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Bill Gates answers questions about Java during a deposition (1998) [video]

188 points by BukhariH 12y ago

misiti3780 12y ago
This is pretty painful to watch - he seem very awkward - its pretty funny when he gets pissed off at the guy about 5 minutes it "Give me a break!"
- ISL 12y ago
  I took the bait; it happens at the 12 minute mark. Gates does an impressive job of staying sharp through incessant questioning. The opposing counsel has a job to do, but it's unpleasant to experience.
haneefmubarak 12y ago
Even though I generally dislike the man, I gotta say I admire how he handled that. Especially considering how much of a prick the other person was being. If I had been in the same scenario, eventually I would have responded: "Are you trying to obtuse or are do you simply lack basic comprehension skills?"
- mtrpcic 12y ago
  If you don't mind my asking, why do you dislike Bill Gates?
  - colechristensen 12y ago
    He ruthlessly destroyed his competition using unfair/shady/sometimes illegal business practices are we're all worse off as a result. He's also from the very beginning been strongly opposed to free software.
    - korzun 12y ago
      > we're all worse off as a result Who is we? Who are you speaking for? Are you speaking for me? Are you speaking for millions of people his foundation and charity work touched? Step out of your little bubble and leave your childish comments there.
      - penprog 12y ago
        His charity (while good for the world) doesn't undo the damage he caused when he was CEO of Microsoft.
        korzun 12y ago
        What damage. How did it impact you.
        x0x0 12y ago
        Well, ms crippled the web as an application development target by freezing ie for somewhere between 5 and 10 years, in order to support their desktop software monopoly. A monopoly that used to cost on the order of $100+ per pc. So they got probably an extra $400 from me.
        gearoidoc 12y ago
        I'd also question what damage he did as MS CEO that can in any way take away from the good his foundation is doing/has done.
        pyre 12y ago
        I'm generally opposed to the idea that people can crush others in their pursuit of wealth, and then become "good" now that they are part of the uber-rich (and can afford to just toss money around). It encourages the idea that the ends justify the means.
        gearoidoc 12y ago
        It's business - you play to the limit of the rules and if you break them then you try your best not to get caught. MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.
    - WalterBright 12y ago
      Most of his competitors destroyed themselves. See "In Search Of Stupidity" by Chapman.
      - radmuzom 12y ago
        Brilliant book. In it, Rick Chapman also states how there were some things MS should have done differently, but the general opinion that MS "killed" competitors' products and was strongly monopolistic is quite wrong.
  - haneefmubarak 12y ago
    He has strongly opposed free software for a long, long time. Additionally, his company has been a strong proponent of DRM for ages and just keeps making it worse. That wouldn't be so bad if it worked with few problems, but somehow, I always seem to get caught up in the DRM bugs in Microsoft's implementations.
    - V-2 12y ago
      Also Internet Explorer, with its incompatibilities, yet very large user base, and Microsoft trying to enforce its own web standards - held the internet back for a long time. Web apps could have been better and cheaper to develop if it wasn't for this factor.
      - melling 12y ago
        We are still paying for IE. XP can't install a version greater than IE8, which many people and companies still use.
        fleitz 12y ago
        Yes, 14 year old operating systems have limitations, have you tried installing Chrome on Redhat 7.2 recently? How about Chrome on Mac OS 9, or Mac OS X 10.1?
        melling 12y ago
        I think you're completely missing the point. First, I'm not blaming Microsoft. Second, there are more people using XP than using Macintoshes or Linux. I'm simply pointing out that we're still paying the price for the IE domination of the late 90s early 2000's. At this point Microsoft is paying a price too. Hopefully windows 10 will garner enough support that they can move away from their past also. Their latest versions of IE are actually quite good.
      - wfjackson 12y ago
        Reminds me of the -webkit tags that became the defacto standard forcing Opera, mobile Firefox and mobile IE to support them since web developers can't be bothered to code to standards or update their code. If it works in Safari/Chrome it ships because of their very large user base in mobile, exactly the same situation with IE. http://css.dzone.com/articles/why-webkit-new-ie6-trap-vendor http://css.dzone.com/articles/why-webkit-new-ie6-trap-vendor http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/australian-technology/the-webkit-prefix-will-ruin-the-mobile-web/ http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/australian-technology/the-w... Not to mention Chrome developers "trying to enforce their own web standards": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7184912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7184912 Progress on web standards have always been spearheaded by browser implementations before being standardized, there were many non standard extensions that Netscape implemented that IE had to add support back in the day. IE6 was a particularly bad issue because major browser releases were tied to Windows releases and Longhorn/Vista had to be reset and delayed.
  - Karellen 12y ago
    For starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ They may not have been written by him, but they accurately describe and predict the observed behaviour of Microsoft w.r.t. Free Software under Gates' leadership. And that's just what MS did to Free Software. Under Gates, Microsoft were just as ruthless towards other competitors, seeking to undermine them in a number of ways (unfairly leveraging their monopoly position, dumping, sabotaging) rather than competing in the marketplace on the merits of their products. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
- soup10 12y ago
  Gates was being super evasive, with-holding information and playing dumb. I don't fault the interviewer at all, the name of the game is pin the tail on the weasel, it's only natural that he has to repeat himself and ask gates to clarify over and over. The fact is Microsoft feared Sun as a competitive threat, and did some unethical things to try to undermine them. Microsoft's implementation of java was part of that strategy(embrace, extend, extinguish). Obviously what ethics means or should mean in the context of corporations is a whole bag of worms, but it's clear that Microsoft did and continue to do things that were detrimental to the advance of computer technology as a whole to benefit themselves.
  - Arwill 12y ago
    The important point that dawned on me watching this video, is that the things you describe weren't done by Microsoft as a faceless corporation, but consciously by specific people, and by Gates himself directing the activity.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    That's how I recall it being perceived at the time as well, that Gates's deposition came off as evasive, and wasn't that well received.
- romanovcode 12y ago
  I'm just curious, no pretext here. But did you liked Steve Jobs?
  - haneefmubarak 12y ago
    Amusingly enough, I'm fairly neutral on him. His good is exactly equal to his bad, IMHO.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  I think you've missed the point of the game that's being played. Gates is in the hot seat, and he is doing his best to wiggle his way out of a tight spot. So saying that you admire how he handled that is a bit like saying that you admire how he weaselled his way out of the trouble he was in for MS abusing its monopoly and other anti-competitive behavior that he and the rest of the MS board were up to at the time. But, yeah, he obviously did his job well, so long as by "well" you mean in a way that optimized MS chances of success, while hurting MS competitors' chances of success.
georgemcbay 12y ago
This is surprisingly interesting to watch. The way he responds is almost like he is playing a high-level chess match, which is unfortunately absolutely necessary because the person deposing him is fishing for a simple "yes" answer to a question without all the context he already provided (so that this can be introduced in a dramatic way such that even if those deciding the case get the full context later they will have already made up their mind that "Java == Competitive Threat" based on the introduction). Having been on a 6 week long jury trial that included a lot of these sorts of deposition "revelations" where people (who you'd think would be smarter, though it is difficult to adjust for how much stress this sort of questioning puts them under) said something that sounded terrible in local context (but innocuous in the wider context that the defense later showed), the local context that is introduced first is really all that sticks with a lot of people, if the majority of the people on my jury were any indication. In this case, all of his answers are smart, which isn't that surprising since like him or not Bill Gates is clearly a really smart fellow (and one who was surely coached for this up-front by a crack legal team).
