To me this highlights that experience over the years and being technically apt and knowledgeable with the burning desire for your company to do well allowed Bil

To me this highlights that experience over the years and being technically apt and knowledgeable with the burning desire for your company to do well allowed Bill to harness his vast amount of knowledge and experience to 'probe' people. The level of probing would reveal weaknesses very quickly, as no doubt it would begin in the broad sense, then delving deeper, until the nitty-gritty establishes your understanding of the subject matter. In this example, the common understanding and concerns between the two was there due to the development of Excel to include "Visual Basic for Applications", allowing VB programmers to extend the Office Apps. The Date/Time concerns would have been paramount, particularly as concerns about Y2k were also just emerging - the first online debate being in 1996.