1

Profile of Bill Gates

Profiles of Global Leaders

July 14, 2010

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Abstract

This paper will outline a profile of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. I will provide

background information about his upbringing, his early exposure to computers, and his founding

of Microsoft. I will then detail his unique leadership skills which have allowed him to take his

company from a small upstart to a global icon.

Childhood

William (Bill) Henry Gates III was born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington to a middle class

family. His father was a lawyer and his mother served on the board of directors for a bank and

the United Way. Bill Gates has one older and one younger sister. His parents had originally

hoped that he would become a lawyer.1

At age 13 he enrolled in an exclusive school called Lakeside where he was exposed to an

ASR-33 teletype terminal. The school had also acquired a block of time on a General Electric

(GE) computer for the students. Gates had a fascination with the programming of the GE system

and quickly learned BASIC. He was also able to get himself excused from his math class to

follow his computer interest. He wrote his first program on this computer which allowed people

to play tic-tac-toe against a computer. Gates was impressed by the computer and how it would

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
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always execute software code perfectly. After the school’s computer time was used up at GE,

Gates received exposure to other computer systems including DEC2 PDP3 minicomputers.4

One of these systems was a PDP-105 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC),

which banned four Lakeside students (Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans) for

the summer after the kids were caught taking advantage of kinks in the operating system to get

free computer time.6 At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's

software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to

CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including

programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language.7 This arrangement with CCC continued

until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences,

Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them

computer time and royalties.8 Once school administrators became aware of his knack for

programming, Gates was asked to write the school's computer program to schedule students in

classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He

2
Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American computer company, a leading vendor in the
minicomputer market throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and for a long time one of the most admired within the
hacker community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation)
3
Programmed Data Processor (abbreviated PDP) was the name of a series of minicomputers made by Digital
Equipment Corporation. The name 'PDP' intentionally avoided the use of the term 'computer' because at the time of
the first PDPs, computers had a reputation of being large, complicated, and expensive machines.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor)
4
Manes, Stephen (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest
Man in America. Touchstone Pictures. ISBN 0671880748.
5
The PDP-10 is a mainframe computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from the late 1960s.
The name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10)
6
Manes, Stephen (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest
Man in America. Touchstone Pictures. ISBN 0671880748.
7
Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0140260404.
8
Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0140260404.
 4

later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so

unambiguously demonstrate success."9 At age 17, Bill Gates formed a venture with Paul Allen,

called Traf-O-Data10, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.11

Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He served as a congressional page in the

U.S. House of Representatives after high school. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT12 and

enrolled at Harvard College in the fall of 1973. While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who

later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft, and computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou, with

whom he wrote a paper about pancake sorting13. Bill Gates never pursued a specific course of

study while a student at Harvard but he did spend a significant amount of time using the school's

computers. He remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at Honeywell during the

summer of 1974. Later that year, the MITS Altair 8800,14 based on the Intel 8080 CPU15, was

released and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software

company.

9
Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0140260404.
10
Traf-O-Data was a partnership between Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert. The objective was to read the raw
data from roadway traffic counters and create useful reports for traffic engineers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-
O-Data)
11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
12
http://web.archive.org/web/20060510205250/http://theweekmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=803
13
Pancake sorting is a variation of the sorting problem in which the only allowed operation is to reverse the elements
of some prefix of the sequence. Unlike a traditional sorting algorithm, which attempts to sort with the least
comparisons possible, the goal is to sort the sequence in as few reversals as possible.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake_sorting)
14
The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail
order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MITS_Altair_8800)
15
The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit microprocessor was
released in April 1974 running at 2 MHz (at up to 500,000 instructions per second), and is sometimes considered to
be the first truly usable microprocessor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8080)
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Creating the Microsoft Empire

In 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen contracted with the developers of the Altair 8800 to

write the first computer language (Basic Interpreters)16 for MITS’s small computer which

resulted in them relocating to Arizona and setting up a small office in a run down motel. They

called their company Microsoft. A defining moment for Microsoft came in 1980 when an

agreement was signed to provide the operating system that became known as MS-DOS, for

IBM's new personal computer. In a contractual masterstroke, Microsoft was allowed to license

the operating system to other manufacturers, spawning an industry of "IBM-compatible"

personal computers which depended on Microsoft's operating system.17 The real genius of Bill

Gates’ move here was that Microsoft didn’t have an operating system to sell to IBM. Bill Gates

just knew that IBM needed one and set up the meeting and sold them something he didn’t have

while retaining the rights to it. He banked on the fact that Paul Allen had an acquaintance that

had been working on an operating system. Once they struck their deal with IBM Paul Allen

purchased the operating system from his acquaintance for $50,000. Microsoft tweaked this

operating system and made millions of dollars off of it.