- V-2 12y ago
  Somewhat related. Have you seen it? Extremely interesting imho: http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
- johnabygone 12y ago
  ...apart from jury trials don't have depositions, so you're lying
  - georgemcbay 12y ago
    The trial I was on had lots of depositions presented to us. The case was Fleischmann v. DJO, San Diego County Courthouse, late July to August 2013, presided over by Judge Joel M Pressman. The plaintiff lived in Colorado and the case involved a lot of care-givers from that area as well as "expert" witnesses from as far as Alaska, but the company he was suing was based in San Diego. Given the high number of witnesses unable to attend a trial so far from where they are based, we had to deal with a lot of deposition-based testimony, some of them shown to us in video form and some read aloud in reenactment by lawyers. And even in cases where the depositions aren't directly shown to the jurors they are still highly used by lawyers in an attempt to get present-at-the-trial witnesses to contradict their deposition statements. You might want to tone down the accusations of lying when you don't really know what you're talking about (or I guess you can just use a nicely green throwaway account to hide behind).
gearoidoc 12y ago
Handles it like a champ IMHO.
MrJagil 12y ago
Thank you for a great submission. Can anyone clarify how this lawyer system works in regard to the involvement of fields they are not intimately familiar? I mean, I know certain lawyers specialises in tech or corporate matters, but it is entirely unrealistic for someone to both be knee-deep in matters of the law and technology (or any other matter they are not necessarily trained in). Do they consult with tech experts? Study up? Guess their way through? I'm just reminded of what i see as totally botched lawmaking in fields where it seems a certain level of education in that field would be required to make sound decisions on it's behalf. Might be of other reasons than education (i.e. privacy vs government power), but watching this I can't help but feel there's a correlation. I assume the chasm is only getting greater the more layers of abstraction we add to our technology stack. We're already seeing situations where the only one who can discuss a given case properly, is the accused himself.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  It doesn't work in that regard.
- x0x0 12y ago
  I tend to agree, but I also think industries -- particularly tech -- have a working definition of totally botched lawmaking that means lawmaking the industry doesn't like. eg the lawsuits against Napster, that was attempting to build a business facilitating bulk copyright infringement with vanishingly few non-infringing uses.
  - stinkytaco 12y ago
    I think this is true of almost any industry, but it does seem especially prevalent it tech (which also seems to attract a greater number than average of the "I'm smarter than most" crowd). You can always claim that lawmakers don't understand [insert your industry here], but I suspect many understand it better than we think, but still disagree.
    - colechristensen 12y ago
      It's fairly obvious that disturbingly many senators and congressmen in important positions (relating to tech) have only faint ideas of things necessary to properly make voting decisions. There is a difference between the common incompetence of elected officials and the existence of competent lawyers in high profile cases.
dorafmon 12y ago
Can anyone explain why the lawyer is so keen on making Bill Gates to confirm that he thought that Java is a competitive threat?
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  IANAL but I suppose it is to paint a certain picture of BG's intentions regarding Java which would be then used to motivate the decision of the judge/jurors [0]. [0] Your legal system may varies but it's often about judging the intention and then the consequences.
  - dorafmon 12y ago
    So it can be used against him? How?
    - johnchristopher 12y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_in_English_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_in_English_law If the lawyer can prove or make BG admits JAVA is a threat then BG's actions against JAVA can be seen as deliberate rather than accidental or unfortunate. Because the "Oops I didn't think tweaking JAVA API so it works only on Windows would hurt SUN that is trying to sell a JAVA thingie that works everywhere" card wouldn't work that well and it would established deliberate questionable practice. In this case it might or might not be something like that.
- twoodfin 12y ago
  At the time, Microsoft's licensing disagreement with Sun over Java frameworks and integration with native code had some overlap with the DoJ's case: Was Microsoft attempting to eliminate a threat to their Windows monopoly with "embrace, extend & extinguish"? I think the government ultimately dropped that angle.
yuhong 12y ago
Trivia: The last MSJVM updates were actually the DST updates released in 2007 under the extended hotfix support for DST program (that costed $4,000 per year). Not for the US DST changes, but the ones in Australia and other countries.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  I feel sorry for the poor soul still supporting an MS JVM application in 2007...
mandeepj 12y ago
This article[1] is worth mentioning in this context as we talk about Microsoft's anti-trust policies. [1] - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx
ynniv 12y ago
Depositions are unnatural, legally technical situations. For an amusing treatment, see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/opinion/verbatim-what-is-a-photocopier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/opinion/verbatim-what-is-a...
- x0x0 12y ago
  I've unfortunately been deposed for a day and a half and they are very weird things. First, as the deponent, your goal is twofold: to not fuck up your case by saying anything stupid and to run the clock. Many depositions are limited to X hours. And at least our lawyers were very clear: answer exactly the question, nothing but the question, do not elaborate, and answer minimally. Also, opposing counsel gets to use notes while you don't. In my case, I was questioned about emails that, printed, where most of a ream of paper. They where trying to trip me up, get me confused, etc, and I was essentially being quizzed on the emails, content, and timeline of very stressful events that occurred over two years -- all without notes. I really wanted to point out that I write things in emails because my memory is fallible. That's why date stamped written records are useful. My lawyer also had me answer all date questions in a formula, again to avoid misstating things. Instead of saying, eg, X happened in August, I had to say X happened around august, or around fall, etc. It seemed like clarity was your enemy -- opposing counsel could get you to make mistakes on minor details (did X happen at the end August or the beginning of September? who knows; that's why I use a calendar) and then use that to claim the major details where unreliable.
- mynameishere 12y ago
  Someone should have informed the director and/or actor that lawyers rarely yell and rant in depositions.
  - thesteamboat 12y ago
    Nah, they weren't going for verisimilitude* and it's funnier imagining that the deposing lawyer, rather than trying to set up some later verbal trap, is just honestly bewildered by the ignorance of deponent. * From the NYTimes article introducing the video: In this short film, I sought to creatively reinterpret the original events. (I’ve not been able to locate any original video recordings, so I’m unsure how closely my actors’ appearance and delivery resembles the original participants.) My primary rule was the performance had to be verbatim -- no words could be modified or changed from the original legal transcripts. Nor did I internally edit the document to compress time. What you see is, word for word, an excerpt from what the record shows to have actually unfolded. However, I did give the actors creative range to craft their performances. As such, this is a hybrid of documentary and fiction. We’ve taken creative liberties in the staging and performance to imbue the material with our own perspectives.
Plough_Jogger 12y ago
Incredibly diplomatic.
enupten 12y ago
