Ahmed Shaami
Bill Gates, one the world’s most prolific tech icons and philanthropist and the second richest man on the earth talks about the biggest mistake he has ever made at Microsoft and he still has not got over it.
In a conversation at an event hosted by venture capital firm Village Global, Bill Gates has said that his biggest ever mistake at Microsoft was allowing Google to develop Android and not foreseeing the opportunity. Microsoft let go a lot of business and money on the table costing the company about $400 billion of potential revenue.
First mover advantage is always key to any business. We have heard many world leaders including Jack Ma emphasizing on the importance of being ‘the first’. Microsoft missed out on a great opportunity of grabbing the Android market and competing Apple.
“The greatest mistake ever is the whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is, [meaning] Android is the standard non-Apple phone form platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win,” Gates.
“There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system,” he said, “and what’s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G (Google) to company M (Microsoft).”
You can watch the complete interview here:
The question is, Was Bill Gates the smartest person at Microsoft?
