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Articles: Education/Training | Be as rich as Bill Gates!
- Prof. 00782 Maverick
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* Based on the writings of Philip Greenspun
What does Bill Gates have which you don't? Here are few things which make all the difference. Read on...*
Choose your grandparents carefully
'3 ways to make money: inherit it, marry it & steal it.'
Bill Gates inherited a trust fund set up by his grandfather, James Willard Maxwell. If you fumble you always have a huge fund to fall back on.
Choose your parents carefully
His father, William Henry Gates, Jr. was a prominent corporate lawyer & his mother, Mary Maxwell, was a board member of First Interstate Bank & Pacific Northwest Bell.
Acquire research results
Research is good, but buying a firm which has done it's research well makes more sense. Microsoft bought WebTV & Hotmail when it was threatened by rivals.
Hire the right people
Some of the guys who wrote MS Windows had worked on window systems at Xerox. Xerox paid for research, MS paid only for development!
Let other people do the programming
Leave programming, analyse whether a software is generating any value for the end-user. Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding!
Train your new CEO
If you run a firm you will spend more time sitting in meetings & useless intricacies. Bill Gates didn't do that. He hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 & gave him the CEO job 20 yrs later.
Focus on profit
Build a software that generates value for end-users. The real fun starts after that...
• You can be closed-source & charge a license fee
• You can be open-source & charge for training, service, support & extensions!
Don't let venture capitalists run your firm
MS didn't need or spend the money, but used the VCs to boost their valuation at the IPO & got more money for the shares that they sold.
Self esteem is great but... Beware of creating a cozy home for unproductive people with bad ideas.
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