I'm always surprised by how idiots who haven't the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Pot, meet Kettle.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      >You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. No. Of course not. I was pointing out the irony of HN user enupten's criticism of the lawyer deposing Gates, while knowing little about being a lawyer. My remark relies upon my assumption that enupten is more likely to be some sort of a techie than a lawyer (and not both). OTOH, you can't possibly accept MS' weak argument that their hands were forced by engineering decisions, rather than engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices for the sake of harming their competitors. The mere fact that the government's lawyers and judges were not well suited to create their own competing software products isn't proof that they were wrong about the legality of MS' conduct. >That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people. I was disappointed in the results of the trial as well. What outcome(s) would you have preferred?
      - CamperBob2 12y ago
        My preference is a bit outside the mainstream, in that I don't agree that the trial should have happened in the first place. I've never seen Microsoft beat anyone in the marketplace who didn't deserve it. Like Google and Apple, they were lucky to have some of the least-competent competition in the history of business. When those competitors proved inept at defeating Microsoft in the marketplace, they went whining to the DoJ. I believe that any other consumer-friendly OS, if exposed to the same critical scrutiny that Windows faced, would have fared just as badly in the quality and security areas where Windows has traditionally taken most of its bashing. Windows didn't win over OS/2, MacOS, and Linux because of any skulduggery on Bill Gates's part (and yes, I agree, there was plenty of legitimate skulduggery to accuse Microsoft of perpetrating.) It won because the others sucked even more. Moreover, I believe that the network effects that arose from the dominance of Windows were far more beneficial than the sort of meaningless competition that prevailed in earlier personal computing eras, where everyone was selling proprietary hardware and OSes that were just different enough from everyone else's to make life annoying and expensive for independent developers. Modern mobile developers don't know how lucky they are that they only have to target two 800-pound gorillas. So I disagreed strongly with the DoJ's antitrust efforts, and would have even without the involvement of figures like Judge Jackson whose legal talents would have been better spent adjudicating parking tickets. The whole process made me pretty cynical about antitrust actions and our legal system in general.
sauere 12y ago
It must be hard sitting there thinking to yourself "these people here have no idea what the hell they are talking about", repeating the same answers over and over again. Therefore, i think he is handling the situation rather well.
- thomasahle 12y ago
  It sounds like you have only watched the beginning, when they are discussing java vs the jvm. Later we get snippets like these from Gates' own emails: > "Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?" > "I want to get as much mileage as possible out of our browser and Java relationship here. In other words, a real advantage against Sun and Netscape." And in a conversation Bill participated in: > "Apple wants to keep both Netscape and Microsoft developing browsers for Mac -- believing if one drops out, the other will lose interest (and also not really wanting to pick up the development burden.) Getting Apple to do anything that significantly/materially disadvantages Netscape will be tough. Do agree that Apple should be meeting - the spirit of our cross license agreement and that Macoffice is the perfect club to use on them." It's a very different Gates from the philanthrope we see today, but back in the 90ties he was a bit of a dick. It's a bit slow to watch it all, but the entire thing appears to be transcribed here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/documents/gatespart2.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/micro...
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >It's a very different Gates from the philanthrope we see today, but back in the 90ties he was a bit of a dick. IMO Gates the businessman is just a ruthlessly competitive adversary. I don't even see a conflict between him then and his philanthropic activities now. It was also covered pretty well at Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653 http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107...
    - thomasahle 12y ago
      > IMO Gates the businessman is just a ruthlessly competitive adversary. Well, anticompetitive adversary. > I don't even see a conflict between him then and his philanthropic activities now. He certainly seems to be pretty good at both jobs.
venantius 12y ago
I'm stealing one of the YouTube comments, because I actually thought it was pretty interesting. I started watching this thinking the interviewer was an idiot, but I think the issue is a little more complicated than it seems at first. Comment from YouTube user "tapo": So in the 90's Sun Microsystems created Java, which has two components, the programming language and the runtime. The runtime (the Java you install) lets you run things written in Java on any device regardless of OS or CPU architecture. Write once, run anywhere. This was a huge threat to Microsoft. Why write Windows programs when you could write Java programs and they'd run on any computer? So Microsoft wrote their own Java runtime called the MS JVM, and made it part of Windows, it extended Java to do Windows-only things, meaning there were now "Java" apps that could only run on Windows, destroying the whole point of Java. This became part of the antitrust trial because it ruined Sun's product. In a separate case, Sun sued Microsoft and won.
- V-2 12y ago
  MS created Visual J++, and Visual J# afterwards. Ultimately C# was born out of these efforts and it's a much better language than Java nowadays (with some exceptions such as better enums in Java). The tooling is superb as well - Visual Studio is a kickass IDE. Although adding ReSharper to the party doesn't hurt.
  - xxs 12y ago
    C# and .net had Delphi's mastermind, nothing to do with Visual J.
    - V-2 12y ago
      You are mistaken. After joining Microsoft, Hejlsberg led the company’s efforts in Visual J++ [...] Hejlsberg helped make Visual J++ the most popular and most productive Java IDE in the late '90s. http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/Anders-Hejlsberg.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/Anders-H...
      - 12y ago
mkonecny 12y ago
I'm not sure anyone here has watched the entire video. The lawyer catches on real quick to what Bill Gates is trying to say, and it appears like Bill Gates is being overly semantic to try and avoid answering the question. Later on around the 30 minute mark is when Bill Gates begins to stutter and constantly avoids directly answering the correctly phrased questions.
stplsd 12y ago
This is from part 6, priceless: Q And first let me ask a general question, and that is: Did you believe that from Microsoft's standpoint it was desirable to have as many pure Java applications as possible? A We weren't focused on that as a goal, no. Q In fact, is it fair to say that you preferred fewer pure Java applications to more pure Java applications? A We preferred more applications that took advantage of our APIs, and so we worked with ISVs to maximize the number that took advantage of our APIs. Q And your APIs were not pure Java APIs; correct? A No. Some were, and some weren't. Q Yes, sir, some were, and some weren't. But the APIs that you wanted people to use were APIs that were not pure Java APIs; correct, sir? A No. We were glad to have people use both. Q Were you indifferent as to whether they used your pure Java APIs or your proprietary APIs? MR. HEINER: Objection. THE WITNESS (Bill Gates): You've introduced the word proprietary, and that completely changes the question. So help me out, what do you want to know? Q BY MR. BOIES: Is the term "proprietary API" a term that you're familiar with, sir? A I don't know what you mean by it. Q Is it a term you're familiar with in your business? A I really don't know what you mean. You mean an API that you have a patent on?
- wfjackson 12y ago
  >Q Is it a term you're familiar with in your business? >A I really don't know what you mean. You mean an API that you have a patent on? Isn't that a good question? An API is essentially a function header. eg. void print(string Text); How can it be proprietary unless it was patented or something? See Oracle vs. Google. While talking to a court one has to be exact. Perhaps the lawyer meant an API implementation that is copyrighted?
  - bluedino 12y ago
    In Microsofts case it may have meant undocumented. Features only Microsoft knew were there, since they wrote them
    - wfjackson 12y ago
      No, it's not. If you read the exchange posted by the parent poster again, it's about MS's additional API hooks in Java that were meant to be used by Java developers, so they're definitely not undocumented.