The “Windows” era that most of us are familiar with today began in 1985. This new

software enabled users to run applications and included the use of a mouse for the first time.

16
In computer programming, BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code[1]) is a
family of high-level programming languages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC)
17
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3428721.stm
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Rapid growth triggered Microsoft to go public in 1986, raising $61 million. Paul Allen had

already reduced his role in the company but Bill Gates continued to lead the company's growth,

with his vision for networked computers proving crucial to Microsoft's continued success.18

Bill Gates used a simple philosophy to take Microsoft to the top of the software market;

‘offer people and business a product that they want and need’. Bill Gates put an emphasis on

recruiting and retaining some of the brightest staff in the software industry. He believed that the

recruitment of talented software engineers was one of the most critical elements in the software

industry.19 In addition to software experience, Bill Gates looked for several other characteristics

which included, the capacity to grasp new knowledge quickly, the ability to ask probing

questions, and deep familiarity with programming structures.20

Bill Gates significantly, and positively, impacted Microsoft through his use of original

and aggressive marketing strategies. Gates was a marketing whiz because of his persistence in

being in direct contact with customers and the market. Bill Gates spent a considerable amount of

his time meeting large numbers of customers which assisted him in leading Microsoft in the

direction that the industry was heading; often times Gates and Microsoft greatly influenced that

direction and the industry as a whole.21 A perceptive judge of the potential of software products,

Gates successfully predicted future trends and positioned Microsoft's products in such a way that

18
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3428721.stm

19
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship-Case%20Studies.htm
20
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship-Case%20Studies.htm
21
http://trendsupdates.com/gates%E2%80%99-vision/
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they soon became best selling products.22 Gates led Microsoft from a $1 million company in

1978 to a market leader in the software industry with revenues of $62.48 billion in 2010.23

Primary Leadership Qualities

This case discusses in detail the visionary leadership of Bill Gates and his contribution to

the Information Technology industry. Gates played an important role in product development

activities at Microsoft. Much of his development efforts were directed towards product

simplification. Gates believed that user-friendly computers and easily accessible software could

attract many new customers.24

In leading Microsoft Bill Gates centered on three primary areas; 1) Focus on Product

Development, 2) Hire the best talent, 3) Aggressively Market the Products. He was successful in

these areas because of leadership skills such as a willingness to take risks, taking initiative, and

being a visionary.

Gates played an important role in product development activities at Microsoft. Much of

the development efforts were directed towards product simplification. Gates believed that user-

friendly computers and easily accessible software could attract many new customers. He tried to

view the entire product portfolio of Microsoft in the light of future prospects and likely

competitor moves. Accordingly, he made strategic decisions regarding product development and

lead the company to the leading role in software applications.

22
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship-Case%20StudiesExcp.htm
23
http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY10/Q4/default.a
spx
24
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship-Case%20Studies.htm
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Gates paid special attention to recruit and retain the best talent in the software industry.

He believed that the recruitment of talented software engineers was one of the most critical

elements in the software industry. Though a great number of potential recruits applied for jobs at

Microsoft, Gates assumed that the best talent would never apply directly. Consequently,

Microsoft's HR managers had to hunt for the best talent and offer them a job.25 His leadership in

the area of attracting and retaining highly qualified candidates proved to be invaluable to his

company.

Bill Gates’ marketing style was analytical and persuasive. Very early on Gates had a

vision to have a personal computer in every home, not just for financial gain, but because he

envisioned the potential of future computer applications and how they would help educate,

entertain and enrich people's lives. His strategy began with his own passion for technology and

fueled the growth and direction of Microsoft.

