Bill Gates: Transitioning into the Future

Posted By: Charles | Jun 23rd @ 8:58 AM
Bill Gates has been at the helm of Microsoft for the entire existence of Microsoft. It's the only place he's worked and he's getting ready to step down from his day to day responsibilities in his office on the Redmond campus. Bill's employment future will be centered around running his philanthropic enterprise, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill is fundamentally shifting his focus from achieving his dream of "a PC in every home" to helping realize the vision of "healthy people in every country". He talks about how each one of us can help make this dream come true by donation of time, expertise and, of course, money.

Charles caught up with Bill to discuss his transition from full time at Microsoft to full time at his global philanthropic foundation (he will still be involved with major decisions given that he will retain his post as the Chairman of Microsoft and his email address will still be functional Smiley).

Questions addressed in this conversation include: What's on Bill's mind as he prepares to step away from his full time responsibilities at Microsoft? What was his rationale for making the decision? What was behind his decision to put Ray Ozzie in the role of Microsoft Chief Software Architect? What does a CSA actually do? Why is Microsoft so focused on competing with Google and is search as important as we think? What's top of mind for Bill that Developers who target our platform should pay attention to now and in the next decade? How can Microsoft become more agile given the complexity that arises from so much asynchronous innovation spanning disparate product units? Why does Windows still matter in an Internet world?

Enjoy. This is a good one. Thank you again, Bill, for your support of C9 over the years, the incredible innovation you brought to market and the incredible generosity of your foundation.
Tags: ,
Rating:
2
0
#Jun 23rd @ 9:49 AM
Bas
Bas
Awesome. Downloading now.

I suppose it'd be a step too far to have Bill post here just once...

...right? Tongue Out
#Jun 23rd @ 10:03 AM
SlackmasterK
SlackmasterK
C9 supports pingbacks now?  This is gonna be interesting.  At least it was an MSDN blog Smiley

Haven't been watching the video page lately; linked here from Jeff's twitter.  Thanks Jeff.
#Jun 23rd @ 11:02 AM
TommyCarlier
TommyCarlier
Cool interview. I'm surprised how much different topics were covered. He sure knows his stuff.
#Jun 23rd @ 11:04 AM
Bas
Bas

Wait wait wait, there's some sort of cloud services thing Ray Ozzie has been working on that isn't Mesh, and is secret enough to bleep out even the codename? Spill the beans, man! We can't wait until PDC!

Great interview, Charles. Really informative. Bill remains one of the most interesting people in IT.