well microsoft was the first
software company where
rewrote software for personal computers and we believe
that we could hire the best engineers
there was a
unbelievable amount of software to be written
and
we could do it well we could do it on of global basis
uh... to
original
customer base
was the
hardware manufacturers
and resold
to literally hundreds and hundreds
uh... over a hundred companies in japan over a hundred companies doing
word processors in industrial control type things
we know in the long run we wanted to sell suffered directly to users
but we actually didn't get around that
till nineteen eighty
when we had uh... our first sort of deans and
uh...
uh... productivity software that
that people would go to a computer store in actually by the the software package
we actually
talked about it
unit article
and i think nineteen
seventy seven was the first time it appears in print
where we say a computer on it on every destin and every home
and actually did
pick we said running microsoft software
if we were just talking about the vision we'd leave
that those last three words out
uh... if we were
document internal company
discussion
we put those words and
and
it's very hard to
recall
crazy and wild that was you know on every desk and in every form
you know at the time you have
people who are very smart same
you know why would somebody needed computer or even ken olsen
who would run this company digital equipment
who made the computer i grew up with
and you know that we admired
both him and his company immensely
was saying that
this seemed kinda a silly idea
that people would want to have a computer
when
ibm
saw that we had written supper for all the personal computers
they came to us sought or advice on the design
but we said you should put it this can
and since they wanted to ship very quickly
another company
uh...
called digital research
had done that work
for the eight bit machines
and they were starting to do a version for this new these new sixteen machines
we commenced by the end of the sixteen bit machine
using this
eighty eighty six eighty d eight processor will be entered research
really hadn't finished the work
and that idea was getting frustrated because they're doing research
when sign even a non-disclosure agreement
and then some of us uh... particularly paul
and uh...
key person in kozhikode nishi
uh...
was from japan worked with us
said no no no we should just do that ourselves
and because of a quick timing
we end up licensee me original called from another company
uh...
and turned that into m_s_ toss
and
so then
subsequently m_s_ tossed competed with
this digital research cpm
uh... after about two or three years and messed osx
became far far more popular
uh... then
than cpm and then eventually we would
pecan ad
graphics capability on top of m_s_ toss
and then integrate the two together
and said today when we talk about windows
and actually include
although zen estilo slings in it that's the full operating system
alarm also you think of the graphics in windows and stuff there's a lot of
more classic operating system capability that that's built in there
they are the end initial bill is a flat fee deal uh... another flat the deal
it had certain restrictions
that prevented i_b_m_
from selling to other hardware makers
so people did
i_b_m_p_c_ compatible machines
we would get the revenue by doing business directly with those people
and that the deal was very complicated but it was a deal that
steve balmer who's a key person of the company by that time
and i thought a lot about
and it was that they really
junior team from i_b_m_ so we tried to make sure that given our belief that
personal computers would be hyper popular
that microsoft would get
a lot upside so
they felt they got a very good deal which they did
as the industry expanded
we uh...
for numbers and some for different machines we dot that opportunity even
though they did not pay so royalty
even in the early days of the set a computer on every desk every home and
you'd say okay how many homes are there on the world how many decir on the world
you know can i make twenty bucks for every home twenty bucks for every desk
if you get these big numbers
part of the beauty of the
hoping was
we were very focused on the here and now
should we hire one more person
ip our customers
didn't pay s
what we have enough cash to meet the payroll
we really were very practical about
that next thing and so involved in
the deep into the ring
that we didn't get ahead of ourselves we never thought
you know how big we'd be i remember
when uh... will your lead lists of wealthy people came out
and
uh... one of the intel founders was there
pic i ran wayne
computer section still
women still doing well and we thought within boy at the software business does
well
nevada microsoft could be
summer to that but it wasn't real focus state
the everyday activity of
doing great software
through a stand
decisions we made like the quality of the people the way we were very global
that vision of
uh...
uh... how we thought about software that was very long term
but you know other than those things you know we just came in to work every day
in
uh...
wrote more quote
you know hired
hired more people
it wasn't really until the idea of pc
succeeded and perhaps even into windows succeeded that
there was a broad awareness that microsoft
was very unique
as a software company that these other companies have been one product
companies
have heart
people could do a broad set of things didn't renew their accidents tend to
research
uh... so
and we've got your
doing something very unique but it was easily
i'm not until nineteen ninety five or even nineteen ninety-seven that
that there was this wide recognition that we
we where the company that had
had revolutionized software
when i was very young
had been exposed to computers so i was mostly just free team
doing math learning about science
and i wasn't sure what
my critique
i knew i loved
alarming about things i was an avid reader
but it was when i was twelve years old that i
i first got use a computer
actually a very
limited machine by today's standards uh... back but that
definitely fascinated me when i was first exposed
i was intrigued
uh... by figuring out what to do but couldn't do
and some friends of mine
lots of time uh... the teachers got intimidated so we were on our own
trying to figure it out actually gave
course on computers
uh... to the other students
and it became
you know a fascination where
uh... we
got paid for doing computer work and
talked about forming a accompany
uh... but
there was kind of a magical breakthrough in the computer
became
uh...
and
we could see that
everyone could afford a computer
uh... that was
much later
uh... but id
uh... that's what got us to
really get interim and create company for software
yet map was the thing that uh... k most natural to me
and
you need to make peace
exams some which were sort of nationwide exams and
uh... i did quite well almost
gave me some confidence and i had some
teachers were very christine
uh... they
let me read text books they encourage me to take
uh... college course on
symbolic math which is actually called
algebra
uh...
