How Bill Gates and I Differ
How I Work: Bill Gates – Apr. 4, 2006
I have always admired Bill Gates. Yes, I have. Get that look off your face. To be perennially geeky, I wrote him a fanboy letter when I was 12 or 13 (and a Microsoft beta tester, id 230421 FYI).
It is funny then that his “My So Called Digital Life” post so closely resembles mine, you know, plus a few dozen billion dollars.
I do wish I had three monitors here at work. At home I have two 23″ Cinema Displays, and the amount it helps productivity can’t be overstated. Having the ability to drag things to an auxiliary screen helps mentally and physically. It improves focus, and makes life seem smoother.
I find it funny that Bill is probably the only person on the planet though that uses his Microsoft products to their full extent in terms of personal productivity. This actually makes sense when you consider how poorly designed much of Microsoft’s products are. They are over-engineered, and made to engender conformance rather than enable performance.
Microsoft makes applications as if they are saying “You should work this way, and if you don’t, we’ll make your life that much more difficult.” Other companies (not just Apple) make apps that say “I want to adapt how you work.” For examples: Quicksilver, iPhoto, Photoshop, Final Cut, Logic, Maya, etc.
I think everything wrong with Microsoft is everything that is right for Bill.
Read that again:
Everything right for Bill is wrong for us.
Everything right for us should be right for Microsoft.
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