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keypusher 12y ago
Having been through a deposition myself, one of the most useful and crucial phrases to remember is "I don't remember". It is human nature in such situations to try and present yourself authoritatively, and to answer questions in a positive and detailed way. However, the absolute worst thing that can and often does happen is for the interviewer/lawyer to get you to elaborate on something and say you remember x or y happening, then presenting evidence to the contrary. If you don't know, or you aren't sure, or prefer not to answer the question, just say "I don't know" or "I don't remember".
- runeks 12y ago
  It can also be used in situations where you would incriminate yourself by telling the truth. Mr. Gates uses it in reply to the question: > What did you mean when you asked Mr. Maritz whether or not, "We have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhdDZk45HDI#t=2113 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhdDZk45HDI#t=2113
  - pdabbadabba 12y ago
    Yes, if you don't mind committing perjury. The Fifth Amendment doesn't help you here (for those of you who think it might). You can only use that to avoid incriminating yourself criminally and, then, it does not simply permit you to give whatever answer you want. When you invoke the Fifth you have to refuse to answer the question, you can't just lie.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      What does perjury have to do with claiming that you don't remember something?
      - wfjackson 12y ago
        If later it can be proven that you did really remember it and that you lied for convenience, you can be held liable for perjury.
sprw121 12y ago
Bill Gates has some serious swag
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coralreef 12y ago
You really see the pragmatic, poker playing mentality that Gates has been described as here.
drewcrawford 12y ago
From 32m 50s, one of the most wonderfully pedantic exchanges I've heard: Q: Did you send this email Mr. Gates, on or about Aug 8, 1987? A: I don’t remember sending it. Q: Do you have any doubt that you sent it? A: No it appears to be an email I sent. Q: You recognize that this is a document produced from Microsoft’s files, do you not? A: No. Q: You don’t? A: Well how would I know that? Q: Well, you see the document production numbers down at the bottom? A: I have no idea what those numbers are. Q: Do you recognize this as the form in which email has been printed out by Microsoft? A: I don’t know what that means. All email printed by anyone looks just like this. So the fact that it looks like this doesn’t give me any clue as to who printed it. Q: Well, let’s begin with that sir. E-mail printed out by other people are not stamped with Microsoft confidential stamps and Microsoft document production numbers. You would agree with that? A: That has nothing to do with printing out. Q: Do you understand my question sir? A: Nope. Q: Okay. Do you see down at the bottom where there are “confidential” stamps, and a stamp that says “Attorneys only”, document production stamps? Do you see those? A: I see the stamps. I can’t characterize whether they’re document production stamps. To me they look more like you’d see on a prisoner’s uniform. Q: You don’t have any knowledge about these stamps, it is your testimony? You don’t know what they are? A: I’ve never seen a stamp like that. I’ve never used a stamp like that. Q: Haven’t you seen stamps like that in every single one of the documents that you’ve been shown during this deposition? A: (To counsel) Can you get me all the exhibits?
- ghshephard 12y ago
  I don't consider it pedantic in the slightest - the questions were absolutely horrible, and I think Bill Gates was doing his level best to give accurate and honest answers, keeping in mind that he was being deposed, which, is at it's very core, is an adversarial situation. Look at it another way - which of those question would you have answered differently? Perhaps the only error he made was when he said, "I've never seen a stamp like that" - he should have said, "I don't recall ever having seen a stamp like that."
- jmedwards 12y ago
  It looks weird, but this is what a well prepared witness is meant to do in a deposition situation: answer only what is asked, if you don't know what is being asked, dig in. If you don't completely recall, then you don't recall. http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/dec11/managing3.asp http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/dec11/managing3.asp
Geee 12y ago
Hmmm.. The Microsoft-Apple deal in 1997 wasn't signed when Jobs made the announcement. He just went through it. Was that known? It's @40:10
manish_gill 12y ago
I don't get it. Is this the same deposition which was such disastrous that the judge laughed in court while the video tape was being played? http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/17/judgelaugh.ms.idg/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/17/judgelaugh.ms.... I talked it over with a law-school friend of mine and he agrees that the initial deposition was handled very badly by Gates, so much so that it is used as an example of "what not to do in a deposition" in law schools. I wonder what people here are praising Gates about. :) Edit: Here's another article: http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/12/07/252139/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...
- aragot 12y ago
  Thank you for this valuable background. So as I understand, Bill Gates' deposition is legally correct but so terribly unpopular that it's the wrong thing to do, am I right? Besides, what was the outcome of the trial? If I understand: - It started in May 1998, - In April 2000, it was judged that Microsoft acted consistently in an anti-competitive wat, - In June 2000, judge Jackson orders the break-up of Microsoft into two companies. It was reverted in September 2001, presumably because it doesn't make sense anymore. - In November 1998, Microsoft is ordered to stop selling products which contain an incompatible version of Java. Sun wins this ruling. - In 1997, Microsoft is ordered not to require OEMs to ship IE with Windows. It looks to me that all those interviews have led to very little outcomes. Any expert's opinion on this? http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2002/11/35212 http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2002/11/35212
  - manish_gill 12y ago
    I'm just going to paraphrase some quotes from the discussion I had with the aforementioned friend, since I think he puts it much more succinctly """ Indeed. I mean, people think that Gates is being so clever with his pedantic word-play jargon games, but they are forgetting is that the Federal prosecutor is smarter at word games, is well versed in law, and can easily pick out minutiae. He would have just made Gates wait 6 hours and ask the question again and again and again, until finally, he writes up a report saying how uncooperative Mr. Bill Gates was during the deposition (whose entire point is that you are supposed to cooperate) and thus making the case of plea bargaining even harder. (He is quite smart. Probably top of the class at Harvard law knowing how federal prosecutors are hired.) The whole idea of a deposition is you try and co-operate. If I were a judge do you see why I'd take a very dim view of that tape? The article is cnn's main story from that year. But as a sign of how worried Microsoft is about the effect of the videotape, the company brought in a hired gun to talk to reporters about how depositions are typically combative and involve "jousting" and, in that sense, how Gates' deposition was "unremarkable."" When you have to do that, you know something is wrong. Oh and btw that is completely disregarding how it affects public opinion which in turn might harden Justice dept through pressure via political bodies (congress and white house) that are susceptible to public opinion. Remember, all depositions are public record. It might seem quite funny and clever to you but an average American outside the Valley probably sees it very different - an overpaid arrogant CEO. """ As for how come there was very little outcome, apparently it's a fairly well established claim in various law journals that the whole reason MSFT case failed was because after 9/11, they didn't seem to want to go after an American champion. Or MSFT would've been broken apart. Prosecuting them changed as political priorities changed. (Date of settlement is November '01). And a Republican revival started around the same time. Also note that Gates retired a few months later. Official reasoning was given as him feeling burned out, apparently.
elwell 12y ago
23:48 - http://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s http://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s My attention perked as I expected to hear a familiar phrase from Pinky & the Brain, and it would have fit the context.

