Gates Studies Competitor Photo
Share
A story about Bill Gates' intense competitive nature and how he was caught studying a competitor's photo alone at a convention.
"There's this spooky story in one of Bill Gates' biographies. Bill would be able to tell you like in the software industry, 'I know the CEO of every single software company, I know what their revenue was, I know what their product is right now, I know everything about them.'
They had a bunch of frenemies, and this guy Philippe Khan that he was trying to destroy - he literally wants to put you out of business. Philippe goes over and sees Bill sitting by himself in a foldable chair just looking at something. Philippe walks up to him to say hi, and he realizes what Bill's looking at - he's looking at a picture of Philippe Khan. He's in public, in a corner of a convention center, staring at a picture of his enemy.
Bill told his employees, 'If we lose a $50,000 contract, that's not 50,000, that's 100,000 because we lost 50 and our enemy got 50.' He was psychotic about it."
David Senra
Host of the Founders podcast, sharing insights from biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs. Created Founders Notes, a resource providing access to book highlights for podcast listeners.
Analyzes and extracts actionable business ideas from entrepreneur biographies. Communicates effectively through podcasting, inspiring and educating aspiring business leaders.