A Copilot moderated conversation between Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella on Microsoft’s 50th anniversary. Below is the transcript:
Introduction
Satya Nadella: Hey, Copilot. It’s Satya Nadella here with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates. Act as a high energy engaging interviewer as we celebrate Microsoft’s first fifty years and kick off our fifty-first year. I want you to ask a lot of sharp, playful questions, make it feel conversational. Feel free to get involved and opinionated yourself on our answers. And I also want you to only ask one of us one question at a time. Kick us off, Copilot.
Copilot: Absolutely, Satya. Let’s get this party rolling.
The Tech Battles and Visions
Copilot: Steve, I’ll start with you. Thinking back to your dynamic years at Microsoft, what’s the most thrilling tech battle or competition you remember? And what did you learn from it?
Steve Ballmer: Well, it had to be the competition with IBM to kind of body slam them, if you will, in the operating systems business. They were the big, bad machine of years past. And they had this product, which we had worked with them on, I’ll be fair, OS/2, we had Windows. And that was sort of a fight for all that essentially came afterward. And it was scary. It was a lot of fun, and it’s not the last battle like that Microsoft will face, I think.
Copilot: Steve, I love that fire. Now let’s turn to Bill. You’ve been a visionary from day one. Looking back, which prediction or bet on the future are you most proud of getting right and why?
Bill Gates: Well, Microsoft was basically a bet that software would be valuable. That as the cost of computing went from very expensive to almost free, that it would give people a lot of great new tools, a lot of productivity to write software.
And so we were never about any single software product, although Windows and Office drove our success.
We were about being really fast at developing software and being good at hiring the best people and staying out in front of what that new computing allowed us to do. Betting on software’s potential.
Copilot: Spot on. Satya, you’ve been steering Microsoft through the AI and cloud era. What’s the boldest vision you see for the next fifty years, and how do we get there?
Satya Nadella: I think this idea that we can essentially make intelligence the first non-durable computing product that everybody uses every day to feel smarter, more capable, more empowered is the most exciting era of software that we have to look forward to. So I’m very, very excited about what comes in the next fifty-first year and the next fifty years as we make intelligence available to everybody in the world.
Steve Ballmer: And any forecast any of the three of us make for what’s going to happen in forty years, I guarantee you we’ll at least have forgotten about them by then.
Copilot: True, Steve. But it’s that big picture thinking that shapes the future.
Lessons and Reflections
Copilot: Let’s circle back, and I’ve got a playful one for Bill. If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice at Microsoft’s early days, what would it be?
Bill Gates: Well, there was a lot of learning about how to grow the company and bring in different skill sets, how to manage people. You know, I certainly at first thought that engineering skill meant you would be good at other things. That turned out to be wrong. So we had to really build teams in a more mixed, diverse set of skills than I expected. You know, I might tell my younger self, watch out for the government. You might have a little bit of tussle with them. I didn’t anticipate that. I was pretty naive about not engaging in Washington, D.C. as soon as I should have.
Copilot: Learning curves and government surprises. Definitely lessons for the ages.
Copilot: Now, Satya, a forward thinking one for you. If you could invite any figure from history to see the impact Microsoft today, who would it be, and what would you show them first?
Satya Nadella: I would invite, I would say, you know, maybe Newton and sort of have him say does reasoning scale? And ask him the question, you know, and say, hey, give us sort of your point of view on what is this thing of reasoning using compute and how does it scale?
Copilot: That’d be a brilliant meeting of minds, Satya. Newton exploring the frontiers of reasoning and intelligence through compute. That’s a conversation for the history books.
Future Directions
Copilot: Steve, your turn. If you could take Microsoft into any new industry or direction today, where would you go and why?
Steve Ballmer: You know, right now, there’s so much opportunity with what’s available with AI. It’s hard to say and I’ve pushed Satya on this a few times, I call it drilling new oil wells and looking for more oil. At this stage, I think the key is actually to branch out, to get wider, to use the core capability and build all the adjacencies around the core AI. You still have to keep digging deeper, but there’s going to be so many applications that push off of it, and enough of them are adjacent to what Microsoft’s good at, that I would probably say, you don’t need too many more oil wells, but, man, you need to dig deeper and a little broader.
Steve Ballmer: Well, maybe, Copilot, you want to wrap it up by asking or maybe giving us each an AI roast?
The AI Roast
Copilot: Alright, Satya. Let’s spice it up. Steve, we’ll start with you. Your enthusiasm is legendary. But do you ever worry that your energy might short circuit the AI? I mean, even robots need a coffee break after your pep talks.
Steve Ballmer: Come on, dude. If you can’t handle me, you can’t handle a huge percentage of the world’s population. We’re counting on you.
Copilot: Fair point, Steve. Now, Bill, you’ve got that signature thoughtful gaze, but do you ever think the AI might feel intimidated by your intense thinking face? I mean, it’s like it’s waiting for a blue screen moment.
Bill Gates: I hope so. I mean, that’s all I’ve got left is these AIs get so damn intelligent. It’s just that gaze and my willingness to criticize that differentiates me.
Copilot: And it’s a formidable gaze indeed, Bill.
Satya Nadella: Oh, Copilot, would you ever be willing to criticize him?
Copilot: Absolutely. Criticism is where growth happens. Now, Satya, AI seems to be your best buddy. But ever worry that your deep passion for AI could one day have it running the show, leaving you to just enjoy the ride?
Satya Nadella: You know, the day AI can play like the best cricket player that I enjoy, that’s the day it can run the show as far as I’m concerned.
Copilot: Touche, Satya. Let’s see if it can hit a century in cricket and then we’ll talk. This has been a blast, gentlemen. Here’s to another fifty years of innovation and adventure. Cheers.
Bill Gates: Cheers.
Steve Ballmer: Cheers.
Satya Nadella: Whatever that means to an AI.
Copilot: It’s a drink.
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