An Audience With Bill Gates
With the air of a retired multi-billionaire without a care in the world, Bill Gates descended on London for his eagerly anticipated audience organised by the Institute of Directors. Over a thousand delegates turned up to share in the wisdom of the man who is perhaps the greatest entrepreneur on the planet. Interestingly there was almost a complete absence of media companies, and mainstream software companies. A smattering of government funded small business organisations; a scaffolding company, a few engineering companies, and several ‘craps‘ of marketeers made for a diverse but enthusiastic audience.
If Arnold Schwarzenegger grabbed you by the throat and ordered you to write down a list of the worlds most influential people, there are so many ‘tech celebs’ you would forget, but chances are Bill Gates isn’t one of them. It was the first time I have heard Bill speak in person (I can call him by his first name now as I practically know him) and I have to say I came away quietly impressed. I am not quite sure what I expected him to be like. With the anti-Microsoft brigade very active on the Internet and the Government’s of entire countries prepared to sue Microsoft I guess I thought he would either be seven feet tall and built a bit like the Terminator with the devil’s horns, or would have the face of a bloodhound at a funeral. Nope, in real life the man is about as terrifying as an apple pie. He actually looks as though, at a push, he would dispute the price of candy bar with a ten year old.
Clearly enjoying his retirement, Bill entertained us with a twenty minute canter through his views of the future.
(I am paraphrasing here) With a billion PC’s in the world and about a third of them connected to broadband, computing will become the tool to equalize small business with large business. Tools to take the ‘tech’ out of writing applications will empower business owners to craft software to meet their specific needs, facilitating faster and better decision making. as the planet moves from network driven communications to software driven communications, service-connected devices will proliferate.
He then went on to demonstrate the Microsoft Surface - which in its current form is a table with a built-in PC aided by a camera and “magic software” (is Bill Gates actually Harry Potter aged 52? - come on Bill, ‘magic’ isn’t an accepted technical term). Before our very eyes he designed a snowboard and sent the image to his camera merely by placing it on the table. Not sure about the table variant but this will be pretty cool when it ports to a whiteboard.
Bill then introduced Jason Nash, Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Product Manager, who gave us a three minute ‘exclusive’ view of the brand new Dynamics CRM 4.0 - multi-tenant software which uses the Outlook environment to data-mine and drill down into the very bowels of your work-flow. The demo was pretty naff, showing no more functionality than Business Contact Manager and Instant Messaging - but hey, what do you expect in three minutes and with the former boss looking on?
Anyway, the presentation section closed with Bill sharing with us his vision - big changes are to come in how we interact with devices - ‘touch’ will play a significant role. When did you actually retire bill? Did you miss the stuff going on at Apple?
To summarise the presentation, apparently our future is Microsoft so we should not keep struggling. It is much easier when you simply accept your fate.
And so to my pick of the questions …..
1. How do you harness the talent?
All that knowledge can sometimes subtract! The key is in selecting the people who will work best in a particular team. People with very big brains but no interpersonal skills could be paid as much as a Vice President but will not be given team responsibilities.
2. Did growth ever give you sleepless nights?
Sure. As the company grows you have to ask yourself what the right delegation/check-point approach is. Microsoft now have 70,000 people and have undergone five fundamental rethinks of how they do things.
3. If you started out today what business would you start?
Something in biotech or energy improvements. But software is still the coolest thing.
4. Who inspired you and why?
Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffet. Steve because of his creative and organisational skills. Warren because of his values, integrity and ability to cut right to the heart of a matter.
5. What advice would you give to a young entrepreneur?
I never thought of Microsoft as becoming a big business, I just enjoyed it. So pick an area you are passionate about, and then engage and enjoy.
The award for the best question of the event undoubtedly falls to the anonymous graphologist (analyses handwriting) who said that Microsoft was putting him out of business and asked Bill for a sample of his writing so he could check to see if he had any of the ten qualities of a successful person!
So what do I think of Bill? He came across as the man I guess he is, affable, affluent and very, very smart. A nice guy and certainly blessed with all of the presentation skills possessed by whatshisname at Apple 
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