Bill Gates Documentary Fri 7pm

accelerator · Jun 20, 2008

I thought some here might be interested in this:

Bill Gates: How a Geek Changed the World
Highlight

Friday 20 June
7:00pm - 8:00pm
BBC2

Radiotimes says:

Full marks to The Money Programme for landing an exclusive interview with Gates. He even lets the cameras in on meetings, where we get a glimpse of his famously tetchy business manner. The trouble is, Gates is also a guarded interviewee and despite hopeful prodding from Fiona Bruce (see above), he plays a straight bat to every question. The best contributions, at least in the part available for preview, come from friends and colleagues. "He has taken over the world, end of story. Live with it," says Sir Alan Sugar, pleasingly frank about how he himself misunderstood the importance of software from the word go. There are flashes of revelation, like the way Gates fires off "suggestions" about the Outlook email programme to underlings. And what comes through loud and clear is that under the nerdy surface - 30 billion pounds and the label still sticks out the back of his v-neck - he's terrifyingly clever and, of course, quite ruthless.

RT reviewer - David Butcher

Rgds

smokin · Jun 20, 2008

Not bad, most of the info could be researched using the internet.

Got a bit of a feel for how he ticks

but only scratched the surface i felt.

No scoops, internet cloud and touchscreens the only new(ish) stuff mentioned really..

Tremendous to give away $24billion he's smart enought to send it to the right places too!

Any other thoughts folks, what did you reckon accelerator?

paulleahy · Jun 20, 2008

My fiance said what a great guy for donating all that money but it looks like hes giving all his money away because hes driving a Ford :lol:

ScottJ · Jun 20, 2008

I enjoyed it, always interesting and motivational to see stories like that gone over again, nothing particularly new but enjoyable.

mat · Jun 20, 2008

I laughed at the lady who turned him down for the prom when he asked her to go with him!!

Best shes kicking herself now

paulc · Jun 21, 2008

Hats off to him for all the work he is doing for charity that is fantastic.

droid · Jun 21, 2008

I just caught the end of it and must admit I was touched by the new direction he is taking. Seems a top bloke for doing that.

Only thing that I can't get out of my head though is that his voice reminds me of Kermit the frog.

Gary

aZooZa · Jun 21, 2008

Yes, a very interesting documentary. It missed out one of Gate's big coups - he had the MS BASIC interpreter in ROM in just about every micro that was sold between 1977 and 1984. Gates wrote that personally and it was a great and memorable piece of machine code, only really bettered by the BASIC ROM in the BBC micro itself.

The acrimony about the $50,000 purchase of DOS was also not discussed in any depth. I think that was finally settled very recently for £$5 million?

Also, Sugar started out with CP/M and made a fat packet with his PCW word processor thing before yielding to MS.

accelerator · Jun 21, 2008

I thought it was an interesting insight into the psyche of Bill Gates, but was left wondering whether it was being a little one sided. Generally I have heard that Microsoft was a little slow on realising how important the internet was, but nothing was said of that here. All I remember seeing was that Bill sent out a memo saying "The internet is our top priority", but I don't remember being told exactly when this happened and in the context of internet history generally.

It was clear from the documentary just how smart a guy he is, and I always admire someone that doesn't mind having a laugh at themselves. The guy is interesting to listen to when talking about technology, and that is no mean feat. He seems very keen on those touch sensitive tables he has been pushing.

I am sure that underneath Bill is ruthlessly determined, so what better person to attempt to save the world. Good luck to him with his charity I say, but he sure has taken on a big challenge this time.