5 ms·

This was an interesting quote. "I worked weekends, I didn't really believe in vacations," Gates says of his early years at the helm of Microsoft. "I had to be

This was an interesting quote. "I worked weekends, I didn't really believe in vacations," Gates says of his early years at the helm of Microsoft. "I had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others at the company] worked. I knew everybody's licence plate so I could look out the parking lot and see, you know, when people come in. Eventually I had to loosen up as the company got to a reasonable size."

Swizec 11y ago
> I had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others at the company] worked. The hard part is to avoid applying them to friends and family. They will resent you for all those sideways glances and scoffs when you're working at home and they're relaxing on the couch. They also won't be happy when you never have time to do things with them.
bluedino 11y ago
>> I knew everybody's licence plate Wouldn't it'd be easier to just remember what car people drove, than the plate? Dave drives a green, older Ford Bronco. Jim drives a new red Porsche.
- alfanick 11y ago
  it depends - some minds are good with numbers others with different associations
- furyofantares 11y ago
  I have this thing where I accidentally memorize license plates in the same way you might accidentally memorize what car people you know drive. It's a completely automatic process just like everything else we effortless memorize throughout the day. And, I've never thought about this before, but the cars themselves actually don't stick very well. Bill says it so casually that I wonder if it's the same for him. I grew up near Microsoft, and it might help to know that until recently Washington plates for standard cars have all been 6 characters long in the form 123-ABC or ABC-123. On top of that there are a ton of common patterns on the road at any given time due to the way they are distributed. So they are pretty well designed to be memorable. As an aside: We're now on a 7 letter system in the format ABC1234, and that's most of what you see on the road. These don't stick quite as often -- I can't tell if that's the format change or if I'm just aging or more often lost in thought and not noticing the world around me or what. I believe they all start with A now, so it's not actually an extra letter to memorize, but I think the format change modifies the rhythm to the plate and makes it so it doesn't automatically chunk and therefor doesn't automatically get memorized. I guess trucks (before this change) have always been something like B12345D (where it's always B and usually ends with D, I think) and those didn't stick very well, either.
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    When my son was 5, he would ask me if we were going in the "455 car" or the "378 car". Both cars were the same model and color, but he had the plates memorized. Now that he's 6, he has about 300 digits of pi memorized. He's also got the entire periodic table, and the song "Yakko's World" (all of the nations). Some people have an easy time with faces. Others have an easy time with data.
    - samfisher83 11y ago
      Maybe Bill just memorized a few digits. So for joe it would be abc for sam it would be dab. Given he probably a had a few 100 employees 26^3 a hash collision would not be as likely.
    - petemc_ 11y ago
      What inspired your 6 year old son to memorise 300 digits of pi?
      - lotharbot 11y ago
        he watches lots of educational and semi-educational videos on youtube. I believe the one that inspired him was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skf8NTEnrO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skf8NTEnrO4 though he has half a dozen other pi songs he watches as well. He also regularly asks me questions he's learned the answer to from videos, like "why isn't the District of Columbia a square?", "which countries in South America don't have oceanic coastlines?", and "what would happen if you tried to make Graham's Number but you used 2's instead of 3's?"
        2bitencryption 11y ago
        also he can fly, tell the future, and count backwards from the last digits of pi. Sure.
        lotharbot 11y ago
- kmfrk 11y ago
  Some people just prefer hashmaps.
- Estragon 11y ago
  He's humble-bragging.
koder2016 11y ago
> I had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others at the company] worked. That's completely OK as long as bonuses are paid and >1% stock is given.

Swizec 11y ago

> I had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others at the company] worked. The hard part is to avoid applying them to friends and family. They will resent you for all those sideways glances and scoffs when you're working at home and they're relaxing on the couch. They also won't be happy when you never have time to do things with them.

bluedino 11y ago

>> I knew everybody's licence plate Wouldn't it'd be easier to just remember what car people drove, than the plate? Dave drives a green, older Ford Bronco. Jim drives a new red Porsche.

alfanick 11y ago
it depends - some minds are good with numbers others with different associations
furyofantares 11y ago
I have this thing where I accidentally memorize license plates in the same way you might accidentally memorize what car people you know drive. It's a completely automatic process just like everything else we effortless memorize throughout the day. And, I've never thought about this before, but the cars themselves actually don't stick very well. Bill says it so casually that I wonder if it's the same for him. I grew up near Microsoft, and it might help to know that until recently Washington plates for standard cars have all been 6 characters long in the form 123-ABC or ABC-123. On top of that there are a ton of common patterns on the road at any given time due to the way they are distributed. So they are pretty well designed to be memorable. As an aside: We're now on a 7 letter system in the format ABC1234, and that's most of what you see on the road. These don't stick quite as often -- I can't tell if that's the format change or if I'm just aging or more often lost in thought and not noticing the world around me or what. I believe they all start with A now, so it's not actually an extra letter to memorize, but I think the format change modifies the rhythm to the plate and makes it so it doesn't automatically chunk and therefor doesn't automatically get memorized. I guess trucks (before this change) have always been something like B12345D (where it's always B and usually ends with D, I think) and those didn't stick very well, either.
- lotharbot 11y ago
  When my son was 5, he would ask me if we were going in the "455 car" or the "378 car". Both cars were the same model and color, but he had the plates memorized. Now that he's 6, he has about 300 digits of pi memorized. He's also got the entire periodic table, and the song "Yakko's World" (all of the nations). Some people have an easy time with faces. Others have an easy time with data.
  - samfisher83 11y ago
    Maybe Bill just memorized a few digits. So for joe it would be abc for sam it would be dab. Given he probably a had a few 100 employees 26^3 a hash collision would not be as likely.
  - petemc_ 11y ago
    What inspired your 6 year old son to memorise 300 digits of pi?
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      he watches lots of educational and semi-educational videos on youtube. I believe the one that inspired him was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skf8NTEnrO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skf8NTEnrO4 though he has half a dozen other pi songs he watches as well. He also regularly asks me questions he's learned the answer to from videos, like "why isn't the District of Columbia a square?", "which countries in South America don't have oceanic coastlines?", and "what would happen if you tried to make Graham's Number but you used 2's instead of 3's?"
      - 2bitencryption 11y ago
        also he can fly, tell the future, and count backwards from the last digits of pi. Sure.
        lotharbot 11y ago
kmfrk 11y ago
Some people just prefer hashmaps.
Estragon 11y ago
He's humble-bragging.

koder2016 11y ago

> I had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard [others at the company] worked. That's completely OK as long as bonuses are paid and >1% stock is given.