youth's desire

Kunal Sinha

Bold, brash, lost, confused, more demanding than ever, Westernised but then again, Indian at heart. The psyche of today's youth makes for an interesting study.

What are today's youth like? What do they want, what do they like, who do they idolise, or don't they? Ogilvy & Mather Discovery did an attitudinal study of the current generation by getting college students in various cities across the country, from metros to small towns like Indore and Patiala, to write in about the trends, dreams, fads and beliefs that made them tick. O & M also spoke to people who interacted with the young for their impressions. The study primarily gives an SEC A & B perspective as they set the trends. Here is what it found.

HUM hain naye, andaaz kyon ho purana? Or We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control! Which song, the Dil Chahta Hai number or the Pink Floyd anthem, do you think reflects the mindset of the teen generation today? Is it about the rebellious Seventies, or about a `we have a mind of our own, it is only tempered by reality 2000s'?

These are the kind of questions that are constantly popping up in meeting rooms and the minds of marketers and communicators who have ideas, brands and entertainment to communicate to the youth. Ogilvy & Mather Discovery uncovers behavioural and attitudinal insights into a set of people who are dynamic, vibrant, and constantly changing. The study began by looking at published data and literature. That threw up some hypotheses and unanswered questions, for which O & M Discovery spoke to youth directly. In those conversations, it got to know what was uppermost in their minds.

However, its experience suggested that the young are experts at donning different personae in different situations. To really understand what they are all about, O & M Discovery spoke to people who come into contact with a large number of young boys and girls in the course of their work. They were people who study the youth and write about them - sociology teachers at colleges, editors of youth magazines and marketers of brands targeted at the young: Nandini Sardesai at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, Vikram Raizada, the marketing head of MTV, Lata Narayan, the head of the Child & Youth research unit at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Priya Tanna, editor of Femina Girl.

The content of media that the young were watching and reading was analysed to see what trends they could possibly be deriving from these. Finally, the collective experience of nearly a dozen advertising professionals was pooled, in observing and communicating with teenagers. This article is the articulation of O & M Discovery's key findings about the teen generation, no longer Gen-X, possibly Gen-Cool.

Teenage archetypes

Archetype: the most perfect example of a particular kind of person or thing.

Archetypes enable us to define the character of any group. The beauty of an archetype is that it is culture-neutral. This analysis begins by identifying the archetypal teenage girl and boy, the source being the world of comics. There are two teenage girl archetypes - Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. Betty is the girl-next-door. She is a do-gooder and has a golden heart, is a young man's best friend, there when needed. She is loyal to one boy, Archie, and readily sacrificing. To most young Indian men, she exemplifies what a wife should be like.

Veronica is the rich, arrogant, insensitive girl who most men would like for a girlfriend. She is enchanting and alluring, and a magnet for boys in school, and at parties. The quintessential seductress.

If you think that the examples are too Western, think again. The Betty-Veronica archetypes have found expression in Bollywood: Ayesha Jhulka and Pooja Bedi in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Juhi Chawla and Amrita Singh in Aaina, Kajol and Rani Mukherji in Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai, and Kajol and Kareena Kapoor in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. Then there are three boy archetypes: the rich, arrogant, show-off Reggie, the average, perpetual trier, always-broke Archie, and the studious, nerdy Dilton. Again, the movie Dil Chahta Hai represents the three in its characterisation of Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna. From a marketing and communication perspective, an intimate knowledge of these archetypes can enable us to connect better with the consumer.

The physiology of teens

The first thing to appreciate about a young segment is that `young' cannot be a broad, sweeping generalisation. While archetypes enable us to appreciate the personality differences, physiology allows us to determine the biological changes that determine the manner in which the young begin interpreting the world.

The early teenage years, from the age 13 to 15, are the onset of puberty. This is the period of mid-brain development, when the young begin to see issues beyond black and white, good and evil, in shades of grey. They now develop the faculty to take things apart (analysis), explore it from a variety of angles and put solutions together (synthesis), and monitor how it works (evaluation). It is at this stage that they start understanding sarcasm, irony and innuendo. Psychologist Dan Acuff, in his book What Kids Buy, and Why, writes, "Their extreme selfishness and seeming inability to appreciate your point of view is in part a function of the development of the evolving brain."

As youth enter the late teens (16 to 19), the hormonal changes and their emotional and physical impact on their bodies is complete. They now begin to effectively relate to others and have the ability to create and sustain more relationships. Social mobility becomes desirable - and if we look back into our own lives, we know that this was indeed the time when we made the largest number of friends. As the pre-frontal lobe in the brain develops, the faculties of metacognition (thinking about one's own thinking), and empathy, being able to put oneself in others' shoes, take shape. The young mind can now control impulse reaction, reflect upon actions taken, and has the ability to plan for the future. There is increased space between stimulus and response. Logan Smith, in his book Afterthought says, "Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations. He is only trying one face after another to find a face of his own."

The manner in which such development affects behaviour is now discussed. In the early teen phase, the young discard the symbols of childhood. They are explorers seeking an identity asking questions like `What am I becoming?' and are experimentative in all they do. They lead a disciplined life - in school, regimented by uniforms and fixed timings. Theirs is a world of parents and siblings as they are still figuring out friends. There is an emerging awareness of gender differences. They do get pocket money, but spends are closely monitored by parents. They begin making independent decisions while buying candy, snacks, books, fast foods and clothes and express their opinion about consumer durables.

The late teen phase provides the first step into adulthood. It is a highly expressive phase, as the youth revel in their identity and begin looking for adult symbols to signal their coming of age. There is a sudden freedom from discipline, with the ability to dress as they like, and timings being beyond parental control. Identity is defined by belonging to a tribe, which dictates speech, dress, body language, interest and mindsets. There is a conscious search for attention from the opposite sex. The need to spend and consume heightens, and parental control over pocket money disappears. To sum up, the early teens are about Discovering an Identity; the late teens about a Window of Freedom.

Here are O & M D's eight key observations about the youth of urban India.

`I am a free bird now'

There is more to the symbolic discarding of the school uniform - it is a rite of passage, a transformation from rigidity to flexibility in what one can do. In college, there is free time because classes are not always back-to-back. Morning college frees some up to pursue vocational training or take up part- time jobs. In spite of `75 per cent compulsory attendance', it is possible to choose the classes one would like to attend. Bunking is indeed a freedom ritual.

