4 ms·

Maybe I'm missing the context here but I'm afraid I don't understand the point of the quote / what it is supposed to illustrate. It looks like someone asked som

Maybe I'm missing the context here but I'm afraid I don't understand the point of the quote / what it is supposed to illustrate. It looks like someone asked something obvious, wasting everyone's time, and Bill Gates gave a snarky reply. Is there supposed to be something wrong with this conversation? [On a side note, not answering the question is rather weird, and I can't imagine that this person stayed for long in the company. The only sane answer seems to be "Of course not" + explanation why you came up with the topic.]

varispeed 6y ago
Maybe the point was that not knowing something != stupid, but BG equals that to stupidity?
- justinjlynn 6y ago
  Many intelligent people do. It's a common misconception - and one I used to personally suffer from.
lupire 6y ago
Yelling at people sharing information wastes time, and wastes even more time in the future as everyone agonizes over trying to predict exactly what Bill G knows, instead of working on solving problems.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
Almost anything can be open to (mis)interpretation, whether it is an HN comment or an article in a weekly city newspaper. In the context of the article,^1 I interpreted this quote as a summary of the author's experience working at Microsoft while Gates was CEO because it was, for him, "[his] most memorable moment" of the years he spent working there. 1. The interpretation I choose for this article may not be the same as every other reader. Correctly or incorrectly, I believe that this company did not need to do much in order to continue to generate revenue once the Windows monopoly was established. The NYT article perhaps supports this idea. Microsoft could afford to be behind the curve on innovation, as the author suggests they were in the article. Rather than compete, Gates could simply focus on stifling any competition. Aside from its focus on thwarting competitors by any means necessary, Microsoft could afford to be wasteful. Much of the time spent and work done by employees like the author could very well be irrelevant to the continued success of the company, with no material effect. Time could be "wasted", so long as competition was blocked. The other point is that there may be some folks who would not want to work for a company with a CEO who behaves like the one in the incident described. Sometimes these are clues about the company culture. Thus, this quote might have meaning to some people, but not to others who are normalised to this type of behaviour.

varispeed 6y ago

Maybe the point was that not knowing something != stupid, but BG equals that to stupidity?

justinjlynn 6y ago
Many intelligent people do. It's a common misconception - and one I used to personally suffer from.

lupire 6y ago

Yelling at people sharing information wastes time, and wastes even more time in the future as everyone agonizes over trying to predict exactly what Bill G knows, instead of working on solving problems.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

Almost anything can be open to (mis)interpretation, whether it is an HN comment or an article in a weekly city newspaper. In the context of the article,^1 I interpreted this quote as a summary of the author's experience working at Microsoft while Gates was CEO because it was, for him, "[his] most memorable moment" of the years he spent working there. 1. The interpretation I choose for this article may not be the same as every other reader. Correctly or incorrectly, I believe that this company did not need to do much in order to continue to generate revenue once the Windows monopoly was established. The NYT article perhaps supports this idea. Microsoft could afford to be behind the curve on innovation, as the author suggests they were in the article. Rather than compete, Gates could simply focus on stifling any competition. Aside from its focus on thwarting competitors by any means necessary, Microsoft could afford to be wasteful. Much of the time spent and work done by employees like the author could very well be irrelevant to the continued success of the company, with no material effect. Time could be "wasted", so long as competition was blocked. The other point is that there may be some folks who would not want to work for a company with a CEO who behaves like the one in the incident described. Sometimes these are clues about the company culture. Thus, this quote might have meaning to some people, but not to others who are normalised to this type of behaviour.