Bill Gates Case Study

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I propose to discuss the critical decision making that was used when a historical meeting between IBM and a company called Digital Research. The meeting actually resulted in changing how we use computers today and ultimately made Bill Gates the wealthiest person in the world.
Have you ever heard of Gary Kildall? I didn’t think so! Gary Kildall was a talented computer genius who with his then-wife, Dorothy McEwen, started a small software development firm in the mid 70’s called Digital Research Inc. Kildall developed a computer operating system called CP/M in the days before the idea of a computer on everyone 's desk was even an idea.
As legend has it, during the summer of 1980, when IBM decided to get into the desktop PC market, IBM reps traveled …show more content…

One important thing that needs to be mentioned is that, during this critical decision making, no one involved actually knew that kildall would be handing the world to Bill Gates. At the time, the computer industry had not become a multi-billion industry yet. Nor were the legal aspects that deal with computer software protection. Would that small aspect change how Kildall made decisions? Could that difference between 50,000 and 500,000 or 5,000,000 dollars change how he dealt with IBM? I believe that Kildall thought he was protecting his intellectual property and had no idea that by turning down IBM that would in turn give Bill Gates the opportunity of a lifetime. Kildall’s gain or loss framing played an essential role in this decision making. In the framing effect, Kildall’s selection of a sure thing verses a risky choice are compared to a gain or loss framing. The framing effect is a bias that people make different decisions based on how options are presented. Within the sunk cost fallacy, Kildall may have used reasoning with those facts that his innovation could be a loss to IBM, and taking into consideration that loss would led to a further loss of his intellectual property that could not be

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