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Do You Really Know Bill Gates? The Myth of Entrepreneur as Risk-Taker

31 points by idiotb 16y ago

burgerbrain 16y ago
"The thought of Gates and Allen as the godfathers of a hacking subculture that has cost Microsoft and the world overall hundreds of billions of dollars does indeed boggle the mind." Lulwat? Talk about somebody not knowing their history.
- roel_v 16y ago
  In what sense? What he mean was 'G&A did the same computer vandalism that has cost the world $bb since then'. Which, even if a bit dramatic and un-nuanced, is not really wrong.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    "the godfathers of a hacking subculture" The "hacking subculture" had it's roots way before Gates and Allen, and in completely different social circles. The effect of the comment is to mis-attributed something that was much bigger than them.
noahc 16y ago
This is something a lot of people don't always see. For example, I spent 20 hours building a website and doing all the SEO, link generation,etc and then just let it sit. It had a bunch of fake products and now 2 or 3 months later people are now trying to place orders. Now I can start devoting time to it and build out the infrastructure to support the website and business. I didn't jump and quit my job to see if it will work. At the end of the day, when the money runs out you have to get a real job. The goal should be to take small-risk big-reward plays and lots of them until something catches.
- nerfhammer 16y ago
  Just curious: how did you decide what products to (pretend to) offer?
staunch 16y ago
Ambition is the overriding characteristic that Gates has in such abundance and most people lack. Gates was lucky to have had so much support but probably would have taken more risk if he had been forced to.
- boh 16y ago
  The amount of risks that Bill Gates would have (supposedly) been wiling to take (due to his superhuman ambition) doesn't make a difference. The support he had allowed his risks to actually come to some end and would have helped him survive failure should it have come to that. There is nothing in the history of Bill Gates that suggests that Microsoft was successful due to it's competitors' lack of ambition.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > probably would have taken more risk if he had been forced to. If you are born on top of what amounts to be, effectively, an infinite pile of money (you know you will never actually be poor, no matter how terribly your business fails) are you really taking a risk? Most people who open businesses do so based on a sometimes wrong assumption the business will be able to sustain them and their families.
brudgers 16y ago
The Gates story reads like it was mostly cribbed from the Wikipedia entry and dates from[2009]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates#Early_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates#Early_life
boh 16y ago
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a similar article in the New Yorker: http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html
rbanffy 16y ago
I believe the PC-DOS deal (without which Microsoft would be a footnote) stems from Microsoft's role in the BASIC interpreter built into the PC's ROM rather than an indirect intervention from Mary Gates. The BASIC deal, however, is somewhat attributed to her.

31 points by idiotb 16y ago

"The thought of Gates and Allen as the godfathers of a hacking subculture that has cost Microsoft and the world overall hundreds of billions of dollars does indeed boggle the mind." Lulwat? Talk about somebody not knowing their history.

roel_v 16y ago
In what sense? What he mean was 'G&A did the same computer vandalism that has cost the world $bb since then'. Which, even if a bit dramatic and un-nuanced, is not really wrong.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  "the godfathers of a hacking subculture" The "hacking subculture" had it's roots way before Gates and Allen, and in completely different social circles. The effect of the comment is to mis-attributed something that was much bigger than them.

noahc 16y ago

This is something a lot of people don't always see. For example, I spent 20 hours building a website and doing all the SEO, link generation,etc and then just let it sit. It had a bunch of fake products and now 2 or 3 months later people are now trying to place orders. Now I can start devoting time to it and build out the infrastructure to support the website and business. I didn't jump and quit my job to see if it will work. At the end of the day, when the money runs out you have to get a real job. The goal should be to take small-risk big-reward plays and lots of them until something catches.

nerfhammer 16y ago
Just curious: how did you decide what products to (pretend to) offer?

staunch 16y ago

Ambition is the overriding characteristic that Gates has in such abundance and most people lack. Gates was lucky to have had so much support but probably would have taken more risk if he had been forced to.

boh 16y ago
The amount of risks that Bill Gates would have (supposedly) been wiling to take (due to his superhuman ambition) doesn't make a difference. The support he had allowed his risks to actually come to some end and would have helped him survive failure should it have come to that. There is nothing in the history of Bill Gates that suggests that Microsoft was successful due to it's competitors' lack of ambition.
rbanffy 16y ago
> probably would have taken more risk if he had been forced to. If you are born on top of what amounts to be, effectively, an infinite pile of money (you know you will never actually be poor, no matter how terribly your business fails) are you really taking a risk? Most people who open businesses do so based on a sometimes wrong assumption the business will be able to sustain them and their families.

brudgers 16y ago

The Gates story reads like it was mostly cribbed from the Wikipedia entry and dates from[2009]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates#Early_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates#Early_life

boh 16y ago

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a similar article in the New Yorker: http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html

rbanffy 16y ago

I believe the PC-DOS deal (without which Microsoft would be a footnote) stems from Microsoft's role in the BASIC interpreter built into the PC's ROM rather than an indirect intervention from Mary Gates. The BASIC deal, however, is somewhat attributed to her.