Bill Gates took significant risks to get where he is today and he did so even at a young

age. First and foremost he dropped out of college to pursue his passion and make his mark in the

technology field; and not just any college, but Harvard. The timing of this move was key because

personal computers were on the horizon and the need for computer languages and software were

just becoming evident. In his own words, “I worried that they would realize I was just a student

in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: "We're not quite ready, come see us in a month,"

which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked

day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and

25
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship-Case
%20Studies.htm#Focus_on_Product_Development
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the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft”.26 Secondly, his risk taking is evident in

the way he approached IBM with a language for their PC before he even had the language.

Contracting with IBM proved to be a very significant move for Gates and Microsoft. A third

example can be seen in that Bill Gates was building a software company before most people

actually knew what software was. His vision in this area is what set him apart from other

industry pioneers who seemed to focus on building computers rather than writing languages and

code. A final example can be seen with Window’s and a quote from Bill Gates himself “Usually,

it's because you take a big risk, you bet on something early, like Windows in our case.

Everybody else doesn't believe in it, they don't invest, and we have this incredible success

because we were right."27 Bill Gates’ perception on risk taking is that of “if you decline to take

risks early you’ll decline in the market later. Furthermore, if you bet big, only a few out of these

risks have to succeed to provide for your future”. Gates cautions that people and companies

should be prepared to experiment with new processes and technology solutions.28 Gates

continues to apply his risk taking behavior even today. Along with his wife Melinda, he was

quoted as saying that their foundation (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) will "take a long-

term view and take large risks on new approaches". The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation focus

on education, food, and health programs in developing countries.29

Bill Gates took initiative! During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s he not only took an

interest in computers he showed initiative by learning everything he could about them including

26
http://humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=gates_at_harvard
27
Quoted in the Boston Globe June 1, 1993
28
http://www.navhindtimes.in/panorama/what-one-can-learn-bill-gates
29
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/rss/article/979714/Bill-Gates-pledges-large-risks/
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learning and writing such computer languages as BASIC, COBAL, and FORTRA. Furthermore,

he showed initiative in the way he found computers to use and practice on. First, at the Lakeside

School and General Electric, and then with Computer Center Corporation, and finally with

Information Services Inc. Next, Bill Gates showed initiative by forming a company with Paul

Allen, called Traf-O-Data30, in which they made traffic counters based on the Intel 8008

processor.31 All of this was accomplished while still in high school. However, perhaps one of the

most significant example of Bill Gates’ initiative is evident in Gates contracting with the

developers of the Altair 8800 to write the first computer language (Basic Interpreters)32 for

MITS’s small computer which resulted in the relocation to Arizona and the formation of

Microsoft. A final instance, and arguably an equally significant one, is when Microsoft

contracted to provide the operating system that became known as MS-DOS, for IBM's new

personal computer. The initiative displayed by Bill Gates to approach IBM and sell them an

operating system that Microsoft didn’t even have yet shows not only great risk but excellent

initiative to further his company.

Bill Gates was a true visionary during the boom of computer age in the 1970, 1980’s, and

1990’s. When asked about his success Bill gates replied “there were a lot of people at the same

place I was. One difference was I had vision, I saw the potential that was there … The big

difference was I took massive action and immediate action.”33 Another quote explains why Bill

30
Traf-O-Data was a partnership between Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert. The objective was to read the raw
data from roadway traffic counters and create useful reports for traffic engineers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-
O-Data)
31
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
32
In computer programming, BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code[1]) is a
family of high-level programming languages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC)
33
http://www.billycoxinternational.com/blog/take-it-from-bill-gates-vision-action-big-things/
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Gates focused on software rather than hardware, “…but we talked about a day when computers

would be personal, and that the software part was something we thought we could do better than

anybody else… we saw that software was sort of an unlimited thing that we kind of understood.

Most of the people in the computer industry thought about the hardware piece. But we had

latched on to software...”34 Bill Gates’ vision for the industry and for Microsoft helped shape the

direction of his company as well as contributing to the direction of the entire computer software

industry.

Additional Leadership Qualities

Several concepts of emerging and effective global leadership trends were discussed

during our course. Some of these trends included thinking globally, developing technological

savvy, creating shared vision, empowering people, achieving personal mastery, leading change,

anticipating opportunities, ensuring customer satisfaction, and maintaining a competitive

advantage.35 Each of these areas are directly applicable to the successful leadership

characteristics exhibited by Bill Gates.

