Bill Gates's Playboy Interview (1994)

>We are involved in a new generation of fax machines that we think will be better and easier to use. And a generation of screen phones [a standard phone with a minicomputer] in which the typically cryptic buttons are replaced with a graphics interface. And in the home environment, something you can carry in your pocket called the Wallet PC.

>PLAYBOY: In your pocket?

>GATES: It's a futuristic device unlike today's personal digital assistants.

But it also shows the human side of Gates (his family nickname is Trey) and how really intelligent and quick he is. A lot of clueless people think he's just a corporate raider, incomparable to Jobs, they're quite wrong. I've heard many stories from my friends at Microsoft about him interacting directly with engineers, asking very sport on questions. Believe me, this kind of thing is rare in some other tech companies, where MBA types rule. Not many people could have handles an interview like this one.

I also remembered once again how good the articles and fiction on Playboy used to be. Yea, yea, "I read it for the articles" is a common joke, but do you realize that many top writers, including Oates, Updike, Nabokov, and (this seemed incredible) Borges have published stories there?

One of the founders of Netflix definitely had a subscription to Playboy.

>PLAYBOY: Could that be happening to Microsoft now? In terms of corporate power, your company has been called the new IBM.

>GATES: I've thought about that, but I don't think so.

I'd like to hear his answer to that from 2000, 2005, and today. I feel like most people would agree Microsoft has fallen victim to a similar lack of bureaucratic vision.

> GATES: It was supposed to do handwriting recognition. But based on the initial product, people are skeptical about whether handwriting recognition really works. They did some nice technical work on the product. Unfortunately, it's not a useful device as far as I'm concerned, so it'll probably set the category back.

Gates, in the article, also described wallet-size pocket computers that, he hoped, would serve also as keyless entry systems, ticket stub replacements, etc. It’s up to the reader to wonder if his reaction to the Newton was partially disappointment to its lack of physical-world interactions/value, partially the competitive mindset, and/or really due to distaste for its handwriting recognition.

Of course, the Win CE / PocketPC line is susceptible to a lot of the same criticisms.

* * *

I find it interesting how much Gates talks about people ascribing certain motives and goals to him, Microsoft, Disney, and other companies. He says really, they are responding to competition and customers. Pretty much the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

This is part of why corporations can be so dangerous: not that they are evil, but that they aren’t guided by morality as much as simply responding to environments in potentially harmful ways.

* * *

(Aside: Boy is it weird reading articles on Playboy.com. Here's something for the intellect, dear reader; may we up-sell you on some pornography? Thank goodness for the Readability bookmarklet. At least in the magazine — I understand — the articles get pages to themselves!)

But both these were third-generation copies: And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel?

What's up with the raspberries?