Bill Gates? Arthur C. Clarke? J. C. R. Licklider? Roy Amara? Alfred Mayo? George H. Heilmeier? Manfred Kochen? Raymond Kurzweil? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Predicting the technological future of mankind is enormously difficult. One recurring flaw in such projections has been identified. Here are three versions: We tend to overestimate the effect of a …
Category Archives: Bill Gates
If You Are Born Poor It’s Not Your Mistake, But If You Die Poor It’s Your Mistake
Bill Gates? Muriel Strode? Ella Wheeler Wilcox? Joey Adams? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is one of the richest people in the world. A provocative remark about poverty has been ascribed to him: If you are born poor it’s not your mistake but if you die poor it’s your …
Continue reading “If You Are Born Poor It’s Not Your Mistake, But If You Die Poor It’s Your Mistake”
The Smartest People in the World Don’t All Work for Us. Most of Them Work for Someone Else
Bill Joy? George Gilder? Bill Gates? Dan Gillmor? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Joy is a top computer scientist who helped to develop the UNIX operating system and co-founded Sun Microsystems. He formulated an important insight now called “Joy’s Law” about the distribution of expertise in organizations. Here are three versions: No matter who you …
If You Invent a Breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence So Machines Can Learn, That Is Worth 10 Microsofts
Bill Gates? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I saw an advertisement on the “USA Today” website that claimed Bill Gates once spoke about a technology that was ripe for invention and would be worth 10 Microsofts. The ad did not identify the technology. Did Bill Gates really make a remark of this type? Quote Investigator: In …
Quote Origin: Choose a Lazy Person To Do a Hard Job Because That Person Will Find an Easy Way To Do It
Bill Gates? Frank Gilbreth Sr., Clarence Bleicher? Walter Chrysler? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a quotation offering eccentric advice that is often attributed to the billionaire software magnate Bill Gates: I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult (or hard) job because a lazy person will find an easy …
Computer Memory: 640K Ought to be Enough for Anyone
Bill Gates? James E. Fawcette? Nancy Andrews? Jerry Pournelle? InfoWorld? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Gates is the one of the richest men in the world, but that does not mean that he correctly foresaw the future. In the early days of the personal computer industry Gates supposedly said the following about the IBM PC: …
Continue reading “Computer Memory: 640K Ought to be Enough for Anyone”