Freedom, however, means different things to different people. When it comes to the choice of which course to pursue, all are free to choose. In terms of the place of study, there are some restrictions - all girls may not, for example, be allowed to go out of their hometown to study. The choice of clothes is entirely dictated by the family background and the city where one lives, and determined by the norms of acceptability. In large metros, however, they have found a way to beat the system - they carry a change, which they wear once they are out of range of their restrictive parents! In some ways, the young are always testing the limits of freedom with their elders.

Advertising for Bajaj Sunny Spice is all about exploring the world, albeit with parental approval. There is a strong desire to mix with the opposite sex, which meets varying degrees of success. As one college boy said, "When I joined college, I expected a lot of masti. But no such thing happened!"

Discipline at this stage of life is self-imposed rather than dictated by an authority. "We do everything within limits," they say. The first taste of freedom is an exhilarating experience, enjoyed whole-heartedly by boys and tentatively by girls. But they are always looking over their shoulder - for reassurance about the choices that they have made, from their parents and peers.

`Chalti ka naam gaadi ... zindagi'

For youth, mobility is essential. It takes two forms - physical and social. Physical mobility stems from the need to travel and live life in multiple spaces. It is manifest in independent, unescorted travel to college and places of entertainment. For the first time, the young travel out-of-town with friends and classmates, on holiday or `study-trips'. For those living in a hostel, it is about setting up an independent existence unencumbered by parents. Suddenly, owning a two-wheeler (and for the affluent, a four-wheeler), is very desirable - and often a reward from indulgent parents. Quite a few brands of motorcycles and scooterettes are thus targeted at this group, like the Hero Ezee & Winner, and TVS Scooty.

Parents feel the need to keep tabs on their mobile offspring, and cellphones enable just that - while giving the young a new symbol to flash.

Social mobility stems from the stratification that appears in college campuses. A subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, classification is the norm - these could stem from the place of origin, seniority or general orientation. So you have labels like hep-cats, town-types, fundoos, geeks, GTM (Ghati-turned-Mod), BTM (Behenji-turned-Mod), and Baap. Young boys and girls feel a strong need to move `upwards'; each group is outwardly dismissive, but inwardly envious of the other.

This mobile generation is faced with more options than ever before, and these are enabled by a multitude of media, from career and education counselling pages in the daily newspaper to the Net. Greater mobility and freedom open up new alternatives, forcing them to evaluate those options and make choices. Before taking the plunge, youth feel the need to `taste' the options, driving them to do part-time jobs. Summers are no longer for idling away and reading books. They are about gaining points for one's CV, to be better equipped for the job market.

This has a significant bearing for marketers. This moving target has a limited attention span. Multi-tasking leads to their being frenetically active, and they are constantly experimenting with the available options, always flirting with brands. The challenge, therefore, is to hold them to an idea or thought, and resolving some of the confusion that the immense choice causes. At the same time, their tolerance of different points of view is an opportunity, that makes it possible for different identities - signalled by consumption of different brands - to coexist.

`I wanna be ... '

For the young of today, success in the chosen profession is the most important parameter in choosing a role model, with its attendant trappings of material gains. "What use is idealism in today's world?", they ask.

Priya Tanna called it the `Taking Generation', one that will take from others - their families, their teachers, their friends, far more than they would give back.

The idea of a successful person would be someone who had Preity Zinta's chirpiness and their mother's pragmatism, their cousin's confidence and Malaika Arora's attitude: no single icon, but a mix and match of the desirable qualities.

People like Shabana Azmi and Kiran Bedi were mentioned as heroes, but most girls didn't actually want to be like them. "We admire them for what they have done, but please don't expect us to be that way" was the universal feeling. More often than not, the end result is glorified and the hard work required to achieve is glossed over: "I want that lucky break", they say.

Thanks to some heroes from relatively modest backgrounds who have made it big, there seems to be a belief that success is no longer the prerogative of the privileged. Talent and the right break can indeed propel those from humble backgrounds into the orbit of fame and plenty, is the belief, as young men in Ludhiana cite cricketers Harbhajan Singh, Mohammed Kaif and Yuvraj Singh as their icons.

Indeed, many girls are confident that an attitude, a sense of timing and a little help from the grooming experts can help overcome one's background and ordinary looks. It isn't surprising that many young girls mention Mahua, the plump, dusky, curly-haired singer from the girl band VIVA! as their favourite - she provides access to a dream they are chasing. It is clear that material success, with all its trappings, is the most appealing motivator to this group. Even momentary fame is extremely desirable. The challenge for marketers and advertisers is - how can they ease the route and provide opportunities to success?

Love ke liye kuchh bhi

karega? Not really!

For all the fascination with the opposite sex, when it comes to actual interaction, young boys and girls avoid serious involvement and commitment. It comes out of a single-minded pursuit of success in one's career. The boy/girlfriend thus assumes the status of an accessory, someone to impress friends with. Hence, when an out-of-town cousin from the opposite sex, or bhabhi's sister, or jeeja's brother comes a-visiting, he or she is taken around for movies and to restaurants - making the friends' circle wonder. This is practising romance and flirtation, not the real thing at all. Advertising for Elle 18 reflects this attitude, when it says, "I want to marry a guy with a sense of humour and a big bank balance, maybe not in that order." Overall, in most parts of the country, among most socio-economic classes, arranged love marriages are the norm, simply because they do not rock existing relationships. Why antagonise parents when you need them all the time?

The emerging practicality in romance can be seen in real life as well as in reel life. Rani Mukherji's character realises the futility of chasing Shah Rukh in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, and easily gives him up, and they remain good friends. At another level, a girl who cuts her finger during biology practicals quickly grabs a sheet of paper and writes `I Love You' saying, "I'm sure there will be some occasion to give it to some boy." Fantasies about love, however, have taken a sexual colour. One only has to look at the evolution of Mills and Boon over the last few decades. The woman is now an older, stronger and more independent character, while the man is no longer rich. From touching and kissing and implied sex, the roll in the hay is now de rigueur by page 121. The titles have changed from Chateau of Flowers, Home is Goodbye, Always Yours and The Other Side of Sunset in 1971 to One Reckless Night, First Class Seduction, Summer of the Storm and Wild at Heart in 2000. The young echo, "There is nothing wrong in it, as long as both are clear in their heart."