• Thinking Globally: Bill Gates had a global mindset early on and this evident in a quote

from him. Bill Gates said, “Well, we weren't that well-known publicly until sometime in

the 1980s, and one of my favorite articles was where they wrote that there were four

software companies, and none of them was that much different than the others. But we

knew at that time that the other three just weren't long term, hiring the right people,

thinking globally.”36

34
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0001/01/lklw.00.html
35
Goldsmith, Marshall. Global Leadership: the next Generation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT/Prentice Hall, 2003.
Print.
36
http://news.cnet.com/bill-gates-retirement/
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• Developing Technological Savvy: Bill Gates has definitely developed technological

savvy throughout his career. In fact he can be considered one of the pioneers of the

software industry.

• Creating Shared Vision: A shared vision is commitment from all members of an

organization towards objectives and the way to accomplish those objectives. A very early

vision of Bill Gates was a computer on every desk and in every home. This may have

seemed very farfetched to people 30 years ago but in 2010 it is almost a reality, at least

for America.37 Developing and sharing this vision with Microsoft employees has played a

tremendous role in the success of the company.

• Empowering people: “The most important part of my work as chairman is recognizing

and articulating the opportunities they present to each person in the company. We then

empower employees with as much information and as many productivity tools as

possible, so they can achieve results within the framework of that vision.”38

• Achieving Personal Mastery: Personal mastery is developing one’s self to achieve

personal goals as well as objectives of the company one works for.

• Leading Change: Change is a basic function of today’s information technology

companies and Bill Gates summed it up well when he said, “I work in the software

industry, where change is the norm. A popular software title…gets upgraded every year

or two with major new features and continuous refinements. We listen to customer

feedback and study new technology opportunities to determine the improvements to

37
http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/ourbusinesses/profile.mspx
38
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10156528/Inside-the-Guru-Mind-Bill-Gates
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make.” Microsoft’s failure to get in early during the Internet revolution is a lesson that

has not been forgotten. Today, Gates prepares for “inflection points” by ensuring that

technological developments are monitored and that Microsoft hires employees with the

skills to apply these advances to commercial ends.39

• Anticipating Opportunities: Bill Gates successfully envisioned the direction and future of

the software market took advantage of those opportunities by embracing software

development rather than trying to build computers.

• Ensuring Customer Satisfaction: Bill Gates customer satisfaction theories are reflected in

a three-pronged approach; he suggests:40

o Focus on the most unhappy customers

o Use technology to get information on their unhappy experiences and what they

expect from you

o Use technology to drive the news to the right people, in a hurry

• Maintaining a Competitive Advantage: Bill Gates believed that for Microsoft to be

successful and remain competitive he needed to provide unique products which would

become the staple of the operating systems for most of the personal computers sold

virtually anywhere. He said, “My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on

a few things. From a very young age I thought software was magical; I thought if I just

really focused on that and hired great people that we could change the world through the

tool that software has now become. And so you know, I picked just a very few things. I

think that's the only way I can make a difference.”41

39
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10156528/Inside-the-Guru-Mind-Bill-Gates
40
http://www.navhindtimes.in/panorama/what-one-can-learn-bill-gates
41
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/CEOProfiles/story?id=506354&page=3
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o The Six-Part Competitive Strategy42

1. Concentrate your effort on a market with large potential but few competitors.
2. Get in early and big.
3. Establish a proprietary position.
4. Protect that position in every way possible.
5. Aim for high gross margins.
6. Make the customers offers they cannot refuse.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Bill Gates strengths lie in his ability to correctly judge the market and understand where

the trends are heading. This attests to his visionary capabilities. An additional strength displayed

by Mr. Gates is his ability to share that vision in order to get others to help him make his ideas a

reality. A further strength is Mr. Gates ability to position Microsoft at the top of the software

market by designing and creating products that he knew people and businesses would need

coupled with the way he contracted and bundled the products in new computers.