188 points by BukhariH 12y ago

This is pretty painful to watch - he seem very awkward - its pretty funny when he gets pissed off at the guy about 5 minutes it "Give me a break!"

ISL 12y ago
I took the bait; it happens at the 12 minute mark. Gates does an impressive job of staying sharp through incessant questioning. The opposing counsel has a job to do, but it's unpleasant to experience.

haneefmubarak 12y ago

Even though I generally dislike the man, I gotta say I admire how he handled that. Especially considering how much of a prick the other person was being. If I had been in the same scenario, eventually I would have responded: "Are you trying to obtuse or are do you simply lack basic comprehension skills?"

mtrpcic 12y ago
If you don't mind my asking, why do you dislike Bill Gates?
- colechristensen 12y ago
  He ruthlessly destroyed his competition using unfair/shady/sometimes illegal business practices are we're all worse off as a result. He's also from the very beginning been strongly opposed to free software.
  - korzun 12y ago
    > we're all worse off as a result Who is we? Who are you speaking for? Are you speaking for me? Are you speaking for millions of people his foundation and charity work touched? Step out of your little bubble and leave your childish comments there.
    - penprog 12y ago
      His charity (while good for the world) doesn't undo the damage he caused when he was CEO of Microsoft.
      - korzun 12y ago
        What damage. How did it impact you.
        x0x0 12y ago
        Well, ms crippled the web as an application development target by freezing ie for somewhere between 5 and 10 years, in order to support their desktop software monopoly. A monopoly that used to cost on the order of $100+ per pc. So they got probably an extra $400 from me.
      - gearoidoc 12y ago
        I'd also question what damage he did as MS CEO that can in any way take away from the good his foundation is doing/has done.
        pyre 12y ago
        I'm generally opposed to the idea that people can crush others in their pursuit of wealth, and then become "good" now that they are part of the uber-rich (and can afford to just toss money around). It encourages the idea that the ends justify the means.
        gearoidoc 12y ago
        It's business - you play to the limit of the rules and if you break them then you try your best not to get caught. MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    Most of his competitors destroyed themselves. See "In Search Of Stupidity" by Chapman.
    - radmuzom 12y ago
      Brilliant book. In it, Rick Chapman also states how there were some things MS should have done differently, but the general opinion that MS "killed" competitors' products and was strongly monopolistic is quite wrong.
- haneefmubarak 12y ago
  He has strongly opposed free software for a long, long time. Additionally, his company has been a strong proponent of DRM for ages and just keeps making it worse. That wouldn't be so bad if it worked with few problems, but somehow, I always seem to get caught up in the DRM bugs in Microsoft's implementations.
  - V-2 12y ago
    Also Internet Explorer, with its incompatibilities, yet very large user base, and Microsoft trying to enforce its own web standards - held the internet back for a long time. Web apps could have been better and cheaper to develop if it wasn't for this factor.
    - melling 12y ago
      We are still paying for IE. XP can't install a version greater than IE8, which many people and companies still use.
      - fleitz 12y ago
        Yes, 14 year old operating systems have limitations, have you tried installing Chrome on Redhat 7.2 recently? How about Chrome on Mac OS 9, or Mac OS X 10.1?
        melling 12y ago
        I think you're completely missing the point. First, I'm not blaming Microsoft. Second, there are more people using XP than using Macintoshes or Linux. I'm simply pointing out that we're still paying the price for the IE domination of the late 90s early 2000's. At this point Microsoft is paying a price too. Hopefully windows 10 will garner enough support that they can move away from their past also. Their latest versions of IE are actually quite good.
    - wfjackson 12y ago
      Reminds me of the -webkit tags that became the defacto standard forcing Opera, mobile Firefox and mobile IE to support them since web developers can't be bothered to code to standards or update their code. If it works in Safari/Chrome it ships because of their very large user base in mobile, exactly the same situation with IE. http://css.dzone.com/articles/why-webkit-new-ie6-trap-vendor http://css.dzone.com/articles/why-webkit-new-ie6-trap-vendor http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/australian-technology/the-webkit-prefix-will-ruin-the-mobile-web/ http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/australian-technology/the-w... Not to mention Chrome developers "trying to enforce their own web standards": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7184912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7184912 Progress on web standards have always been spearheaded by browser implementations before being standardized, there were many non standard extensions that Netscape implemented that IE had to add support back in the day. IE6 was a particularly bad issue because major browser releases were tied to Windows releases and Longhorn/Vista had to be reset and delayed.
- Karellen 12y ago
  For starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/ They may not have been written by him, but they accurately describe and predict the observed behaviour of Microsoft w.r.t. Free Software under Gates' leadership. And that's just what MS did to Free Software. Under Gates, Microsoft were just as ruthless towards other competitors, seeking to undermine them in a number of ways (unfairly leveraging their monopoly position, dumping, sabotaging) rather than competing in the marketplace on the merits of their products. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
soup10 12y ago
Gates was being super evasive, with-holding information and playing dumb. I don't fault the interviewer at all, the name of the game is pin the tail on the weasel, it's only natural that he has to repeat himself and ask gates to clarify over and over. The fact is Microsoft feared Sun as a competitive threat, and did some unethical things to try to undermine them. Microsoft's implementation of java was part of that strategy(embrace, extend, extinguish). Obviously what ethics means or should mean in the context of corporations is a whole bag of worms, but it's clear that Microsoft did and continue to do things that were detrimental to the advance of computer technology as a whole to benefit themselves.
- Arwill 12y ago
  The important point that dawned on me watching this video, is that the things you describe weren't done by Microsoft as a faceless corporation, but consciously by specific people, and by Gates himself directing the activity.
- _delirium 12y ago
  That's how I recall it being perceived at the time as well, that Gates's deposition came off as evasive, and wasn't that well received.
romanovcode 12y ago
I'm just curious, no pretext here. But did you liked Steve Jobs?
- haneefmubarak 12y ago
  Amusingly enough, I'm fairly neutral on him. His good is exactly equal to his bad, IMHO.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
I think you've missed the point of the game that's being played. Gates is in the hot seat, and he is doing his best to wiggle his way out of a tight spot. So saying that you admire how he handled that is a bit like saying that you admire how he weaselled his way out of the trouble he was in for MS abusing its monopoly and other anti-competitive behavior that he and the rest of the MS board were up to at the time. But, yeah, he obviously did his job well, so long as by "well" you mean in a way that optimized MS chances of success, while hurting MS competitors' chances of success.

georgemcbay 12y ago

This is surprisingly interesting to watch. The way he responds is almost like he is playing a high-level chess match, which is unfortunately absolutely necessary because the person deposing him is fishing for a simple "yes" answer to a question without all the context he already provided (so that this can be introduced in a dramatic way such that even if those deciding the case get the full context later they will have already made up their mind that "Java == Competitive Threat" based on the introduction). Having been on a 6 week long jury trial that included a lot of these sorts of deposition "revelations" where people (who you'd think would be smarter, though it is difficult to adjust for how much stress this sort of questioning puts them under) said something that sounded terrible in local context (but innocuous in the wider context that the defense later showed), the local context that is introduced first is really all that sticks with a lot of people, if the majority of the people on my jury were any indication. In this case, all of his answers are smart, which isn't that surprising since like him or not Bill Gates is clearly a really smart fellow (and one who was surely coached for this up-front by a crack legal team).

