Re: My five minutes with Bill Gates

[steve cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Wandered Inn wrote:

> Steve Cohen wrote:
>
> > Although I must say, Mitch, when I saw the title of your message I thought
> > that YOU had somehow gotten five minutes with the Bill-thing.  Wouldn't
> > THAT have been something?  What would any of us do with five minutes with
> > Gates?
>
> I don't want to start a lot of philosophical discussion on this, but
> it's interesting to think about.  I'm not sure talking to him would do
> any good.  Then again, neither would spitting on his shoes...
>
> Just ordered the book, thanks for the pointer Mitch and short critique
> Steve. :)

Well, now you get to read a longer one (sigh).

As I feared, Gary Rivlin's book is true to its title : "The Plot to Get Bill
Gates" The main theme of the book is that although Gates is no prize, neither
are any of the leaders of the companies that are opposing him, and that
therefore, in some sense Gates deserves his preeminence by dint of his
fanatical dogged persistence.

While he provides plenty of detail unflattering to Gates, Rivlin's main
metaphor for these guys (Andreesen, McNealy, Ellison, Noorda) is one that was
conceived in Microsoft - they're a bunch of Captain Ahabs maniacally obsessed
with the white whale (Gates), and that they would be just like Gates if not
worse, if only they could.  While much of this material is new to me, it seems
profoundly irrelevant.  I don't expect any corporate CEO to be saintly - but it
would be nice if at least, they'd keep each other in check.  That's what
monopoly laws are supposed to be about.  Rivlin dismisses these with a few
anecdotes about the antics of market-leaders in other industries - "they all do
it", in other words.

Rivlin also makes several snide references to people in the computer industry
who DIDN'T want to rule the world, but were content to fulfill destinies as
honest engineers; I find this profoundly irritating.  It assumes that this
industry needs a Gates
or someone like him.  If that's the case, then all there is is these tales of
fights among the big boys.

On the other side of the coin, he has nothing but good things to say about
Linux and its devotees, whom he perceives as somehow avoiding the Gates-bashing
and simply going about their business of providing a better alternative.
However,
it would be more accurate to say that he has almost nothing to say about this
subject - this whole analysis occupies about
a paragraph, no more, near the end of the book.  One senses that Rivlin had
most of the book written by about 1997 and struggled to incorporate the newer
material within its framework.

He has nice things to say about Mitch Stone's web site, which he contrasts to
less carefully put together sites that stress the hatefulness of Gates in more
juvenile ways.  He seems to have attended the Nader conferences but seems to
view them in a detached way.

To sum it up, then, I feel that this book focuses too much on the personalities
of the leaders of this business, and not nearly enough on the millions of
"lesser" personalities who actually create its product, or on the question of
whether this monopoly of mediocrity is a good thing or a bad thing.  It makes
for entertaining reading this way, but it doesn't contribute much to public
understanding of these issues.

In his Salon article Rivlin pokes fun at all the trouble he had getting his
five minutes with Gates and the question all the Microsofties standing in his
way wanted answered: how is our letting you interview Bill going to help
Microsoft?  Overall, I'd say they made the right decision in letting him in.
This book is basically the cool, detached, hipster's guide to why Microsoft
should be left alone.