1. Bill Gates & Microsoft
In 1975, before graduation Gates left Harvard to form Microsoft with his childhood
friend Paul Allen. The pair planned to develop software for the newly emerging personal
computer market.
Bill Gate's company Microsoft became famous for their computer operating systems and
killer business deals. For example, Bill Gates talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the
licensing rights to MS-DOS an operating system, that IBM needed for their new personal
computer. Gates proceeded to make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation
formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system.
On January 1, 1994, Bill Gates married Melinda French Gates. They have three children.
Bill Gates Philanthropist
Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
with more than $28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in
the areas of global health and learning.
• MS DOS The Operating System History
From a Quick and Dirty Operating System a giant walks (ms-dos), in 1980, IBM
first approached Bill Gates and Microsoft, to discuss the state of home computers
and Microsoft products.
• Windows 1.0 To Windows Beyond 2000
Windows is the graphical user interface for IBM and IBM compatible machines,
this article discusses the origins of Windows and where Windows is heading.
• Top Books on Bill Gates
Authorized and unauthorized books on Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and the
youngest self-made billionaire in history.
More on Bill Gates
• Books on Bill Gates
Feature Stories on Microsoft
• MS DOS The Operating System History
• Windows 1.0 To Windows Beyond 200

2. Today, I will be sharing with you some strategic business advice and quotes from Bill
Gates. But before we dive into the famous Bill Gates quotes; let’s have a quick look at
his bio.
Short Bio of Bill Gates: Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft corporation;
the largest software company in the world and at the time of writing this article, he is
the richest man in the world. Bill Gates has held the coveted position of the world’s
richest man more than 12 consecutive years and he's not letting go of that position. His
wealth have crossed the $100billion mark; peaking at an all time high of $101billion.
Bill Gates is number one on our list of the richest school drop out billionaires; having
dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. Though he has faced massive media
attack and several anti-trust lawsuits; Bill Gates is best known for his quiet,
unpretentious nature and huge donations to Charity. Below are Bill Gates business
quotes and advice to young entrepreneurs.
Famous Bill Gates Quotes: Strategic Business
Advice for Young Entrepreneurs
1. "We were young, but we had good advice good ideas and lots of enthusiasm."
2. "Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning."
3. " This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world because business is
going to change in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty years."
4. "The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your
competitors, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd is to do an
outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage and use information will
determine whether you win or lose."
5. "A bad strategy will fail no matter how good your information is and lame
execution will stymie a good strategy. If you do enough things poorly, you will go out of
business."
6. "Information flow is the life blood of your company because it enables you to
get the most out of your people and learn from your customers."
7. "Information work is thinking work."
8. "Business people need to shake off the notion that information is hard to get."

3. 9. "Better information can expand the role of sales managers from being closers of
big deals to being business managers."
10 "Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically
improve a company's ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities."
Famous Bill Gates Quotes: Strategic Business Advice
for Young Entrepreneurs
11. "A self service approach can handle 90 percent of employee administrative
needs."
12. "Customer service will become the primary value added function of every
business."
13. "The pace of change and the need for more personalized attention to customers
will drive companies to adopt digital processes internally."
14. "As the internet drives down the cost of transactions, the middle man will
disappear or evolve to add new value."
15. "Only a few businesses will succeed by having the lowest price, so most will
need a strategy that includes customer services."
16. "An important re-engineering principle is that companies should focus on their
core competence and outsource everything else."
17. "The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies
that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area."
18. "Customers want high quality at low prices and they want it now."
19. "The most important 'speed' issue is often not technical but cultural. It's
convincing everyone that the company's survival depends on everyone moving as fast as
possible."
20. "How fast a company can respond in an emergency is a measure of its corporate
reflexes."
Famous Bill Gates Quotes: Strategic Business Advice
for Young Entrepreneurs

4. 21. "A company's ability to respond to an unplanned event, good or bad is a prime
indicator of its ability to compete."
22. "Strategically, a major function of the CEO is to look for bad news and
encourage the organization to respond to it. Employees must be encouraged to share bad
news as much as good news."
23. "Reward worthy failure – Experimentation."
24. "In three years, every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only
question is whether we will make them obsolete or somebody else will."
25. "Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news.
If you don't act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention
and that is the beginning of the end."
26. "Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement."
27. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."
28. "Know your numbers' is a fundamental precept of business."
29. "Teams should be able to act with the same unity of purpose and focus as a well
motivated individual."
30. "To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks."
Famous Bill Gates Quotes: Strategic Business Advice
for Young Entrepreneurs
31. "In business as well as the military, he who has the shortest procurement and
deployment cycle wins."
32. "Every company can choose whether to lead or follow the emerging digital trends."
33. “I regret being the richest man in the world because that position attracts
undeserved publicity.”
34. “Capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people; it causes wonderful
inventions to be done. But in the area of diseases of the world at large, it has really let us
down.”
35. “I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the
solutions; they will be moved to act.”

5. 36. “I do think this next century hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where
you just don’t think, yes my country is doing well but you think about the world at large.”
37. “I have $100billion. You realize I could spend $3million a day, everyday for the
next hundred 100 years? And that’s if I don’t make another dime.”
38. “I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most
empowering tool we have ever created. They are tools of communication, tools of
creativity and they can be shaped by their users.”
39. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t
lose.”
40. “The browser space that we are in, we have about 90%. Sure, Firefox has come
along and the press love the idea of that. Our commitment is to keep our browser that
competes with Firefox to be the best browser; best in security and best in features.”
Famous Bill Gates Quotes: Strategic Business Advice
for Young Entrepreneurs
41. “There are people who don’t like capitalism and people who don’t like PCs. But
there’s no one who like the PC who doesn’t like Microsoft.”
42. “I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people
who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try, they can
figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.”
43. “If you give people tools and they use their natural ability and their curiosity,
they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might
have expected.”
44. “You need to know about the customer feedback that says things should be
better.”
45. “The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of
people who see that better ways are available; thanks to technology.”
46. “You’ve got to give great tools to small teams. Pick good people, use small
teams and give them great tools so that they are very productive in terms of what they are
doing.”
47. “We bet the company on Windows and we deserve to benefit. It was a risk that
paid off immensely.”

6. 48. “The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the
information about what’s going on so that they can do a lot more than they have done in
the past.”
49. “Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness.”
50. Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I
don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the other.”