V-2 12y ago
Somewhat related. Have you seen it? Extremely interesting imho: http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
johnabygone 12y ago
...apart from jury trials don't have depositions, so you're lying
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  The trial I was on had lots of depositions presented to us. The case was Fleischmann v. DJO, San Diego County Courthouse, late July to August 2013, presided over by Judge Joel M Pressman. The plaintiff lived in Colorado and the case involved a lot of care-givers from that area as well as "expert" witnesses from as far as Alaska, but the company he was suing was based in San Diego. Given the high number of witnesses unable to attend a trial so far from where they are based, we had to deal with a lot of deposition-based testimony, some of them shown to us in video form and some read aloud in reenactment by lawyers. And even in cases where the depositions aren't directly shown to the jurors they are still highly used by lawyers in an attempt to get present-at-the-trial witnesses to contradict their deposition statements. You might want to tone down the accusations of lying when you don't really know what you're talking about (or I guess you can just use a nicely green throwaway account to hide behind).

gearoidoc 12y ago

Handles it like a champ IMHO.

MrJagil 12y ago

Thank you for a great submission. Can anyone clarify how this lawyer system works in regard to the involvement of fields they are not intimately familiar? I mean, I know certain lawyers specialises in tech or corporate matters, but it is entirely unrealistic for someone to both be knee-deep in matters of the law and technology (or any other matter they are not necessarily trained in). Do they consult with tech experts? Study up? Guess their way through? I'm just reminded of what i see as totally botched lawmaking in fields where it seems a certain level of education in that field would be required to make sound decisions on it's behalf. Might be of other reasons than education (i.e. privacy vs government power), but watching this I can't help but feel there's a correlation. I assume the chasm is only getting greater the more layers of abstraction we add to our technology stack. We're already seeing situations where the only one who can discuss a given case properly, is the accused himself.

thathonkey 12y ago
It doesn't work in that regard.
x0x0 12y ago
I tend to agree, but I also think industries -- particularly tech -- have a working definition of totally botched lawmaking that means lawmaking the industry doesn't like. eg the lawsuits against Napster, that was attempting to build a business facilitating bulk copyright infringement with vanishingly few non-infringing uses.
- stinkytaco 12y ago
  I think this is true of almost any industry, but it does seem especially prevalent it tech (which also seems to attract a greater number than average of the "I'm smarter than most" crowd). You can always claim that lawmakers don't understand [insert your industry here], but I suspect many understand it better than we think, but still disagree.
  - colechristensen 12y ago
    It's fairly obvious that disturbingly many senators and congressmen in important positions (relating to tech) have only faint ideas of things necessary to properly make voting decisions. There is a difference between the common incompetence of elected officials and the existence of competent lawyers in high profile cases.

dorafmon 12y ago

Can anyone explain why the lawyer is so keen on making Bill Gates to confirm that he thought that Java is a competitive threat?

johnchristopher 12y ago
IANAL but I suppose it is to paint a certain picture of BG's intentions regarding Java which would be then used to motivate the decision of the judge/jurors [0]. [0] Your legal system may varies but it's often about judging the intention and then the consequences.
- dorafmon 12y ago
  So it can be used against him? How?
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_in_English_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_in_English_law If the lawyer can prove or make BG admits JAVA is a threat then BG's actions against JAVA can be seen as deliberate rather than accidental or unfortunate. Because the "Oops I didn't think tweaking JAVA API so it works only on Windows would hurt SUN that is trying to sell a JAVA thingie that works everywhere" card wouldn't work that well and it would established deliberate questionable practice. In this case it might or might not be something like that.
twoodfin 12y ago
At the time, Microsoft's licensing disagreement with Sun over Java frameworks and integration with native code had some overlap with the DoJ's case: Was Microsoft attempting to eliminate a threat to their Windows monopoly with "embrace, extend & extinguish"? I think the government ultimately dropped that angle.

yuhong 12y ago

Trivia: The last MSJVM updates were actually the DST updates released in 2007 under the extended hotfix support for DST program (that costed $4,000 per year). Not for the US DST changes, but the ones in Australia and other countries.

kalleboo 12y ago
I feel sorry for the poor soul still supporting an MS JVM application in 2007...

mandeepj 12y ago

This article[1] is worth mentioning in this context as we talk about Microsoft's anti-trust policies. [1] - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx

ynniv 12y ago

Depositions are unnatural, legally technical situations. For an amusing treatment, see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/opinion/verbatim-what-is-a-photocopier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/opinion/verbatim-what-is-a...

x0x0 12y ago
I've unfortunately been deposed for a day and a half and they are very weird things. First, as the deponent, your goal is twofold: to not fuck up your case by saying anything stupid and to run the clock. Many depositions are limited to X hours. And at least our lawyers were very clear: answer exactly the question, nothing but the question, do not elaborate, and answer minimally. Also, opposing counsel gets to use notes while you don't. In my case, I was questioned about emails that, printed, where most of a ream of paper. They where trying to trip me up, get me confused, etc, and I was essentially being quizzed on the emails, content, and timeline of very stressful events that occurred over two years -- all without notes. I really wanted to point out that I write things in emails because my memory is fallible. That's why date stamped written records are useful. My lawyer also had me answer all date questions in a formula, again to avoid misstating things. Instead of saying, eg, X happened in August, I had to say X happened around august, or around fall, etc. It seemed like clarity was your enemy -- opposing counsel could get you to make mistakes on minor details (did X happen at the end August or the beginning of September? who knows; that's why I use a calendar) and then use that to claim the major details where unreliable.
mynameishere 12y ago
Someone should have informed the director and/or actor that lawyers rarely yell and rant in depositions.
- thesteamboat 12y ago
  Nah, they weren't going for verisimilitude* and it's funnier imagining that the deposing lawyer, rather than trying to set up some later verbal trap, is just honestly bewildered by the ignorance of deponent. * From the NYTimes article introducing the video: In this short film, I sought to creatively reinterpret the original events. (I’ve not been able to locate any original video recordings, so I’m unsure how closely my actors’ appearance and delivery resembles the original participants.) My primary rule was the performance had to be verbatim -- no words could be modified or changed from the original legal transcripts. Nor did I internally edit the document to compress time. What you see is, word for word, an excerpt from what the record shows to have actually unfolded. However, I did give the actors creative range to craft their performances. As such, this is a hybrid of documentary and fiction. We’ve taken creative liberties in the staging and performance to imbue the material with our own perspectives.

