This once again makes it clear that Bill Gates, although incredibly smart and successful, was never a visionary. Notice how he expects an immediate trend towards learning computers, that adapt to the user by learning from their behavior and a set of rules. Although an enticing idea this resulted in Microsoft Bob and probably not much else.
Also remarkable is the absence of any mention of the internet, although it was quite developed and capable already in 1986 - Microsoft famously missed the boat on this until the 'Cornell is wired' memo.
Finally, in every question about how Microsoft decides what to build, he is very vague and hardly ever talks about actual users. We now know that the main methodology employed by Microsoft was to simply rip off existing successful products and bundle them with Windows.
> This once again makes it clear that Bill Gates, although incredibly smart and successful, was never a visionary.
He became successful because he was a visionary.
He saw in 1978 that the future was in software, not in hardware (Apple went the other way and ended up in a hole for two decades because of that mistake). Then he saw the future of licensing software and bootstrapped Microsoft based on it.
Then he saw the importance of operating systems and built the company around it.
Then he saw the importance personal computing with Word and Excel.
You can say a lot of things about Bill Gates but saying he was not a visionary is absurd.
Also remarkable is the absence of any mention of the internet, although it was quite developed and capable already in 1986 - Microsoft famously missed the boat on this until the 'Cornell is wired' memo.
Finally, in every question about how Microsoft decides what to build, he is very vague and hardly ever talks about actual users. We now know that the main methodology employed by Microsoft was to simply rip off existing successful products and bundle them with Windows.