`Mere paas Ma hai'

For girls, it is the mother who eases the rites of passage into adulthood. She is friendly, understanding, and concerned. Mother and daughter share information, discuss private matters, go shopping together; the girl's first visit to the beauty parlour is with her mother.

In fact, the mother lives her own dreams through her daughter. She tries to give her daughter all that was denied to her - the opportunity for education and working; she is an ally to convince conservative fathers. Besides, the greater role of the woman in today's nuclear families allows her more say in decisions related to the daughter.

In keeping with tradition (and possibly genetics), boys remain close to their mothers. Boys would give their first earnings, even from a part-time job, to their mother. "I tell my mother about my girlfriends; she knows I smoke," said several young men.

The distance between the patriarch and the son keeps the mother-son bond strong. Ultimately, possessive mothers tend to put a strain on boys' relationships with other women. "My elder brother married out of caste, so my mother keeps tabs on me"; "I liked Jaya Bachchan's role in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. She was the ideal mother - who loved her son very much, even though she stayed with her husband."

The mother is thus an important influencer on the choices that the teenager makes. She plays multiple roles - as a figure of authority, problem solver, embodiment of trust, extension of self, and sounding board. Time to get her to join the party!

Can I be `18 till I die'?

In an achievement-oriented world, the pressures on today's youth are tremendous. For boys the pressures are greater. There is the pressure of growing up to be responsible, towards one's own family - which includes parents. "My father said - beta, today you are enjoying, but tomorrow, if you get less marks, you will be kicked out," said one 18-year-old. At the same time, from the peers, there is a pressure to be cool, to enjoy life. "You are not looked upon as cool if you don't have a girlfriend"; "What are you doing this weekend?"; "Chal yaar, bottoms up kar dey" are just examples of the sentiment.

Girls have it easier. It is her own initiative and drive that pushes her towards performance and a career, simply because, culturally, the girl is not expected to provide for her family. This affects her choice of courses - biotech and media courses are the popular education options she often chooses. With the pressure off, she has more options than a boy; since as long as she can earn enough for her indulgence and comfort, she is fine. A recent newspaper report cited that 42 per cent of boys in the age group 15-19 actually wishes they'd be girls!

Hence, for girls, career provides empowerment and gives them the confidence to face the world. Marriage and her family are the eventual goals for the majority, but there is an increasing significance of a career for self-actualisation and a better standard of living. Boys suffer from high performance anxiety, and there is a need to provide them optional paths to success and stability. Confidence as a motivation is key in both work and play spheres, and the symbols of success essential for recognition are a job and designation, a car, and finally, a home he can call his own.

`Beti ko beta na banayen ... '

Sound advice from a mainstream women's magazine - Vanita. Today, a girl finds comfort in her identity, accepting and taking pride in her feminine self. She defines the parameters of her performance distinctly differently from boys - she thinks she has greater responsibilities to fulfil, and more roles to perform between home and the workplace, eventually. Hence, she benchmarks herself against feminine ideals - in college, in office, a girl no longer wants to do better than the boys. She has done that. Now she wants to do better than the other, better-performing girl. The headline in an ad for Amity Business School is proof of this new drive.

Boys find themselves in a state of confusion. While on one hand, their masculinity is not allowed full expression as long as there is a father in the house, on the other, `caring' is possible only when they are older, have a wife and a child. It is a crisis of identity that is accentuated by the threat from girls in the world outside home.

Girls are becoming more expressive, and to boys, a threat to livelihood itself. Then, they are taking a knocking from the media. Advertisement after advertisement seems to be running down the young man at the expense of the young woman - Pond's Face Wash, Sunsilk, Everest Masala, Limca and more. The sensitive male archetype hasn't fully taken shape, hence that is not a model to follow yet. The nub of it all is: the boy-girl competing scenario is a novel one, but might lose connect and become passe very quickly as soon as the novelty wears off. It alienates boys, and girls no longer compete against them.

`Phir bhi dil hi Hindustani !'

For all the posturing, the majority of youth are like `reverse coconuts', white and Western outside, brown and Indian at the core. Psychiatrist Achal Bhagat observes, "There is often an oscillation between extremes - the need to seek approval from the herd as well as the need for individual expression, between Western and Indian attitudes." Hence, most experimentation with identity is superficial. Part of the behaviour can be attributed to the fear of permanent commitments at this early stage of life; part to the need to conform to a disparate set of values. So you have the same person being the cool dude at college and the good, responsible boy at home, the low-waist jeans wearing girl who can make great tasting aloo-puri. They desire transience and reversibility in their experiences. The popularity of fadeaway tattoos - look again at the Elle 18 advertising - and hair colouring is just one manifestation of this desire. This tells us to be careful, in reading too much into the overt behaviour of today's teenagers. There is much more to it, and exploring it can be fun and enriching, all at the same time.

To sum up, one can say that young people in India are today seeking reassurance and a sense of control. Brands and communicators - including those in the entertainment business - can provide that. In a world that is largely uniform, we need to acknowledge their values, and provide a source of integrity and differentiation that lets them be recognised and valued as individuals as well as a group.

The author is Vice-President (Discovery) at Ogilvy & Mather. This article is based on work done by the entire Discovery team.

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DailyDosebyArjun

How match your real life to reel life
Talk with director of Dil Dosti etc.....
Manish Tiwari
'DIL DOSTI ETC' DEPICTS REAL VARSITY LIFE
By Eye TV India Bureau

Tete-a-Tete

click for larger view

We met with Manish Tiwary, director of 'Dil Dosti Etc', who has not only spoken to us about his forthcoming movie but also several questions concerning the film industry vis-à-vis the young generation. Excerpts of the interview:

How much of Dil Dosti Etc is based on your own experiences in the Delhi University?

The protagonists of Dil Dosti Etc are studying in Delhi University and live on the campus. Also, a dozen other supporting characters are part of the University. I think I know most of these characters in one way or another from my college days in Delhi. Although some incidents in the film are derived from my experience there, the plots are entirely fictional, that Pawan Sony (my co-writer) and I wrote for the film.

How do the protagonists of your film bring alive the contradictions between the new and the old?