Plough_Jogger 12y ago

Incredibly diplomatic.

enupten 12y ago

I'm always surprised by how idiots who haven't the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Pot, meet Kettle.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. No. Of course not. I was pointing out the irony of HN user enupten's criticism of the lawyer deposing Gates, while knowing little about being a lawyer. My remark relies upon my assumption that enupten is more likely to be some sort of a techie than a lawyer (and not both). OTOH, you can't possibly accept MS' weak argument that their hands were forced by engineering decisions, rather than engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices for the sake of harming their competitors. The mere fact that the government's lawyers and judges were not well suited to create their own competing software products isn't proof that they were wrong about the legality of MS' conduct. >That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people. I was disappointed in the results of the trial as well. What outcome(s) would you have preferred?
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      My preference is a bit outside the mainstream, in that I don't agree that the trial should have happened in the first place. I've never seen Microsoft beat anyone in the marketplace who didn't deserve it. Like Google and Apple, they were lucky to have some of the least-competent competition in the history of business. When those competitors proved inept at defeating Microsoft in the marketplace, they went whining to the DoJ. I believe that any other consumer-friendly OS, if exposed to the same critical scrutiny that Windows faced, would have fared just as badly in the quality and security areas where Windows has traditionally taken most of its bashing. Windows didn't win over OS/2, MacOS, and Linux because of any skulduggery on Bill Gates's part (and yes, I agree, there was plenty of legitimate skulduggery to accuse Microsoft of perpetrating.) It won because the others sucked even more. Moreover, I believe that the network effects that arose from the dominance of Windows were far more beneficial than the sort of meaningless competition that prevailed in earlier personal computing eras, where everyone was selling proprietary hardware and OSes that were just different enough from everyone else's to make life annoying and expensive for independent developers. Modern mobile developers don't know how lucky they are that they only have to target two 800-pound gorillas. So I disagreed strongly with the DoJ's antitrust efforts, and would have even without the involvement of figures like Judge Jackson whose legal talents would have been better spent adjudicating parking tickets. The whole process made me pretty cynical about antitrust actions and our legal system in general.

sauere 12y ago

It must be hard sitting there thinking to yourself "these people here have no idea what the hell they are talking about", repeating the same answers over and over again. Therefore, i think he is handling the situation rather well.

thomasahle 12y ago
It sounds like you have only watched the beginning, when they are discussing java vs the jvm. Later we get snippets like these from Gates' own emails: > "Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?" > "I want to get as much mileage as possible out of our browser and Java relationship here. In other words, a real advantage against Sun and Netscape." And in a conversation Bill participated in: > "Apple wants to keep both Netscape and Microsoft developing browsers for Mac -- believing if one drops out, the other will lose interest (and also not really wanting to pick up the development burden.) Getting Apple to do anything that significantly/materially disadvantages Netscape will be tough. Do agree that Apple should be meeting - the spirit of our cross license agreement and that Macoffice is the perfect club to use on them." It's a very different Gates from the philanthrope we see today, but back in the 90ties he was a bit of a dick. It's a bit slow to watch it all, but the entire thing appears to be transcribed here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/documents/gatespart2.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/micro...
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >It's a very different Gates from the philanthrope we see today, but back in the 90ties he was a bit of a dick. IMO Gates the businessman is just a ruthlessly competitive adversary. I don't even see a conflict between him then and his philanthropic activities now. It was also covered pretty well at Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653 http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107...
  - thomasahle 12y ago
    > IMO Gates the businessman is just a ruthlessly competitive adversary. Well, anticompetitive adversary. > I don't even see a conflict between him then and his philanthropic activities now. He certainly seems to be pretty good at both jobs.

venantius 12y ago

I'm stealing one of the YouTube comments, because I actually thought it was pretty interesting. I started watching this thinking the interviewer was an idiot, but I think the issue is a little more complicated than it seems at first. Comment from YouTube user "tapo": So in the 90's Sun Microsystems created Java, which has two components, the programming language and the runtime. The runtime (the Java you install) lets you run things written in Java on any device regardless of OS or CPU architecture. Write once, run anywhere. This was a huge threat to Microsoft. Why write Windows programs when you could write Java programs and they'd run on any computer? So Microsoft wrote their own Java runtime called the MS JVM, and made it part of Windows, it extended Java to do Windows-only things, meaning there were now "Java" apps that could only run on Windows, destroying the whole point of Java. This became part of the antitrust trial because it ruined Sun's product. In a separate case, Sun sued Microsoft and won.

V-2 12y ago
MS created Visual J++, and Visual J# afterwards. Ultimately C# was born out of these efforts and it's a much better language than Java nowadays (with some exceptions such as better enums in Java). The tooling is superb as well - Visual Studio is a kickass IDE. Although adding ReSharper to the party doesn't hurt.
- xxs 12y ago
  C# and .net had Delphi's mastermind, nothing to do with Visual J.
  - V-2 12y ago
    You are mistaken. After joining Microsoft, Hejlsberg led the company’s efforts in Visual J++ [...] Hejlsberg helped make Visual J++ the most popular and most productive Java IDE in the late '90s. http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/Anders-Hejlsberg.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/about/technicalrecognition/Anders-H...
    - 12y ago

mkonecny 12y ago

I'm not sure anyone here has watched the entire video. The lawyer catches on real quick to what Bill Gates is trying to say, and it appears like Bill Gates is being overly semantic to try and avoid answering the question. Later on around the 30 minute mark is when Bill Gates begins to stutter and constantly avoids directly answering the correctly phrased questions.

stplsd 12y ago

This is from part 6, priceless: Q And first let me ask a general question, and that is: Did you believe that from Microsoft's standpoint it was desirable to have as many pure Java applications as possible? A We weren't focused on that as a goal, no. Q In fact, is it fair to say that you preferred fewer pure Java applications to more pure Java applications? A We preferred more applications that took advantage of our APIs, and so we worked with ISVs to maximize the number that took advantage of our APIs. Q And your APIs were not pure Java APIs; correct? A No. Some were, and some weren't. Q Yes, sir, some were, and some weren't. But the APIs that you wanted people to use were APIs that were not pure Java APIs; correct, sir? A No. We were glad to have people use both. Q Were you indifferent as to whether they used your pure Java APIs or your proprietary APIs? MR. HEINER: Objection. THE WITNESS (Bill Gates): You've introduced the word proprietary, and that completely changes the question. So help me out, what do you want to know? Q BY MR. BOIES: Is the term "proprietary API" a term that you're familiar with, sir? A I don't know what you mean by it. Q Is it a term you're familiar with in your business? A I really don't know what you mean. You mean an API that you have a patent on?

wfjackson 12y ago
>Q Is it a term you're familiar with in your business? >A I really don't know what you mean. You mean an API that you have a patent on? Isn't that a good question? An API is essentially a function header. eg. void print(string Text); How can it be proprietary unless it was patented or something? See Oracle vs. Google. While talking to a court one has to be exact. Perhaps the lawyer meant an API implementation that is copyrighted?
- bluedino 12y ago
  In Microsofts case it may have meant undocumented. Features only Microsoft knew were there, since they wrote them
  - wfjackson 12y ago
    No, it's not. If you read the exchange posted by the parent poster again, it's about MS's additional API hooks in Java that were meant to be used by Java developers, so they're definitely not undocumented.

