Q. What kind of role did fate or luck play in your success?

　　A. I get a lot of questions about my success, so I'll answer several and then reflect on the importance of mistakes, the flip side of success.

　　Luck played an immense role. Some of it came after I entered the business
　　I was fortunate to have family and teachers who encouraged me. Children often thrive when they get that kind of attention.

　　I was incredibly lucky to become boyhood friends with Paul Allen, whose insights proved crucial to the success of

the company we founded together. Without Paul, there would have been no Microsoft.

　　Our timing in setting up the first software company aimed at personal computers was essential to our success. The timing wasn't entirely luck, but without great luck it couldn't have happened.

　　Q. What do you think is more important to your success, raw intelligence　or hard work?

　　A. Hard work, without a doubt. But not just my hard work. What really matters is the hard work of people who come to work with me.

　　Raw intelligence weighs most heavily in a little contest like a math puzzle. But over a period of years, when you're in business building complex projects and working with customers, success is much more a result of dedication and persistence than brilliance.

　　I don't mean to discount intelligence. I value it highly, and it is essential to many kinds of success.

　　But even when intelligence appears to be the reason for a success, hard work probably had a lot to do with it, too. Thomas Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." I believe that.

　　Q. Please explain the secret of your success

　　A. There is no one secret to success. But certain attitudes and approaches contribute to success. I'll describe three that help me.

　　First, I am acutely conscious of the value of time.

　　For example, when I go to a meeting I keep specific objectives in mind. There isn't much small talk, especially if I'm with colleagues I know well. We discuss accounts we lost or where overhead is too high, and then we're done. Bang! There are always more challenges than there are hours, so why be wasteful?

　　Second, I watch the competitive landscape carefully.

　　Microsoft is always searching for the new thing that is coming along, whether it is in a research lab or at another

company. We try to understand what other people are doing, even if their apparent mission is so distant that it is not obvious competition.

　　We focus on what companies do well, as opposed to what they do poorly. We don't dismiss a company as unimportant just because a lot of things about it may be less than perfect. The company may be doing something important; it may not even know that it is important.

　　We end up looking at a lot more potential threats than ever become real, and there's a constant flurry of memos from employees who are alarmed about one thing or another. We don't cry wolf too often, though.

　　Third, I don't settle for platitudes when discussing management challenges.

　　There is a kernel of wisdom in certain platitudes, such as "Listen to your customers" or "Capture all the information."

　　A well-chosen platitude can get people thinking in an appropriate framework. At times a manager makes a valid contribution by saying, "Hey, let's think of this from the customer's point of view."

　　What annoys me is the manager whose only contribution is spouting platitudes. I've been in meetings where clear-cut issues are on the table, and the total contribution of a participant is to say things like, "Well, we should only do what the customer wants. Let's keep that in mind."

　　This is a poor substitute for thoughtfulness. Of course you want to please customers, but how? What are the trade-offs involved?

　　In a large company, translating the sentiment behind a platitude into effective action often means setting up a system. This can be a non-trivial problem.

　　One platitude I embrace is that a company should be customer-driven-it should pay close attention to what customers say they want, and then put that knowledge to work. At Microsoft we pursue the goal through systematic effort. For example, we log every telephone contact with each customer, and analyze the results both to provide better customer service and to improve our products.

　　We're far from perfect at it, but we're better off with these systems than we would be if we settled for platitudes alone.

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