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I have used the themes of Sex and Politics to talk of the 'New' and the 'Old'. Apurv, played by Imaad Shah is a rich kid with a cosmopolitan culture who is looking for something meaningful in the mundane that surrounds him. And there is the ambitious Sanjay Mishra (Shreyas Talpade) from Bihar who is an outsider to Delhi, is laden with parental expectations, but has limited means to achieve his goals. They represent two Indias, and not just rich and poor, but ones with entirely different sets of value systems. Apurv's libertine indulgences in non-committal affairs speak of a break from the conservative past. Sanjay Mishra who is into college politics, on the other hand, works using conservative means.

Delhi University has an effervescent charm of its own (captured in Sarfarosh, Rang De Basanti)…share with us the freshness you have injected into the subject?

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Going by the precedence set by Bollywood films, there will be oodles of newness in my film - a majority of Dil Dosti Etc is actually shot on campus of Delhi University, in the college, hostel, canteens, university roads, etc; apart from using twenty other locations in Delhi. Then there are a dozen or so supporting cast members who come from the dramatic societies of different colleges in the University. Of course, the 'freshness' will be best appreciated when the locations and actors will be seen in the context of the unfolding of the film's narrative.

How would you define the youth in India today?

A section of the youth now has both the time and money to indulge and can afford to be decadent. As anywhere else in the world they are consumerist, opportunity-hungry and sex-obsessed.

What do love or relationships mean to the new generation? Has it changed in last five years?

This is a problematic area. I wouldn't like to generalize for all. Also, I think five years is too short a period to comment on the change in the attitude of an entire generation. Again, love and relationship are huge subjects and subjective to be summed up in brief. Nonetheless, young people today certainly have more choices - in all sorts of ways.

Share with us a few memorable experiences during your student days?

Long bike rides from north campus to Priya theatre in Vasant Vihar to watch Hollywood films in front economy row and the anda-parathas at the chachi's dhaba at Hindu Rao Hospital.

As a filmmaker, what genres interest you the most?

A given film genre comes with a defined set of notions on the settings, emotional context, and tools that are used to make that film. What interests me more are unique stories and use of relevant forms to tell.

Among directors, who have influenced you most?

For the purpose of this interview, I shall mention a keen favourite: Satyajit Ray.

Five films that blew your mind?

Let me name one, the lesser seen, Ray's Postmaster (1961).

What can we expect from you in the future?

More films, I suppose.

Who are the next gen stars to watch out for?

From Dil Dosti Etc, the 'next gen' actors who show great promise are Imaad Shah and Ishitta Sharma. Both have great presence on the screen, precocious acting talent and an instinctive understanding of the medium of film.

Name a few path breaking films?

Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara was a very satisfying screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello. Also, the experimentation with the 'form' (intertweaving of history and present, and camerawork) in Rang De Basanti (Rakeysh Mehra) worked well for me.

Would you ever make a Bollywood masala dhamaka with lavish sets, songs and dances?

If I were to deconstruct this, I would say all of this may stand true: that I will be making films in 'Bollywood', with sets (lavish, depending on the context, budget etc), songs and dances (already have some in Dil Dosti Etc), but knowing what 'Bollywood masala dhamaka with lavish sets, songs and dances' could stand for, the answer is no; I don't see myself being able to do that.

Any message from your film?

I don't think I have an explicit message to convey through Dil Dosti Etc. What I've attempted to do is to show slices from the lives of the youth of today.

DailyDosebyArjun

Games are not just games! Vishwanathan Anand Interview with Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand Written by content team 10 May 2007 Viswanathan Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. Anand is one of only four players in history to break the 2800 ELO mark in the FIDE rating list. He has been among the top three ranked players in classical time control chess in the world continuously since 1997. In the recently release April 2007 FIDE rating list, Anand is ranked first in the world for the first time. He is only the sixth person to lead the rating list, the other five being Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov. In this interview with Viswanathan Anand, he tells us about the importance of daily physical exercise for the chess players, his views on modification of draw rules, cheating at high-level tournaments, about the playing style of the world's strongest chess players, computer chess programs, how children can manage the balance of both academics as well as chess. We hope our readers would enjoy reading the interview with few rare snaps of Viswanathan Anand. LatestChess:- Hello Anand, We are glad to have you on LatestChess. Congratulations for winning Linares 2007 Chess Championship, you performed very well in Amber Rapid and Blindfold Tournament as well. You must be very happy with your performances. Viswanathan Anand:- Thank you very much. of course I am very happy. LatestChess:- Do you think daily physical exercise can help a chess player to increase brain's ability to concentrate, remember, focus, visualize, and plan ahead? Could you tell our readers about your views on importance of physical fitness + chess. Viswanathan Anand:- In chess a small mistake can cost you the game. If you are tired then you make errors in calculations. I go to the gym everyday and it helps me concentrate longer. Especially when you play a tough tournament you need to conserve energy for the last rounds. LatestChess:- What are your views on modifications in Draw rules? Do you think that draw offers should be allowed only after the minimum number of moves (30, 40, 50) are completed, draw offers should not be allowed at all, or the current rules should not be changed? Viswanathan Anand:- I think there is no need to have rules. I personally feel as a chess player you have a certain duty to play . For your self conscience and for the public you need to play a decent game. Chess theory sometimes also makes it difficult to progress in certain lines. I feel that the current rules need not be changed. I believe that individual organizers can decide these rules for themselves (like in Corsica). Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand analyzing games with demo chess board LatestChess:- Do you consider the possibility of cheating at high-level tournaments as a serious problem? What measures would you suggest to reduce such a possibility? Viswanathan Anand:- More than cheating, the thought that someone could cheat is more serious. Seconds should be prohibited from going on stage or into the player's area before the game. They should also not be allowed to enter the playing hall and leave and re-enter during a game. It is actually a bit strange to police people. But in today's time where a mobile phone is more than enough to cheat we need to take these steps. Delay in transmission is one step. Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with wife Aruna

LatestChess:- What do you think about Kasparov's sudden decision to stop playing tournament chess? In the closing ceremony at Linares, he told you, "I'm out, now you're the oldest! You're the dinosaur now!" so how's the feeling of being dinosaur.
Viswanathan Anand:- It was a joke.