deleted 12y ago

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keypusher 12y ago

Having been through a deposition myself, one of the most useful and crucial phrases to remember is "I don't remember". It is human nature in such situations to try and present yourself authoritatively, and to answer questions in a positive and detailed way. However, the absolute worst thing that can and often does happen is for the interviewer/lawyer to get you to elaborate on something and say you remember x or y happening, then presenting evidence to the contrary. If you don't know, or you aren't sure, or prefer not to answer the question, just say "I don't know" or "I don't remember".

runeks 12y ago
It can also be used in situations where you would incriminate yourself by telling the truth. Mr. Gates uses it in reply to the question: > What did you mean when you asked Mr. Maritz whether or not, "We have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhdDZk45HDI#t=2113 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhdDZk45HDI#t=2113
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  Yes, if you don't mind committing perjury. The Fifth Amendment doesn't help you here (for those of you who think it might). You can only use that to avoid incriminating yourself criminally and, then, it does not simply permit you to give whatever answer you want. When you invoke the Fifth you have to refuse to answer the question, you can't just lie.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    What does perjury have to do with claiming that you don't remember something?
    - wfjackson 12y ago
      If later it can be proven that you did really remember it and that you lied for convenience, you can be held liable for perjury.

sprw121 12y ago

Bill Gates has some serious swag

deleted 12y ago

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coralreef 12y ago

You really see the pragmatic, poker playing mentality that Gates has been described as here.

drewcrawford 12y ago

From 32m 50s, one of the most wonderfully pedantic exchanges I've heard: Q: Did you send this email Mr. Gates, on or about Aug 8, 1987? A: I don’t remember sending it. Q: Do you have any doubt that you sent it? A: No it appears to be an email I sent. Q: You recognize that this is a document produced from Microsoft’s files, do you not? A: No. Q: You don’t? A: Well how would I know that? Q: Well, you see the document production numbers down at the bottom? A: I have no idea what those numbers are. Q: Do you recognize this as the form in which email has been printed out by Microsoft? A: I don’t know what that means. All email printed by anyone looks just like this. So the fact that it looks like this doesn’t give me any clue as to who printed it. Q: Well, let’s begin with that sir. E-mail printed out by other people are not stamped with Microsoft confidential stamps and Microsoft document production numbers. You would agree with that? A: That has nothing to do with printing out. Q: Do you understand my question sir? A: Nope. Q: Okay. Do you see down at the bottom where there are “confidential” stamps, and a stamp that says “Attorneys only”, document production stamps? Do you see those? A: I see the stamps. I can’t characterize whether they’re document production stamps. To me they look more like you’d see on a prisoner’s uniform. Q: You don’t have any knowledge about these stamps, it is your testimony? You don’t know what they are? A: I’ve never seen a stamp like that. I’ve never used a stamp like that. Q: Haven’t you seen stamps like that in every single one of the documents that you’ve been shown during this deposition? A: (To counsel) Can you get me all the exhibits?

ghshephard 12y ago
I don't consider it pedantic in the slightest - the questions were absolutely horrible, and I think Bill Gates was doing his level best to give accurate and honest answers, keeping in mind that he was being deposed, which, is at it's very core, is an adversarial situation. Look at it another way - which of those question would you have answered differently? Perhaps the only error he made was when he said, "I've never seen a stamp like that" - he should have said, "I don't recall ever having seen a stamp like that."
jmedwards 12y ago
It looks weird, but this is what a well prepared witness is meant to do in a deposition situation: answer only what is asked, if you don't know what is being asked, dig in. If you don't completely recall, then you don't recall. http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/dec11/managing3.asp http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/dec11/managing3.asp

Geee 12y ago

Hmmm.. The Microsoft-Apple deal in 1997 wasn't signed when Jobs made the announcement. He just went through it. Was that known? It's @40:10

manish_gill 12y ago

I don't get it. Is this the same deposition which was such disastrous that the judge laughed in court while the video tape was being played? http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/17/judgelaugh.ms.idg/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/17/judgelaugh.ms.... I talked it over with a law-school friend of mine and he agrees that the initial deposition was handled very badly by Gates, so much so that it is used as an example of "what not to do in a deposition" in law schools. I wonder what people here are praising Gates about. :) Edit: Here's another article: http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/12/07/252139/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...

aragot 12y ago
Thank you for this valuable background. So as I understand, Bill Gates' deposition is legally correct but so terribly unpopular that it's the wrong thing to do, am I right? Besides, what was the outcome of the trial? If I understand: - It started in May 1998, - In April 2000, it was judged that Microsoft acted consistently in an anti-competitive wat, - In June 2000, judge Jackson orders the break-up of Microsoft into two companies. It was reverted in September 2001, presumably because it doesn't make sense anymore. - In November 1998, Microsoft is ordered to stop selling products which contain an incompatible version of Java. Sun wins this ruling. - In 1997, Microsoft is ordered not to require OEMs to ship IE with Windows. It looks to me that all those interviews have led to very little outcomes. Any expert's opinion on this? http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2002/11/35212 http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2002/11/35212
- manish_gill 12y ago
  I'm just going to paraphrase some quotes from the discussion I had with the aforementioned friend, since I think he puts it much more succinctly """ Indeed. I mean, people think that Gates is being so clever with his pedantic word-play jargon games, but they are forgetting is that the Federal prosecutor is smarter at word games, is well versed in law, and can easily pick out minutiae. He would have just made Gates wait 6 hours and ask the question again and again and again, until finally, he writes up a report saying how uncooperative Mr. Bill Gates was during the deposition (whose entire point is that you are supposed to cooperate) and thus making the case of plea bargaining even harder. (He is quite smart. Probably top of the class at Harvard law knowing how federal prosecutors are hired.) The whole idea of a deposition is you try and co-operate. If I were a judge do you see why I'd take a very dim view of that tape? The article is cnn's main story from that year. But as a sign of how worried Microsoft is about the effect of the videotape, the company brought in a hired gun to talk to reporters about how depositions are typically combative and involve "jousting" and, in that sense, how Gates' deposition was "unremarkable."" When you have to do that, you know something is wrong. Oh and btw that is completely disregarding how it affects public opinion which in turn might harden Justice dept through pressure via political bodies (congress and white house) that are susceptible to public opinion. Remember, all depositions are public record. It might seem quite funny and clever to you but an average American outside the Valley probably sees it very different - an overpaid arrogant CEO. """ As for how come there was very little outcome, apparently it's a fairly well established claim in various law journals that the whole reason MSFT case failed was because after 9/11, they didn't seem to want to go after an American champion. Or MSFT would've been broken apart. Prosecuting them changed as political priorities changed. (Date of settlement is November '01). And a Republican revival started around the same time. Also note that Gates retired a few months later. Official reasoning was given as him feeling burned out, apparently.

elwell 12y ago

23:48 - http://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s http://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s My attention perked as I expected to hear a familiar phrase from Pinky & the Brain, and it would have fit the context.