Research indicates that one specific weakness of Bill Gates is that of impatience not only

with others but often within himself. Secondly he may struggle with showing emotions and

developing interpersonal relationships. Lastly it has been alleged that he can have a quick temper

and at times is too blunt and direct.43

Other Interesting Facts

42
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10156528/Inside-the-Guru-Mind-Bill-Gates
43
http://famous-relationships.topsynergy.com/Bill_Gates/
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In 1993, Bill Gates received the 'Price Waterhouse Leadership Award for Lifetime

Achievement' by the Computerworld Smithsonian Honors Program (CSHP). This award was

presented to Gates for his remarkable contribution to the Information Technology (IT)

revolution, for the distinctiveness of its conception, for the wide reach of its vision, and the

benefits it brought to the society. 44

In 1996, Gates was named the 'Technology Leader of the Year' by the editors of Industry

Week for his corporate guidance and for his unique ability to make his company - Microsoft

Corporation (Microsoft)- adapt quickly to changes in the industry.

In 2005 Bill Gates was knighted be England’s Queen Elizabeth II. Because he is an

American Citizen he cannot use the title “Sir” but he can place the letters KBE after his name.45

KBE stands for Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.46

On July 1, 2008 Bill Gates stepped down from role as Chairman of the Board of

Microsoft. Mr. Gates served as Chairman for 27 years beginning in 1981. He will continue to

serve as an advisor for key projects of Microsoft. During his tenure at Microsoft he held

positions such as Chief Software Architect and Chief Executive Officer.47

Quotes from Bill Gates

44
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship/Leadership%20the
%20Bill%20Gates%20Way-Leadership%20and%20Entrepreneurship.htm
45
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3428673.stm
46
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBE_%28disambiguation%29
47
http://people.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/11334
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"Ultimately, the PC will be a window to everything people are interested in-and everything we

need to know.

“Getting in on the first stages of the PC revolution looked like the opportunity of a

lifetime, and we seized it.

“ The weight of all failures of Microsoft could make me too depressed to come to work. Instead I

am excited about the challenges and by how we can use today’s bad news to help tomorrow’s

problems.” 48

“Learning from mistakes and constantly improving products is a key to all successful

companies.”49

Conclusion

I feel that Bill Gates has been a great leader for his company. He has some of the

attributes mention in our Global Leadership text but does not necessarily encompass them all.

Areas he rates well in were previously mentioned and include thinking globally, developing

technological savvy, creating shared vision, empowering people, achieving personal mastery,

leading change, anticipating opportunities, ensuring customer satisfaction, and maintaining a

competitive advantage. Skills that he did not acutely possess include sharing leadership,

demonstrating integrity, and encouraging constructive dialogue.

48
http://www.navhindtimes.in/panorama/what-one-can-learn-bill-gates
49
Quotes from Bill Gates
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oG76rdNmFMJBsBauxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzdWFscmExBHNlYwNzcgRwb3M
DMgRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkA0Y5MDBfMTE1/SIG=128p0vovm/EXP=1281525853/**http
%3a//www.afterquotes.com/great/quotes/products.htm
 17

My research has indicated that Bill Gates was very much the boss and he often did things

the way he wanted to regardless of other opinions; sharing leadership was not his forte. Although

he did listen to his teams and executives he often steered them towards his own vision.

Discussing integrity and Bill Gates can be a double edged sword because while he seems to be a

responsible corporate citizen there are some questionable tactics involved with his business

decisions. For example, there is evidence that Windows was based on designs and ideas

misleadingly acquired from Apple and Microsoft has become very a near a monopoly in the

operating system market. Bill Gates fostered constructive dialogue dividing teams when numbers

become too large. Tasks are then divided among the teams, and the team leaders, in turn,

subdivide the tasks among subordinates and coordinate the progress of the group. Gates then

encourages debate between the groups, and brings the different units together with a shared

vision.50

It is apparent that Microsoft would not be the company it is today without the excellent

guidance, clear vision, and tremendous passion for technology that Bill Gates has demonstrated.

He truly encompasses the very essence of what it takes to be a great leader. James Collins, co-

author of the book - Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies has said of Gates’

leadership, "To my mind, Microsoft has never been a company. It's a single remarkable

individual, Gates, with thousands of the smartest, best-paid people anywhere helping that

individual. It's basically like a big wheel, with Gates at the hub."51 It is apparent that Microsoft

would not be the company it is today without the excellent guidance, clear vision, and

tremendous passion for technology that Bill Gates has demonstrated.

50
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10156528/Inside-the-Guru-Mind-Bill-Gates
51
"Bill Gates' Executive Style Inspires a Cult Following," by David Streitfeld in the Washington Post, dated May 1,
2000.