BILL GATES

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, though a transactional leader, he is by far a charismatic leader. He really fits the mold of a computer “geek”. He motivates his employees because his personality fits theirs. Thus, as a champion in the computer industry, he is the champion of the computer geeks. The more his company grows and wins in the marketplace, the harder people work for him. He continues to have good vision, vision that gets good results. Good vision, good workers and a good history of success will keep Bill Gates and Microsoft in the limelight for years to come.

In the 70’s and 80’s, personal computers were really struggling to find their “place in the sun” in the machine computation market. The general public was slow to accept computers. Most of the early computer companies do not exist any more. Many spun off their assets, like IBM and XEROX.

Personal computers at that time were clumsy. DOS was difficult to understand and limited in its capacity as compared to UNIX. The RAM was low and the clock speed was very slow. Few good applications existed. In the early days, no hard drive existed. DOS was uploaded via floppy.

It was clear that a different breed of individual would be needed for the personal computer industry. Programming software is a difficult job. It takes concentration. You cannot just quit a program at noon for lunch. Nor can you just quit at 5pm and go home. When you are on a roll in writing code, you have to keep going until it is done.

Thus, personal computers gave birth to the “computer geek”. This individual is not your conventional corporate, IBM type. Since he is up for days without sleep, working on code, he dresses casually: jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes. He knows he is good at his trade and is proud of his work – he does not fit the top-down, authoritative environment of his dad’s job. Because he will work on a programming idea for days without rest, he is at the office all the time, day and night. Thus, office lounges are equipped with pin-ball machines, free cokes, free candy, and bean-bag chairs.

For this reason, Bill Gates leads primarily with his personality. Let us face it: Bill Gates is quirky. He does strange things. He is the richest man in America, yet he flies coach to Jap...

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...oss as the typical, “meat and potatoes”, “give me the bottom-line”, type of manager. His thin frame and squeaky voice are clear proof of this. Note that the “technofreaks” just love that, they feel like “he is one of us”. His employees will do the impossible for him. He is their champion.

But perhaps Gates’ strongest attribute is his vision – this secures his position, on top of everything, as the undisputed patron saint of the misunderstood computer jock. His vision has taken Microsoft from operating software company, to applications software, to internet provider.

Now he is even thinking about how to use the computer as a source of information, rather than a computational device. Using type and voice, a person will be able to find any information about anything. The information can be on your computer or on-line. It can be in the form of voice, text, and video.

With Gates’ at the helm, Microsoft will continue to grow. He has the right ideas, can find the right people to work for him, and knows how to motivate them. But, most important, are his ideas. Without the right idea and vision, everything else does not matter.