LatestChess:- All the world champions came from Russia, except you and Bobby Fischer. What could be the reasons?
Viswanathan Anand:- Difficult to say. Maybe we have talent and worked very hard.

One of the rare pictures - Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with principal

LatestChess:- You have played with almost all top Grandmasters and world champions of the recent times, could you tell us about the playing styles behaviors or some incidents with Karpov, Kasparov, Kramin and Topalov.
Viswanathan Anand:- Each one them has a distinct style.
Karpov - is a very gifted player. He can calculate on the board very well. If you make even a slight inaccuracy he knows how to maximize your mistake
Kasparov - He is one of the best prepared players. He is a complete player and brings a lot of energy and preparation to the board
Kramnik - he is a very solid player. One of the greatest Russian talents.
Topalov - A very aggresive player . He always tries to maximize his position even when the advantage is not evident

LatestChess:- You have played with computer chess programs like Rebel, Fritz. How was your experience playing with these programs? Which computer chess program do you use?
Viswanathan Anand:- You have to think differently when playing a machine. You cannot outdo it in calculations so you have to try and get it out of book. I use many programs.

One of the rare pictures - Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with other Grandmasters

LatestChess:- In couple of years computer technologies will further advance. Do you think Computers will surely beat everyone including the most celebrated Grand Masters and World Champions? Do you think the playing style matters when you play against computers, computers find it hard against positional players?
Viswanathan Anand:- Just because a mathematician uses a calculator does it mean a calculator is going to replace mathematics. It is the same for chess. The computer is very strong in analysis and calculations .With processing speed increasing they will be powerful in their work.


LatestChess:- In India, Many young chess players are ready to take a break in the education and they are fully focused on chess preparations, do you think it is a risky approach considering the risk of the failure possibility?
Viswanathan Anand:- A normal childhood is very important. It is healthy to have a lot of interests and go to school . It is not just academics but also the need to interact with other children . Children are very smart and they can very easily learn to balance both academics and chess.

One of the rare pictures - Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand with Karpov

LatestChess:- You are member of ACP and also Chess Players Association of India, what role should these bodies play and is it useful to have players associations? do you plan to take lead role in any of this organizations in future?
Viswanathan Anand:- They provide a platform and a voice for the chess players. They are able to act on decisions and matters that affect chess . I do try and help when I can but I dont see myself taking a lead role for the next few years at least.

LatestChess:- Whom you consider as next V. Anand from India?
Viswanathan Anand:- Tough to say. Sasi & Hari are the close contenders.

Thanks Anand. It's been good talking to you. We wish you all the best!

Related:
-- FIDE corrected the rating list, Viswanathan Anand formally crowned world No. 1
-- Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand would be number one for the first time in FIDE's April rating list!

We are thankful to TNQ Sponsorship (India) Private Limited for the pictures

"When I sing, I give my heart and soul"

Krishna Kumar Kunnath better known as K K is on a high note in his singing career. He surely has come a long way since ‘Chodh aaye hum who galiyan…’ and ‘Chappa chappa…’ (MAACHIS).

K K has worked with all the top music directors including A R Rahman, Ismail Darbar, Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik, Shankar Ehsaan & Loy, Himmesh Reshammiya, Sandesh, M M Kreem, Jatin-Lalit, Vishal Shekhar, Pritam and Saleem Suleman. K K has also lent his voice for most of the top stars in the industry from Amitabh Bachchan to Hrithik Roshan and Tusshar Kapoor to Akshaye Khanna.

Down South, he has worked with well-known maestro Ilayaraja, Harris Jayraj, Deva, Vidyasagar and Mani Sharma.

KK shares his views and experience:

What was your childhood aspiration?

As a child I wanted to be a doctor. Destiny made me a singer instead. I am a commerce graduate from Delhi University. I realized very late in my life that I could make singing as my career. I am a die-hard fan of Kishore Kumar. I switched from Hindi to English songs during my teens. I got offers from various ad agencies in Delhi for jingles. I formed a rock band with my friends and played drums for two other rock bands and did vocals.

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How did you enter the films?

After college I did a brief stint as a marketing executive but after eight months I gave up the job. I then married my childhood sweetheart Jyothy in 1991. I came to Mumbai in 1994 and gave my demo tape to Louis Banks, Ranjit Barot, Shiv Mathur and Leslie Lewis to get a break in the music scene.

In 1994, UTV gave me his first break in Mumbai and since then I have never looked back. I worked with my mentor Leslie Lewis in my first jingle in Mumbai and success followed soon. In a span of four years, I sang around 3500 jingles in 11 Indian languages. Vishal Bhardwaj, who noticed me, gave me the much-needed break in Hindi cinema in MAACHIS. I was one of the playback singers in Gulzar’s hit number 'Chodh aaye hum woh galiyan'…and Vishal Bhardwaj also gave me his first solo number in HUM PAANCHI EK DAAL KE.

Any awards?

In 1999, I got the prestigious SCREEN Award as the Best Singer for my solo (non – filmy) album PAL under SONY MUSIC. I teamed up with his mentor Leslie Lewis for PAL.

Tell us about your songs in various languages and concerts.

I have sung near about 400 songs in Hindi and more than 100 songs in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada languages in a short span. I have performed live concerts for Corporate Giants like Hero Honda, Toyota, Glaxo, Seagram’s, IBM, Sun Microsoft, Microsoft, Fidelity, Citibank, INLFS, LG, Sony Eriksson, Air Sahara, Ultra Tech Cement, JP Cement, and many more. I have also performed for schools, Colleges, and other educational institute like IIT Kanpur, IIT Khadakpur, IIT Rurki, IIT Chennai, MDI-Gurgaon, IIMS-Lucknow, and HT Youth Nexus.

How do you feel to be a busy singer?

I really get drain out if I have to sing more than two songs a day. When I sing, I give my heart and soul to give that emotional touch to each song. It’s very important for me to understand what are the scenes and emotions attached before and after the song. It helps.

How do you balance your personal and professional lives?

I have been very fortunate to have worked with all the best people in the industry. I prefer to spend some quality time with my family. I work less because I want to enjoy my work and life to my heart’s content.”

Can you tell about your strength and weakness?

