11.6 billion. Fascinating interview.
I suspect there was a little rope-a-dope going on on his part. Microsoft was less than a year in to turning their ship around ( https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/ ) to ride the Internet wave. So he wouldn't have wanted to telegraph to other large competitors that this was going to be huge. (hopefully, given their investments) They already had their hands full with all the tiny startups who ha…
Yep. Also, he had to be careful not to say anything that would suggest that having a monopoly in the OS market would somehow benefit the dominance of the content busniess, it seems like the interviews were trying him on that. I think the antitrust accusations started to simmer around then?
Interesting to note, Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million the following year.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#23My main takeaway here was that Gates thought that the cost of distribution on the internet would be so low that there would be no large business that could form. However one of the interviewers pushes back by saying that because the cost of distribution would be so low, aggregators would naturally form a monopoly on this business. Incredibly prescient point in a world of Facebooks and Googles. Anyone know who she is,…
Neither FB nor GOOG have become such monopolies in that type of business they were talking about. What Gates said hold true today. Think for example about a one person business like daringfireball.net, that was the type of business Gates was envisioning. Or Drudge report.
> daringfireball.net
I don't think many people in your family know the site.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#24My main takeaway here was that Gates thought that the cost of distribution on the internet would be so low that there would be no large business that could form. However one of the interviewers pushes back by saying that because the cost of distribution would be so low, aggregators would naturally form a monopoly on this business. Incredibly prescient point in a world of Facebooks and Googles. Anyone know who she is,…
"Anyone know who she is, the Wired interviewer who makes this point?"
It appears to be Denise Caruso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Caruso
She has the byline on the cover of the June 1996 Wired story on Gates. I couldn't find the text of the story, but you can see the cover here: https://media.wired.com/photos/5bbbd018b1d78f2d74578369/mast... (shirtless Gates in a pool and called out as a "Gatesfold"...strange)
Edit: This is the article: https://www.wired.com/1996/06/microsoft-6/
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#25"There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". Netflix revenue last year was $11.6 billion. Fascinating interview.
I suspect there was a little rope-a-dope going on on his part. Microsoft was less than a year in to turning their ship around ( https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0526bill-gates-internet-memo/ ) to ride the Internet wave. So he wouldn't have wanted to telegraph to other large competitors that this was going to be huge. (hopefully, given their investments) They already had their hands full with all the tiny startups who ha…
I felt the same. Another piece was avoiding regulatory scrutiny as far as any discussion on monopolies. It's amazing how much business acumen the guy has.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#26Wow, is this the original source? Such a low view count for what I feel is a very interesting look into a more casual Bill Gates. This seems much more spontaneous than the usual videos we see of him, and it's pretty cool to see the kind of thoughts he has before being filtered into prepared statements for the public.
> Such a low view count...
Many few pages have high view count. If you expect that good content has only high view count you are missing what Internet is.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#27I've just watched the first 10 mins, but it's amazing how he's incredibly aware all of the technical details, and combines a strategy perspective ("unified email client") with all the technical details (low level networking details) to make those strat decisions a reality.
I thought Jack Ma was good but Bill is better. I wouldn't want to compete with him, Bill is fearsome and scary smart.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#28"There will be no content club in my life time with $4 billion revenue...you are on drugs if you think that". Netflix revenue last year was $11.6 billion. Fascinating interview.
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Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#29Wow, is this the original source? Such a low view count for what I feel is a very interesting look into a more casual Bill Gates. This seems much more spontaneous than the usual videos we see of him, and it's pretty cool to see the kind of thoughts he has before being filtered into prepared statements for the public.
Uploaded a month or so ago, and never online before that. Appears people are just figuring out it's there.
Re: Wired Interviews Bill Gates (1996) [video]
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
For it to be a viable business.
No, it didn't have to. The journos ask Gates why he enters into that field (with MSNBC) if he can't see a 4$ billion business in it. He then says: while we won't make those 4 billions (we are making with software), we believe we still can have a profitable business. I don't know if MSNBC was profitable at that time, but many such businesses were (and still are.) The question was about the overall size of the industry…
> The question was about the overall size of the industry.
And to me it seems he was spot on. The whole world and industry had to change before anyone could achieve that.
Your own links tell how much the growth has been in recent years. The interview was in 1996.