Smash Notes

Back to #401 How Bill Gates Works, with David Senra.

Why Did Bill Gates Treat Constraints as a Friend?

David Senra says young Bill Gates treated constraints as a friend. Early computers had very little memory, so programs had to stay lean and use as little code as possible.

A sloppy program that runs for pages is easier to write than the same program on a single page. Senra pairs that with the line about needing more time to write a shorter letter. He puts Gates with James Dyson and Elon Musk: lean engineering is good engineering. Gates ran Microsoft the same way. He hates waste and inefficiency, stays obsessed with cost control, and hounds everyone in the company about it. Senra says that pattern shows up in the books about Bill Gates and Microsoft.

John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, had listened to over 100 episodes of Founders by the time he met Senra. Mackey told him Whole Foods would still be an independent company if Founders had existed when he was younger, because he would have put more priority on controlling expenses, especially in boom times, when it is natural to watch costs less closely.

Grokipedia·Bill Gates·David Senra

Transcript

#401 How Bill Gates Works ·

Founders

More from this episode

  1. Why Did Larry Ellison Call Bill Gates More Dangerous Than Edison?David Senra reads Larry Ellison calling Bill Gates more dangerous as Rockefeller than he would have been as Thomas Edison.
  2. How Did Bill Gates Learn to Code From a Dumpster?David Senra reads that Bill Gates learned by pulling other people's code out of a dumpster.
  3. Why Did Bill Gates Choose Software Over Hardware?David Senra reads Bill Gates choosing software over hardware because manufacturing computers seemed too risky, while writing software took only brain power…
  4. What Did Bill Gates Start When Software Was Free?David Senra reads Bill Gates on starting a pure software company when software was supposed to be free.
  5. How Did a Best-efforts Clause Save Microsoft?David Senra reads Bill Gates on the best-efforts clause that later got Microsoft out of an exclusive license.
  6. How Many People Worked at Microsoft After Four Years?David Senra says four years in, Microsoft had just 11 employees. He thinks the count might be 12.
  7. How Much Did 5 Percent of Microsoft Sell for?David Senra says Bill Gates sold 5 percent of Microsoft for $1 million to Technology Venture Investors, TVI.
  8. Why Did Bill Gates Remove His Car Radio?David Senra says Bill Gates took the radio out of his car so the drives between home, the office, and the airport could be spent thinking about Microsoft.
  9. Why Did Bill Gates Stare at Philippe Kahn's Photo?David Senra reads that Bill Gates was staring at a photograph of Philippe Kahn, the rival he had spent years trying to get rid of.
  10. What Did Bill Gates Want From Seattle Computer?David Senra reads Paul Allen's account of what Bill Gates wanted from Seattle Computer Products: a sale, not a license, so Microsoft owned DOS.

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