While Steve Jobs is mostly credited with bringing computing to our living rooms, tremendous efforts of Bill Gates should not be ignored.
The co-founder of Microsoft has been consistently ranked as one of the richest men in the world. Gates, on the other hand, has never succumbed to the temptations of his wealth and has pledged to part with massive amounts of it for charitable causes.
Bill Gates, the creator Windows, the most popular operating system in the world, is known for being the entrepreneur who revolutionized the computing industry. A college drop-out, he started Microsoft out of his garage and work hard to build it. The company is now amongst the biggest corporations on the world. Gates has always maintained that nothing can replace hard work. People try for shortcuts but all they taste is temporary success which soon fades out. His leadership mantras are always overwhelming and managers across the world yearn to learn and get inspired from him.
We bring you some of his most insightful leadership mantras:
On Hard Work
People used to wonder that how a college dropout who started the company from a garage could make it this big. Some used to say that Gates was plain lucky. Little did they realise that he had substantial experience in programming and had done years and years of hard work before kicking it off. It was this experience which helped him build the first software by Microsoft: MS DOS. Gates does not believe in the concept of overnight success. Hard work is what truly counts in the long the run.
On Following your Passion
Making millions through programming was not his priority; Gates was just following his heart, his passion. Programming was his obsession and it gave him happiness. He has always maintained that good entrepreneurs follow their passion rather than experimenting unnecessarily. That way they only end up losing focus. Rather than just chasing the rupee sign, managers and entrepreneurs should work hard to chase their passion. Money will come chasing on its own!
On Giving Back
Gates says, “If you want to become a leader that people admire and respect, you must become a person of significance. People don't follow you because you take from them; they follow you because you give to them.” Apart from being the tech-czar he is, Gates is also known all over the world for all the philanthropy he does via his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He believes that giving back to the society is as important as taking from it. This is what sets a leader apart from others.
“Strive to live out a life that makes a difference in this world; give back more than what you've taken from society. Your life then will be a true success,” remarks Gates.
On Vision
A leader should have the vision and that too an impeccable one. He should be able to see what might lie ahead in times to come. Bill Gates could “see” that the future of computers was in the software, not in the hardware. This made things easy for him as he now had well-defined targets to chase. According to Gates, most successful peoplehave had a vision which has enabled them to make it out big in the world. A leader sans vision soon loses team and goes out of the race.
On Failures
Gates has always viewed failures as valuable learning lessons. As Windows was gaining popularity, a good number of people were reporting problems in it every day and a lot of criticism used to pour in on a routine basis. Bill Gates took all this in a positive way. These were valuable lessons for him which made him more determined to improve Windows. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning,” says Bill Gates.
Some of His Best Quotes
1. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
2. I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.
3. If I had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?
4. It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
5. To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different; it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination -- and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.
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