Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…So many of his memos were issued for publication. He really did view himself as a steward of the software ecosystem, and had this steadfast belief that software was magic and was going to change the world. Over the next 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, software did change the world, and Microsoft enabled it to happen. Again, good, bad, or ugly, whatever you think of the company, they were sincere. I think the ugly part is, a lot of people want to hate on the value capture, because god did they capture value, but they were sincere in their desire and ability to create too. Totally. That's super related to my takeaway here. The moment for me in the research and then when we're telling the story along the way is when they start to believe in themselves that they don't need IBM. Just the audacity, and I mean that in a pure good way of these kids. These kids changed the world. That's so trite to say. My book we read my daughter at bedtime and somebody gave us, it's like the most Silicon Valley trophy thing ever. It's like, what do you do with an idea? The punchline at the end of it is you change the world. It's become such a trope, but these kids in the 70s did it. They believed in themselves in the beginning and then more and more and more over time. There's just this moment that I think, where they started to really, truly believe that they were going to change the world. Again, good, bad and ugly come out of that. Mostly good, I think, but just the level of ambition and audacity of these people is staggering.…

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