Broken Windows?"Bill Gates and the president of General Motors have met for lunch, and Bill is going on and on about computer technology. 'If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades, you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour,' says Gates.
"'Or, you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50. Why haven't you guys kept up?'
"The president of GM smiles and says, 'Because the federal government won't let us build cars that crash four times a day!'"
[Needless to say, this tale is probably apocryphal.]
[Trivia: What, according to
Dilbert creator Scott Adams, is the "Bill Gates Effect"? The more successful you become, the uglier you must be.]
Gates, William ["Bill"] III (1955- ) American software entrepreneur, Chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation [noted for his development of the first disk operating system (QDOS) for use in IBM's first personal computers, for his development of the Windows operating system, and for his legal battles with Apple (over the rights to the graphical user interface, GUI) and with the United States Department of Justice (over Microsoft's allegedly monopolistic business practices, including the company's bundling of software applications with its operating system software)]
[Sources: Marshall Brain, How Stuff Works]More William Gates anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
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