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Comment by pjmorris | Hacker News Reader

I've heard multiple Microsoft Research researchers describe that they'd interacted with Gates, and he was able to discuss quite technical aspects of their fields and their work.

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I only ever met one executive who was like that. It was amazing.

Dude was basically on a guided tour and like many before stopped to ask me what I was up to. I mentioned some high level stuff and then he asked some questions that shocked me ... in the sense that they were good questions that really indicated he knew what I did. I answered cautiously, he asked some more along the lines of "oh so" and we went back and forth and I realized dude just "got it" as far as how we worked, what we were doing, challenges, and etc.

It was great, and maybe a bit sad that was the one time.

Dude in question was too good for the company at that time and moved on. The company didn't really want someone who knew what was going on because inevitably that meant some push back / organization / shifting momentum here or there. So he moved on and we got a yes man who had no clue.

I’ve met one or two “executive level” people like this and it’s pretty shocking. You’re used to having to dumb down what you say, to a 6-year-old’s understanding, in order to talk to these guys, and all of a sudden you meet one who knows the details of CDMA technology or is an expert on spatial indexes or something. “Mind blown” moment! Sadly, like your example they don’t seem to last, and get replaced with more political yes-men.

I have heard that too from some guys in the Munich office where he visited. He joined a conversation and the guys were really impressed how much he knew about the low-level details they were working on. He seems to have an incredible memory.

Ever talked with someone with 30-40 years of professional dev experience? This has been my experience with them - even if they don't know exactly what you're doing or the particulars of a specific technology, they have a vast amount of accumulated knowledge and experience that is often useful. And of course, they can probably school you in C.

I think the previous comment may have been referring to Bill Gates having photographic memory.

He may, but even if he doesn't having as much technical experience as he does, or anyone else who's been around the block as much as he has, is going to give you a shortcut to insight into most situations.

He said incredible memory. But I suppose my point is that it's easier to remember things when you've encountered them many times in your career and been developing so long (over 45 years!).

The way I was told the story it was more about him knowing EXACTLY what they were doing. They suspected that he is reading a ton of E-mails and remembers all the details.

I am not surprised that people with amazing memories end up being in senior positions for a variety of reasons (and not just technical).

I am WAY more fascinated by the people who end up in those roles who do NOT have amazing memories. Partly because my memory is by no means "amazing" so I'm curious how they work around not being able to recall everything on command.

I think the higher up you get the more you need memory capacity to quickly switch between tasks. When I look at my VP he has to do a complete context switch between completely different issues almost every hour and remember what was discussed weeks before.

I was listening to a radio interview with an (American) football coach (Sean McVay), who has risen up the ranks very quickly. The guy can instantly recall details about past football plays and outcomes like a walking encyclopedia, and apply them situationally during games. Hyper focused. The interviewer asked him of this recall and focus translated to other aspects of his life, and the coach said that it was limited to football, and that he's essentially an unbalanced mess with anything non-football related. So, for these people that seem to have super recall and deep, broad expertise in their professional environments, does it often come at the expense of being equally unbalanced in other areas of their life?

Reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVJFRl6f6s

Some people are just on a whole other level.

He went to harvard and got 1590. He is probably on the very very high end of intelligence curve. He also reads a ton and has a lot of experience. Its not surprising he can have technical conversations with researchers.

I think there's a difference between people who study lightly and score high, and people who grind it out and then score high. I'd guess that the majority of high scorers fall into the latter, while he falls into the former.

I worked with an MCS guy years ago who carried a picture in his wallet of him and Bill. I guess they went through some difficult solution to a problem and walked away making a bunch of well-thought out and necessary changes after about 10 minutes.

can confirm

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