so i i felt
it pretty confident in my math skills which is a nice thing because
uh... not only the sciences but economics a lot of things
if you're
comfortable
uh... with math and statistics and
weighs in
looking at cause-and-effect
uh... that's extremely helpful
computers were immensely
expensive
uh... and cost millions of dollars a machine that
was far less powerful and
from what you have a m
a cell phone
today and so that
either you do
have a very
important application
or you to share the machine with other people and still you had to pay quite a
bit of money
and sometimes turns worrier connected up in and sharon machine
it's a lot better then
sending their programs and because you can see
when you make a mistake
uh... pretty quickly
even so because they charge is so much
we'd actually typed the programs
offline on a paper t
uh... so that we didn't
have any delay for typing
and then when we got onto the computer we'd feeding on that tape
uh... so that
that was less less time online
but it gave you a sense look at what you got right and wrong and you could try
and cracked things
uh... we also
because at that time the dominant form of computing misusing punch cards
we exceeded that quite a bit we're down
at the university of washington use some of those
punch card systems
as computers became less expensive so-called many computers
that more people had access mostly scientists and business people
but also we
managed to find
machines that were being used at night the idea of the machine is something
that an individual would use and that it would just sit there idle when they
weren't using them
dot only made sense
about a decade later
when the work that we and others have done
had gotten a the price down so dramatically
the idea of a computer sitting idle unit doesn't feel like some q_-two waste of
resources
alike
uh... it did when they were
so uh...
expensive and rare
i went through several phases of doing more complex programs
where people who were great programmers would look at my work give me feedback
on it
and
you get to you
you camille quite a good programmer
and it was kind of a such a
uh... intense activity
between the age of thirteen and seventeen
uh... that
you know we learned a allot
uh... densely welded
programs which were calm was
the idea of the scheduling of
uh... bar school when should the classes mean who should be what sections they
are all these requests
people who want different classes and
keeping them small and not having the teachers teach too many
classes around
very complex kind of software problem
inaction of the school first asked me to do it
uh... when i was fifteen
i said that i i didn't know how
an awsome adults to do it not
didn't work
uh...
and many
about a year later i'd figured out how to do it
and so my friends and i actually did the software
did all this high school scheduling uh... betrayed some fantastic
uh... benefits to us
and we got paid for doing it
it was exactly the kind of com complex problem that
now develop my skills very well
and you know we got
some degree of
control over
who is on our classes and
uh...
so you know it combined the best of everything
well my parents have been
fantastic
throughout
my whole student career mean getting me to go lakeside
uh... that
my senior at lakeside word one and two take time off and do this job it to your
w they've been very supportive about letting live down in vancouver
washington
i decided to show some a little bit
where and some of that
mike orchestra w so they should skip undergraduate school graduate school
and they were not do just about that
it looks like tight
would have an option you do that but i didn't i
i'd just went to harvard
and that was another case where they were right that in a socially demand
other undergraduates was good
i want to take graduate courses up at m_i_t_
and i did that too limited degree so i i kinda had the best of both worlds anyway
when it came time to be
uh... go on leave
from harvard
the policies of the school about if your garden
letting you come back work
credibly generous
and so
if he had a price it failed
then
and i would have been back into my parents
we're a little surprised
and kind of
wondering what it meant
uh... but they were pretty supportive
and in fact when we got into this legal dispute
uh... with per checked
you know my dad gave me good advice he was
supportive on on that
and so we saw that
through
and
you know that is the company became successful a
you know i hope they felt better about it
nearly all the really bad case was if it
if i stayed
and the company of was kinda mediocre lee successful that they'll that would
be okay if it
was a big success it would be okay maybe you know they could see i was
very energized and
i thought
in we needed to get in at the very beginning and not waste a year or two
which is what i have left of mine
uh... undergraduate course requirements
well i think the american dream is this kind of a global dream now that young
people
can come up with new ideas and
and create
companies that make a contribution not just jobs that whatever their
innovations that they bring about
no capitalism is this unbelievable open system that if you combine it with
uh... good infrastructure good education
their creativity
that we find
uh... for people who've had that those cancers
is always going to surprise us it's always going to come up with new seeds
new medicines and software
the movies you know things that are
or make the world a better place
microsoft
was at the center of the personal ck computer revolution in particularly
intimidate creation of a software market we went out to lots of companies and
courage them to write software
for different applications monday now applications
wild up occasions
that idea that
you would encourage people to be creative and build saw for maybe a whole
industry around that
uh... microsoft we didn't have no one else did
and so we got that going
and that's led now to where you have all these great choices and it just keeps
getting better and better ants because of the following the machines out there
it can be sold very very inexpensively sadat
all bootstrap getting the industry going
making a it personal making them be lots of software that's what we or the most
proud of
the foundation not started uh...
in the late nineties with my dad encouraging mean
uh... an executive named patty stone separate
uh... left microsoft
or helping out high was still
very busy
our kids were
uh... very young
uh... but we got going
put computers in libraries in many different countries including the united
states
we did some scholarship things
we were learning about
uh...
reproductive health and and population issues
and i kept growing
and we met people
though about back scenes and
sos
a part-time thing
a global health was a bit over half
uh... the u_s_ focused uh... library scholarship education work was over a
quarter
uh... that there was a final peace
relates to other things
the poorest other than just and health
uh... things things like
finance in savings
an eight in our group
then i saw that
uh... i could make
unique contribution aaron created to transition plan uh... that was
four years in the making
and so now im full-time at the time dation
and
plane rolled
being the chairman and
traveling a lot concerts you know it's equally challenging it's very fulfilling
it's taking this these resources on lucky enough to have because of the
success of microsoft
in giving those back to that the society
in a way that can have the biggest impact