Reflecting on Gates
This is probably the last blog to actually report on the event, but it’s obviously too big to ignore. Amidst questions about future direction for the blog and added work elsewhere, this was something that could wait to be discussed. When Bill Gates announced the scaling down of his role in the next two years (with his eventual retirement to be July, 2008), it is arguably the end of the most important era in the history of the planet.
It may seem like an exaggeration, but think for a moment about the influence of Bill Gates and what it’s meant for the average person. Microsoft was started in 1975 by Gates and childhood friend Paul Allen and together, based on the belief that computers would eventually sit on the desks of every home and office. Windows is the overwhelmingly favoured operating system of choice for personal computers worldwide, and computers, with the help of the Internet, are quite likely the most significant and important accomplishment, at least since fire.
Several different steps in history have been made that, in essence, make the world smaller. Anything invented to travel, from boats to cars to planes, brought the world together, from a few days or months apart to a even a few hours apart, but with a computer, it’s instant. Through a computer, people anywhere in the world can interact almost as though they were together. By allowing people the ability to meet from anywhere in the world without having to leave home, computers have made the world infinitesimally small. Across the room or across the globe, it doesn’t matter with a computer. But being able to communicate and, on some level, interact in real-time, regardless of location doesn’t make a computer the most significant and important invention since fire. What about some of the discoveries in the worlds of Biology or Chemistry? Perhaps Physics even.
The significance of the discoveries made in the worlds of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are of course important. People have been sent to the moon. Vaccinations have saved millions of lives. Classical sciences have improved standards of living for everyone and saved lives, but computers deliver information, something that is far more powerful. The computer created the Information Era. People have access to almost anything they could ever want to know at any time. The possibilities are virtually endless for an individual motivated to learn. Information and knowledge are what allows people to be sent to the moon and operated on, and computers provide an unending supply of both.
Without Bill Gates, Microsoft, and Windows, the three-piece team that could collectively be dubbed Big Brother, the Information era would probably still occurred, but Bill Gates was the driving force. A unique combination of computer talent and business savy with a healthy serving of timing and luck has allowed Mr. Gates to be, arguably, the most important person in what is, arguably, the most significant and important accomplishment since fire: the computer.
Gates is leaving just before what will likely be known as the digital era. The movements are already beginning, with the larger companies beginning to lay the groundwork for the shift. It will be interesting to see when Gates’ influence, at least at his current capacity, has been fully revealed. In a recent interview, Gates mentioned some of the research and development initiatives of the company. With two more years, the full story of Bill Gates and Microsoft will probably last almost another half dozen years, but this will likely be overshadowed by Gates’ work with his charitable foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Thank you Mr. Gates for everything you’ve done and everything you will do, and good luck with the Nobel Prize you will undoubtedly earn with this new stage in your life.