Steve Ballmer
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I mean, at age 13, with his best friend, who we will talk about very soon, he brought up the idea, I wonder what company I will be the CEO of when I grow up. What industry will I go after? What problems will I tackle? It wasn't a question of if, but which.
Well, both things can be true. He was the number one math student in the state of Washington. He was a nerdy kid and a brilliant kid and also fiercely competitive. His childhood friend and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, would say about him, you could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive. He wanted to show you how smart he was.
Well, both things can be true. He was the number one math student in the state of Washington. He was a nerdy kid and a brilliant kid and also fiercely competitive. His childhood friend and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, would say about him, you could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive. He wanted to show you how smart he was.
The United States would land on the moon one year later.
The United States would land on the moon one year later.
Yes. This is a very early place to make the point. Microsoft is the result of tremendous intelligence, brilliant strategy, fierce competition, and an unbelievable amount of luck. Bill Gates was born in 1955, the same year as Steve Jobs, to come into adulthood just as the personal computer wave is starting. And...
Yes. This is a very early place to make the point. Microsoft is the result of tremendous intelligence, brilliant strategy, fierce competition, and an unbelievable amount of luck. Bill Gates was born in 1955, the same year as Steve Jobs, to come into adulthood just as the personal computer wave is starting. And...
The fact that he was at a middle school and had this much privilege where he could get access to a PDP-10 at this point in his life to help him understand how important computers would become. I mean, there are dozens of people in America who are as well-situated as Bill is, and that might be overly generous.
The fact that he was at a middle school and had this much privilege where he could get access to a PDP-10 at this point in his life to help him understand how important computers would become. I mean, there are dozens of people in America who are as well-situated as Bill is, and that might be overly generous.
Yes. Ben Thompson has a fantastic quote on this. He has an article called, What is a Tech Company? And here's his comment. 50 years ago, what is a tech company was an easy question to answer. IBM was the tech company, and everybody else was IBM's customers. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. IBM built the hardware, at that time the System 360.
Yes. Ben Thompson has a fantastic quote on this. He has an article called, What is a Tech Company? And here's his comment. 50 years ago, what is a tech company was an easy question to answer. IBM was the tech company, and everybody else was IBM's customers. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. IBM built the hardware, at that time the System 360.
They wrote the software, including the operating system and the application, and provided services, including training, ongoing maintenance, and custom line-of-business software.
They wrote the software, including the operating system and the application, and provided services, including training, ongoing maintenance, and custom line-of-business software.
It's like ASML machines. You don't just go ship them off to TSMC and say, good luck making semiconductors. Exactly. It's a full solution, full service thing. But an important thing that was also happening this year, 1968, was that IBM was undergoing some antitrust scrutiny over that huge bundle that I just told you about. I mean, doesn't it smell like antitrust? They do...
It's like ASML machines. You don't just go ship them off to TSMC and say, good luck making semiconductors. Exactly. It's a full solution, full service thing. But an important thing that was also happening this year, 1968, was that IBM was undergoing some antitrust scrutiny over that huge bundle that I just told you about. I mean, doesn't it smell like antitrust? They do...
Everything from the hardware to the software to the operating system, the service, the support, they are the whole market. They're starting to get concerned. And so proactively, they unbundled hardware, software, and services, and they started selling those separately for the first time, which was not a problem at first.