B&E: When you look back on the last 30 or so years, how do you assess your accomplishments as an entrepreneur?
Bill Gates (BG): What’s happened seems a little magical to me. We dreamed of an industry for software and tools that would give people more power. The personal computer has become that. Today we have a giant software industry that didn’t exist 30 years ago. We have 1 billion people who use a PC regularly and the variety of uses is phenomenal.
B&E: When people talk about PCs, they think especially about productivity.
BG: Maybe, but I think about the blind who used to have to wait for texts to be printed in Braille, and who can now surf the Internet for the most recent information. In schools, children are learning more easily, thanks to the computer. At work, designing a document is no longer a chore, but a service for the customer. We’re seeing products produced digitally, and the cost and production time are totally different now. And Microsoft is at the centre of this revolution that’s seen software installed in PCs and now in cell phones, televisions and cars.
B&E: And as an entrepreneur, you don’t regret anything?
BG: Of course I can look back and think about some people I recruited, about certain times I acted naive, about acquisitions we made, or about things we could have launched sooner. But I wouldn’t change anything, because it’s a dream come true to have been able to play such an important role. We learned as we went along, including from our mistakes, because we were the first company to believe in the personal computer. The entire industry has expanded around our Basic operating system, then MS-DOS and, finally, Windows.
B&E: But the PC isn’t still the centre of everything. Wasn’t that your vision?
BG: I’m talking about software, not the PC, that incredible object, thanks to which the Internet emerged. We shouldn’t downplay the role of the PC, but here it’s a software question. Thanks to software, we are revolutionising TV, the way you drive your car, the way you use your cell phone. We stayed away from hardware on purpose, but when you see those new ultra-portable computers replacing school notebooks and many PCs in business, you can’t underestimate their importance.
B&E: But the distribution of this software has evolved, upsetting your business model.
BG: Major breakthroughs have been made in graphic interfaces and the power of personal applications that allow you, for example, to exchange business plans remotely. A new language has been created that allows us to do things. Everything goes through fibre optics. That’s how Microsoft was created, on the idea that advances in hardware and software would allow us to be more ambitious. That’s why when we founded this company we said, “A computer in every home and on every desk.”
B&E: How about your entrepreneurial vision becoming a reality?
BG: We could foresee some things, some of which have been realised, and others that should be over the next 20 years. Breakthroughs will continually be made. Voice recognition, digital ink and intelligent whiteboards don’t exist yet – except in the Microsoft research centre. Go there and you’ll say “I love this thing!” It’s still a little expensive and not very applicable yet, but it’s just a question of time.
B&E: How much time?
BG: We’re already seeing some results: Microsoft Surface for touch screens, 3D with Nintendo. With Tell Me software, you can orally ask a phone to give you a number. But it will be another decade before these new interfaces become common. In the United States, doctors are already using a PC tablet to take all their notes on. Insurance agents use digital photos and electronic ink to make their reports.
B&E: The competitive environment has changed a lot over the past 30 years. Do you think Google is the biggest transformation Microsoft has had to face?
BG: No. It’s like the presidential election in the United States: Every new election is supposed to be the most important one in American history. And that’s normal, you want to inject enthusiasm into people, give them the feeling it’s a crucial moment. We have lived through a lot of important moments at Microsoft. We created Microsoft Office in a very difficult competitive environment. We had to overcome a lot of challenges, and that’s one of the beautiful things in this industry: It’s so easy to start your own software company, because with the volume generated by Microsoft platforms, you can sell your products at very low cost, but because you have high volume, you can allow for major development efforts.
B&E: For you, that also means more competition.
BG: It’s pretty normal to see these new companies come on the scene with very specialised solutions or radical ideas. Most of these businesses fail, but others come out very well. Competition has always been stiff. Microsoft is present on a range of very different markets: system databases, telephones, video games. We don’t have one single competitor, but within Microsoft, each group knows what it has to do and why its work will result in enormous progress compared to what’s out there already.
B&E: What will Bill Gates do in the months and years ahead?
BG: The biggest change for me will be to think about how to improve the lives of the poorest people on the planet, whether they need education, to increase their harvest, or to find better medical treatment. It’s not normal for all the fine inventions to benefit the richest 2 billion people; they should benefit everyone. My foundation benefits from the wealth I’ve been lucky enough to have, thanks to Microsoft’s success, and it redistributes it to society so that it has maximum impact, especially for the poorest two billion people on this planet. And my friend Warren Buffett has brought a substantial part of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