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Daily Dose by Arjun

When somthing little thing made them Big from Short....... Rajpal yadav

[Interview by Subhash K. Jha]

Monday, October 17, 2005

Scene stealer Rajpal Yadav, whose latest "Main Meri Patni Aur Woh" has recently been released, says there is no confusion in his mind about what kind of an actor he would like to be - and running around trees is not part of the deal. Charlie Chaplin is his inspiration even though he has never imitated him, says Yadav, trying his hand as a leading man for the second time after the much appreciated "Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon". The veteran of 40-45 films says of his abilities to play a conventional hero with his unconventional looks: "See, if on one end you had Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan as superstars, on the other end you also had Sanjeev Kumar. Just like Sanjeev Saab I''''d like to think I''''ve my own place." Up next are Yadav in "out and out leads" in Priyadarshan''''s "Malamaal Weekly" and another with UTV opposite Shahid Kapoor and Paresh Rawal. "I look at myself as a student of acting. Whatever position I wanted, I think I''''ve achieved," Yadav tells IANS in this interview. Excerpts:

Is it important for you to play the conventional hero? Not at all! Thanks to the growth and changes in our cinema, one can be a successful actor without being a leading man. Do you think a small-town guy like you could've made it without Ram Gopal Varma's support? First of all, I never considered my city to be small. I feel the town which gave birth to my parents who in turn gave birth to me cannot be considered small. It's because of them and that town that today I can lead a five-star life in Mumbai. I was lucky to get to act. I was happy to do my scenes with any and every one without forgetting my lines. That kind of positive thinking has got me where I am -- from that walk-on part in "Shool" to a small role in Ramuji's "Mast" to the leading man in "Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon". That's where your craving for the leading man's role started? Shall I tell you one thing? If you're far-seeing you can do anything. My journey of 40-45 films so far has been very rewarding. A main role is every actor's dream. I'm grateful to Chandan Arora for letting me do the main lead twice -- in "Main Madhuri..." and now "Main Meri Patni Aur Woh". To me it's more important that the characters I play are interesting than the fact that I am the main lead. It could be a three-scene role as in "Paheli", but audiences should like what I do. The number of scenes doesn't matter. How I do them is what matters. How conventional a hero can you play with your unconventional looks? See, if on one end you had Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan as superstars, on the other end you also had Sanjeev Kumar. Just like Sanjeev Saab, I'd like to think I've my own place. If Sanjeev Saab was alive he'd have been happy to do my role in "Main Meri Patni Aur Woh". Natural born scene-stealers like Mehmood, Shatrughan Sinha and Arshad Warsi fail when trying to be the conventional hero... Shall I tell you something? There's no confusion in my mind about what sort of an actor I want to be. To run around trees singing songs isn't my dream. And I know my limitations. The world's most famous actor Charlie Chaplin was never a conventional leading man. But he's my true inspiration, though I've never imitated him. I think I've been loved for what I am. "Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon" wasn't a super-duper hit. But on Zee TV it's got the highest TRP ratings. Out of 250 films per year it was perhaps one of the films that wasn't forgotten. That character gave me life. If I was a conventional hero I wouldn't have got to play the roles that I have. But conventional heroes feel threatened by scene stealers? No, no! Salman Khan has no problem with me. He always gets me a good role in his films. I've no problems with Shah Rukh (Khan) either. I don't want to think about threatening anyone. I just want to be honest to my work. I've only benefited from my position as an all-purpose actor. David Dhawan loved my work in "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi" so much that he said he didn't want anyone else for a role in "Shaadi No.1". Arrey kar denge sir! I want to do equal justice to films by David Dhawan, Shyam Benegal, Priyadarshan and Ram Gopal Varma. I remember I shot for "Hungama" and "Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon" together. I had to laugh for one and then cry for the other. When audiences laughed and cried with me, I knew I had won their love. I've made audiences laugh and cry in realistic levels in "Main Meri Patni Aur Woh". What do you play in "Main Meri Patni Aur Woh"? On a flight to Chandigarh to promote "Main Madhuri..." we discussed the idea of a joker from circus... his personal life and grief. "Main Meri Patni..." is the story of the inferiority of a common man. I remember during my days at NSD (National School of Drama). My friends used to measure me before the taller girls. I used to say that one day I'd be so tall they wouldn't know where to look. In the film, we've dealt with a similar situation in the protagonist's life. It's a film I believe in completely. And we couldn't have chosen a better actress to play my wife than Rituparna Sengupta. What more of Rajpal Yadav in coming months? You'll get to see me in out and out leads in Priyadarshan's "Malamaal Weekly" with Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Riteish Deshmukh and another film with UTV with Pareshji and Shahid Kapoor. I look at myself as a student of acting. Whatever position I wanted, I think I've achieved. There're enough people who want to see me. I want to play at least 500 characters. How does your wife cope with your busy schedule? My wife is studying in Dubai until September 2006. We keep visiting each other. She's a Canadian Gujarati. She's a very good human being and a wonderful student. When we met during the shooting of Anil Sharma's "Hero", we felt we had known each other forever. I went out for an ice-cream, met her and we became man and wife. We talk at least thrice a day. We're carrying on a long-distance marriage quite successfully.

Daily Dose by Arjun

Just know about world's richest personality Bill Gates

The Bill Gates Interview

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A candid conversation with the sultan of software about outsmarting his rivals

"The Wallet PC is a futuristic device. Instead of having tickets to the theater, your Wallet PC will digitally prove that you paid. It's our vision of the small, portable PC of, say, five years from now."

"If we weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear should guide you, but it should be latent. I consider failure on a regular basis."

"We bet the company on Windows and we deserve to benefit. It was a risk that's paid off immensely. In retrospect, committing to the graphics interface seems so obvious that now it's hard to keep a straight face."

---

A youngish man who looks like a graduate student sits on the door of his unpretentious dormlike room, spooning Thai noodles from a plastic container. His glasses are smudged, his clothes are wrinkled, his hair is tousled like a boy's. But, when he talks, people listen. Certainly no person on the campus can talk about the future, as he does, with the riveting authority of someone who not only knows what's in store for tomorrow but is a major force in shaping that future as well.

Yet this is an office, not a dorm room. And, while everyone calls the complex of 25 buildings a campus, it's not a college or university. It's the sprawling Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. And the speaker is no grad student. He's William H. Gates III, chief executive and co-founder of the largest software company in the world, which made $953 million last year on sales of $3.75 billion. As Microsoft's largest stockholder, he's worth nearly $6.1 billion, making him this country's second wealthiest man and, at 38, its youngest self-made billionaire. (Gates pal, investor Warren Buffett, is first, though they occasionally trade places depending on stock prices.)

