> Imagine Ford releasing a new model of car. The first car costs a bit more to create, because you have to spend money designing and testing it. But each vehicl

> Imagine Ford releasing a new model of car. The first car costs a bit more to create, because you have to spend money designing and testing it. But each vehicle after that requires a certain amount of materials and labor. The tenth car you build costs the same to make as the 1000th car. As someone with software and hardware at Ford in Dearborn and at many of their suppliers, this is not true. Ford knows that the costs decrease over time, and demands part of this cut from their suppliers. The contract includes a decreasing price over time or over quantity, because ostensibly you're increasing efficiency and writing off initial engineering costs. I imagine that Microsft does the same with their hardware division, and agree with the sibling comments that Gates probably did not write all of this.