If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Bill Gates enjoyed and also was challenged by his thirty-plus year tenure with Microsoft Corporation as its leading spokesperson, technologist, chairman, and advocate for innovative change. As he leaves Microsoft Corporation to spend more time with his philanthropic activities of the Gates Foundation, which is also co-managed by his wife Melinda, Bill Gates has left behind some profound lessons from which we can learn. This blog post specifically notes five lessons that Bill Gates has taught me, that apply especially to the world of business and possibilities.

Lesson One: It is possible to translate an idea into a physical reality. In the late 1970s, Bill Gates succeeded in getting IBM to enlist his services to develop and implement an operating system that could be used for its computers. So, Bill Gates translated the idea of the Disk Operating System into MS-DOS, which became a prominent Microsoft product for many years before Windows was finally released.

Lesson Two: It is possible to unite like-minded people in an entrepreneurial setting and turn this gathering into a long-lasting and profitable business. It is indeed ironic how the 1970s pictures of the Microsoft staff look like a bunch of flower children from the 1960s who possibly lived alternate lifestyles and entertained alternate philosophies of life. Indeed, this group laid the foundation for the incredible infrastructure of Microsoft which eventually hired more and more talented personnel in many aspects of the software business.

Lesson Three: It is possible to adapt to a changing market and adapt products to fill new and changing needs. Well, Microsoft did it. They dominated the desktop software platform for more than two decades, and then when the Internet became popular, Microsoft produced its Internet Explorer along with many other products to take on the World Wide Web. Today, if you check out Microsoft’s online documentation for its Developer Network, as an example, you will see only the very best in documentation for languages like Visual Basic Dot Net, C# Dot Net, among others.

Lesson Four: It is possible to improve products based upon user feedback. I worked for a short time for a company in Boston that emulated Microsoft in terms of working with customers and trying to meet all customer needs, and then some. Microsoft has indeed worked hard for more than three decades to ensure that users are able to accomplish their tasks and say positive things about their software.

Lesson Five: It is possible to bring an unknown product or idea to the market and eventually turn it into a publicly traded company where average people like you and me can buy the stock and enjoy dividends as well as capital appreciation. It took Microsoft more than a decade, but it eventually went public and many people have enjoyed immense profits because of Microsoft’s commitment to its stockholders and also products.

Tags: business //