Microsoft's wealth and power just grow and grow, asserts Fortune magazine. CEO Bill Gates could buy out an entire years production of his 99 nearest competitors, burn it, and still be worth more than Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. Microsoft's $25 billion market value tops that of Ford, General Motors, 3M, Boeing, RJR Nabisco, General Mills, Anheuser-Busch or Eastman Kodak.

With size comes power. Microsoft dominates the PC market with its MS-DOS operating system, the basic software that lets the computer understand your commands and carry them out. MS-DOS runs on 90 percent of the worlds IBM and IBM-clone computers. Microsoft has extended that presence with Windows, a graphics interface environment that runs on top of MS-DOS and will, according to Gates, replace DOS in future versions. Microsoft also supplies about 50 percent of the worlds software applications: programs such as Excel (spreadsheets), Microsoft Word (word processing) and Access (data bases). It is also in the business of networking. And multimedia. And CD-ROMs. And books. And as an early supporter of the Macintosh computer, Microsoft virtually owns the Mac application market.

The future looks equally promising. Gates recently announced that Microsoft and McCaw Cellular Communications will form a joint 840-satellite global communications network. At the same time, Gates also acknowledged that he was in high-level negotiations with AT&T about a series of ventures that could include interactive television, on-line computer services and software. This is in addition to a previously announced joint venture with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, the worlds second-largest phone company, and with cable giant John Malone and his Tele-Communications, Inc. aimed at launching a digital cable TV network for computer users. Viewers would be able to interact with programs, download software and shop for products and services. Other partnerships loom as well, including ones with publishing companies and Hollywood studios.

Gates insists that Microsoft has to keep running full speed just to stay in place. But that hasn't stopped his enemies from engaging in constant Bill-bashing. His competitors accuse Microsoft of unfair business practices, and his allies consider themselves fortunate to be on his good side. Given the fluidity of partnerships and strategic alliances in the computer industries, today's friends could easily become tomorrows foes and vice versa, if Gates thinks it advantageous.

Nor is Gates immune from official attack, as evidenced by a three-year Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible monopolistic tendencies stemming in part from the success of Windows over IBMs OS/2 created in tandem with Microsoft. The FTC dropped the case but, uncharacteristically, it was picked up again, this time by the Justice Department. Gates insists "the hard-core truth is that we've done nothing wrong." But the investigation continues, and Gates has other problems as well. Microsoft recently lost a $120 million lawsuit led by Stac Electronics and is planning an appeal. Stac claimed Microsoft's Doublespace hard disk compression utility infringed on its patents for Stacker, the compression utility Microsoft had originally wanted to include with its new versions of MS-DOS. (Its worth noting, though, that Stac also had to pay Microsoft $13 million in damages for misappropriated trade secrets.)

Gates is part scientist, part businessman and he's surprisingly good at both roles. If he's not flying off somewhere (he often travels coach despite his wealth), his day is an endless series of meetings. Gates cruises the Microsoft campus at a breakneck pace to check on the progress of his young, idealistic and fiercely competitive programming jocks: Wired magazine calls them Microserfs. He listens to presentations, praises some ideas and criticizes others as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard".

Since founding Microsoft in 1975 with Harvard pal Paul Allen, Gates has been described as everything from a capitalist brainiac to a plain old nerd. The New Yorker wrote: To many people, the rise of Bill Gates marks the revenge of the nerd. Actually, Gates probably represents the end of the word nerd as we know it. Maybe that's why a software competitor and friend once called him one part Albert Einstein, one part John McEnroe and one part General Patton. (Must be somebody who likes me, mused Gates.)

Bill Gates was born into a well-to-do Seattle family. His father, William H. Gates II, is a prominent attorney. His mother, Mary, is a University of Washington regent and a director of First Interstate Bank. Hoping to alter young Bills rebellious streak, his parents put him into Lakeside, an academically rigorous private school in Seattle. It was there that he met eventual business partner Paul Allen and discovered computers. Soon Gates was programming in his spare time and making money at it. He was in the eighth grade.

Gates entered Harvard in 1973, and dropped out two years later when he and Allen wrote a version of BASIC computer language that worked on the new Altair computer. He and Allen moved to Albuquerque, where the Altair was built, and started Micro-soft. In 1979, Gates and Allen moved the company, but not the hyphen, to Seattle. In 1980, when IBM turned to Microsoft in its search for an operating system, the modern PC era began in earnest.

Allen left the company a few years later when he was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease, but he has since recovered and re-emerged. With his own Microsoft billions, Allen now owns the Portland Trailblazers basketball team, his own software company (Asymetrics), Ticketmaster and a large chunk of the America Online service.

We sent Contributing Editor David Rensin to Redmond to speak with Gates. Rensin, who wrote our Bill Gates profile in 1991, reports:

"A couple of years ago you checked in at Microsoft simply by giving your name to the receptionist. Now you type your name and destination into a Compaq notebook computer at the front desk and it prints out your building pass."

"However, not much had changed inside Gates' office since my last visit. A poster for the Russian version of DOS 4.01 had been replaced by a poster of Intel's Pentium chip. His coffee table had been cleaned up and the computer and monitor were different. Gates uses a Compaq 486/25 Lite notebook (he has docking stations at the office and at home) and is looking forward to getting a Compaq Concerto notebook. Otherwise, Gates doesn't have lots of time to tinker with the newest computer hot rods."

"When Bill is talking about computers, technology, business strategy, biotechnology, or his vision of the future, youre amazed at the amount of information in his head, and at his facility at sifting through it and drawing surprising conclusions. On his personal life, he can be somewhat defensive, reluctantly talking about his parents, his recent marriage to co-worker Melinda French and his life away from the campus."

"True to his reputation, Bill would rock furiously at times. Other times he would stand and pace or stare out the window. Once, as we were talking about his problems with IBM, he picked up a heavy rulersome kind of paperweight or award and slapped it repeatedly into his hand."

"I decided, at least for that moment, to stick with less controversial questions."

PLAYBOY: Let's start small. Explain the future.

