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What a inspiration.
What a inspiration.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Just reading the snippet you included, I'm on Bill's side here. "Concerned" can mean all sorts of things ! If he answers "Netscape Navigator", then the Boies will continue on with the meaning that Gates was viewing them as a competitive threat. If he answers "None", then Boies can go down the path of Microsoft not giving a damn about interoperability with 3rd-party software.
Frankly, he should have immediately replied "Internet Explorer". Because that's the browser his company makes, so, amongst browsers, that should have been his main concern. No need for wordplay, no looking at competition. Just the concern you'd expect from the CEO: a focus on their own product.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To the public, it looks like another "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is." The general public hates lawyers. But it hates weasels even more. And CEOs acting like weasels even more than that. That's why congressional hearings are sometimes delightful to watch. It feeds our hatred of CEO "others." There are plenty of CEOs who can talk to lawyers, even in a public forum, and do it well. Splitting hairs n…
Gates wasn't splitting hairs there, though. "Concerned about" could mean "concerned about as potential competitors we need to pay attention to", "concerned about as potential competitors who might gain more market share than us", "concerned about as potential competitors we might need to stifle", "concerned about as a potential danger to our browser monopoly", "concerned about as potential competitors who might devel…
That's why I think he should have taken his own interpersonal and forced that through.
Which browser was he concerned about? Internet Explorer. Why? Because it's their product - in the browser space, that one is literally his main concern.
Evoking a "That's not what i meant" response comes across rather differently than the wordplay shown here. And having the attorney narrow the question to sth like "but out of IE's competitors, which one concerns you?" is the open door you're looking for.
("None really concern me in any sense of the word.", etc.)
Or maybe I’ve read too much Douglas Adams...
Gates claims now (and then) the Government will stifle innovation, yet when innovation came in the form of Java, the first thing Gates did (as proven by evidence) was to seek a way to destroy it. (because he was a man-child annoyed because he didn’t invent it, and couldn’t find a way to compete honestly). So he did what big bully’s do, he crushed Sun and got all his big boy friends to help. What a inspiration.
Bullies do well in business.
If you've ever been deposed (and I have), then you know that Gates' approach was close to optimal when dealing with lawyers.
Bill's biggest mistake was having a terrible attitude and bad posture when answering questions. He made it too personal. Otherwise, the strict answers were mostly ideal and are often used as tutorials by attorneys to show those two things:
1) How not to have the posture/tone/etc in your voice when answering questions, but...
2) ...that this is an adversarial discussion and you should seek extreme clarity every single time.
Bill Gates was the prototype for the amoral shitshow that is Mark Zuckerberg. Cory Doctorow has a great thread on Twitter today about this very topic: https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1304811968398729218
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE
Groklaw has some interesting Microsoft Files:
Bill Gates was the prototype for the amoral shitshow that is Mark Zuckerberg. Cory Doctorow has a great thread on Twitter today about this very topic: https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1304811968398729218
That twitter thread reeks of bias, I couldn't finish or take it seriously at all. If you want to convince me of something don't go around painting people as evil capitalist masterminds...