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Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

arstechnica.com

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Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#51

Post by echelon »

american_aurora wrote: post #45
Hickfang wrote: post #39

Watching the video is even more revealing. Future historians will be amazed as to how a border-line aspergers case got away with engineering a virtual monopoly on computing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE Groklaw has some interesting Microsoft Files: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2009122612211929

I do not know if I would describe it as "border-line aspergers," but there were several obvious things that his prep team/PR should have addressed (e.g., hair, suit, posture, lack of explicit cues for listening to question vs. thinking about response). I always find it infinitely surprising that these billion-dollar companies with all their prestige are constantly making simple but serious mistakes in every field of…

Who should they hire or what should they cultivate to do better?

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#52

Post by [deleted] »

dependenttypes wrote: post #42
dontbeabill wrote: post #32

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.

Java was never a form of innovation.

[deleted]

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#53

Post by grogenaut »

Sebb767 wrote: post #21
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #3

While there might or might not be questionable or illegal things that Bill Gates did, by himself or as the MS corporation at that time, the over-fixation of the article on how he is talking to the attorney in the deposition seems misguided and amateurish. Boies: What non-Microsoft browsers were you concerned about in January of 1996? Gates: I don’t know what you mean “concerned.” Boies: What is it about the word “con…

The API one seems even clearer to me: Boies: Mr. Gates, is the term proprietary API a term that is commonly used in your business? Gates: Let me give you … Boies: all I’m trying to do is … Gates: … the common meanings that those words could have and you can pick one of them and ask me a question about it Boies: no Gates: Do you want me to define proprietary API or not? Boies: No, I don’t want you to define proprietar…

I find myself running into this at work in many conversations. People imply that certain things are happening often. But they obviously have no numbers. Or people ask me for numbers on things that we have not investigated. I have however started getting better at getting those numbers. It feels so much better to make decisions on data but it's so much easier to make decisions off the cuff (for a while).

Of course bill has not run a survey of the commonality of the use of the term of proprietary api in microsoft communications, so "I do now have that data".

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#54

Post by morelisp »

voxl wrote: post #38
stakkur wrote: post #20

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...

Do you have a pithier description of Gates or Zuckerberg than "evil capitalist masterminds"?

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#55

Post by bawolff »

Sebb767 wrote: post #21
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #3

While there might or might not be questionable or illegal things that Bill Gates did, by himself or as the MS corporation at that time, the over-fixation of the article on how he is talking to the attorney in the deposition seems misguided and amateurish. Boies: What non-Microsoft browsers were you concerned about in January of 1996? Gates: I don’t know what you mean “concerned.” Boies: What is it about the word “con…

The API one seems even clearer to me: Boies: Mr. Gates, is the term proprietary API a term that is commonly used in your business? Gates: Let me give you … Boies: all I’m trying to do is … Gates: … the common meanings that those words could have and you can pick one of them and ask me a question about it Boies: no Gates: Do you want me to define proprietary API or not? Boies: No, I don’t want you to define proprietar…

Its funny, Boies seems to want him to take the question very literally, but if you take the question very literally its asking how popular the term is in general in microsoft. Gates would have no knowledge of what words people use when he's not around, so if you have to take the exact literal meaning, he wouldn't know.

There's a reason we normally don't take questions as fully literal in day-to-day life.

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#56

Post by Gunax »

I don't agree with the article at all.

I think it's equating two very different anti-trust cases. Apple maintains control of what its users can install on their own devices--Microsoft never did that.

Just offering a free software should not be considered anti-trust. For one, browsers have been unfairly singled out. Why not ban MS Paint or notepad too? How about solitaire?

Now if Microsoft had restricted users from installing another browser in Windows, then I would agree it's anti-competitive. And this is much more akin to what Apple is doing.

The author wants to paint MS as hypocritical, but aside from being accused of anti-competitive practices, there are no similarities.

And second, I despise how one's deposition attitude plays so much into the media's narrative. It doesn't matter if Gates was kind or rude, agreeable or flippant, sloppy or well-dressed. The only that that matters are legal facts.

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#57

Post by grogenaut »

pwned1 wrote: post #4
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #3

While there might or might not be questionable or illegal things that Bill Gates did, by himself or as the MS corporation at that time, the over-fixation of the article on how he is talking to the attorney in the deposition seems misguided and amateurish. Boies: What non-Microsoft browsers were you concerned about in January of 1996? Gates: I don’t know what you mean “concerned.” Boies: What is it about the word “con…

If you haven’t been deposed this will look weird. But depositions are about “gotcha” moments, so your job as the person being deposed is to play the game and only answer questions with minimal information and force the attorney asking questions to really work for it. It’s about being purely logical. If they ask you what two plus two is, respond vaguely and ask for clarification. “Are you asking about numbers? Or obje…

Having been deposed once the other lawyer spent 12 minutes asking me questions around a thing. The crux of the matter was if I had been verbally informed of what a line item was or if it was illegal to charge for said line item. This line item was unmarked on my receipt but marked on a different customers receipt as an illegal item to charge for.

Lawyer tried constantly to get me to answer a question that would set them up. At the end they gave up and asked "did they tell you this item was for X and they were not allowed to charge for that". "No.". The deposition ended there.

Given it was not a huge deal litigation and the deposition took place in my lawyer's dining room it was actually an interesting experience and not really uncomfortable. It was akin to doing a programming interview. Actually a lot less was on the line.

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#58

Post by bawolff »

andi999 wrote: post #9
function_seven wrote: post #5

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.

Exactly. If he would have questioned the word 'browser' then he would have played games.

I watched a bit of the deposition online - they do actually discuss the definition of web browser for a bit (and reasonably so, it is the primary thing this is about)

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#59

Post by [deleted] »

Gunax wrote: post #56

I don't agree with the article at all. I think it's equating two very different anti-trust cases. Apple maintains control of what its users can install on their own devices--Microsoft never did that. Just offering a free software should not be considered anti-trust. For one, browsers have been unfairly singled out. Why not ban MS Paint or notepad too? How about solitaire? Now if Microsoft had restricted users from in…

[deleted]

Re: Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition

#60

Post by bawolff »

voxl wrote: post #38
stakkur wrote: post #20

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...

I like cory doctrow, but if you're looking for a neutral depiction of the role of corporations in society, you should probably look somewhere else.
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