GATES: OK. [Laughs] Today, the PC is used as a primary tool for creating documents of many types; word processing, spreadsheets, presentations. But by and large, when you want to find a document, archive it or transmit it, you don't really use the electronic form. You get it out on paper and send it. In the coming information age, access to documents, broadly defined, will be done electronically, just by traveling across a network that people now call an information highway. It's also called digital convergence, a term popularized by John Sculley, and information at your fingertips, a term I use a lot. I'm quite content this will happen. I could be wrong about how quickly.

PLAYBOY: How soon?

GATES: Optimists think three years. Others think ten. I'm a convert. I'm spending almost $100 million a year to build the kind of software that will help make this thing work, make it easy to use, protect privacy in the right way. I think it's possible that in three or four years we'll have millions of people hooked up.

PLAYBOY: Coming soon: a nation of couch potatoes?

GATES: You can already stay glued to the box. But this box is a facilitator. It can save time, which you can then put into the things you want to do. For a lot of people that will mean getting away from the box.

PLAYBOY: Besides finding documents, what will we be able to do?

GATES: Say you want to watch a movie. To choose, you'll want to know what movies others liked and, based on what you thought of other movies you've seen, if this is a movie you'd like. You'll be able to browse that information. Then you select and get video on demand. Afterward, you can even share what you thought of the movie. But thinking of it only in terms of movies on demand trivializes the ultimate impact. The way we find information and make decisions will be changed. Think about how you find people with common interests, how you pick a doctor, how you decide what book to read. Right now, its hard to reach out to a broad range of people. You are tied into the physical community near you. But in the new environment, because of how information is stored and accessed, that community will expand. This tool will be empowering, the infrastructure will be built quickly and the impact will be broad.

PLAYBOY: What about those who say things won't change that much, that it's mostly blue-sky?

GATES: It's as blue-sky as the PC was six or seven years before it became a phenomenon.

PLAYBOY: How will Microsoft participate in the information highway?

GATES: The current interactive user interface doesn't consist of much. It doesn't have the shared information and the reviews, the niceties that will make people want the systems. Microsoft is spending a lot of money to build software that we think is better. It will run in the box in your home that controls your set as you make choices. We're involved in creating the much bigger piece of software at the other end of the fiber-optic cable, the program that runs on the computer, which stores the movie data base, the directory and everything else.

PLAYBOY: The mainframe?

GATES: The successor to the mainframe. But its speed and data capacity go beyond what's now used to do airline reservations or credit card data bases. Watching a movie doesn't require much computer power. Youre just picking the information off the magnetic disc, putting it on the wire and sending it. But if you're synthesizing a 3-D scene, kind of a virtual reality thing, with 20 people in a multiplayer game, then you have some computation. Or say the President is making a speech. Everybody in the nation gets to push little buttons to say yea or nay, and gathering all that information so it can be displayed within a second or two is tricky. But it's all within the state of the art. You don't have to be a dreamer to know that the technology will not limit the construction of the information highway.

PLAYBOY: How will being able to respond directly to the president alter our system of government?

GATES: The idea of representative democracy will change. Today, we claim we don't use direct democracy because it would be impractical to poll everybody on every issue. The truth is that we use representative democracy because we want to get an above-average group to think through problems and make choices that, in the short term, might not be obvious, even if they are to everybody's benefit over the long term.

PLAYBOY: Do you agree?

GATES: Yes. When making choices, or setting policies about the economy, education or medicine, society is best served by electing people who are particularly hardworking, intelligent and interested in long-term thinking.

PLAYBOY: You're giving our current elected officials a lot of credit.

GATES: What we have may be less than ideal, but it's still better than direct democracy. Anyway, we'll no longer be able to hide behind the excuse that we don't have the technology to gather the opinions.

PLAYBOY: What else is Microsoft involved in? Weve heard about software that can control washing machines, for instance.

GATES: [Laughs] The washing machine example is extreme, but people do sometimes kid us that we see an opportunity to sell our software in broad areas. We are involved in a new generation of fax machines that we think will be better and easier to use. And a generation of screen phones [a standard phone with a minicomputer] in which the typically cryptic buttons are replaced with a graphics interface. We're also working on software that runs in printers. We've worked with people on car navigation systems. And in the home environment, something you can carry in your pocket called the Wallet PC.

PLAYBOY: In your pocket?

GATES: It's a futuristic device unlike todays personal digital assistants. Instead of using keys to enter your house, the Wallet PC identifies that you're allowed to go into a certain door and it happens electronically. Instead of having tickets to the theater, your Wallet PC will digitally prove that you paid. When you want to board a plane, instead of showing your tickets to 29 people, you just use this. You have digital certificates. Digital money. It has a global positioning thing in it, so you can see a map of where you are and where you might want to go. It's our vision of the small, portable PC of, say, five years from now.

PLAYBOY: Do you use a PDA?

GATES: I carry a standard 486 portable machine with me whenever I travel, because I have my e-mail on it. I used one of the original Newtons for a week, and its available if you'd like it.

PLAYBOY: Whats your problem with it?

GATES: It was supposed to do handwriting recognition. But, based on the initial product, people are skeptical about whether handwriting recognition really works. They did some nice technical work on the product. Unfortunately, its not a useful device as far as I'm concerned, so it'll probably set the category back.

PLAYBOY: You've been meeting with people such as QVC head Barry Diller, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, agent Mike Ovitz, John Malone of TCI and Gerald Levin of Time Warner to mastermind the future. Who sought out whom?

GATES: Its a good mix. Ovitz called me. He understands the opportunities of the new media. He thought it would be valuable to see how our visions meshed. He wants to make sure that when he's doing deals he's reserving rights for his clients in the best way. He wants us to think about licensing rights as were doing titles.

PLAYBOY: That's what you can do for Ovitz. What can he do for you?

GATES: So many things. He can help us get the word out in Hollywood that we want to team up with people to do multimedia titles. Mike can help us create ways to explain how these new tools are the studio of the future.

PLAYBOY: We hear so much about Ovitz, but never from him. What kind of guy is he?

GATES: It's strange when you read a lot in the press about somebody before you meet him. I don't know that much about Hollywood and its dynamics, so when I read this long piece on Ovitz in The New Yorker, it made me go, Whoa! I better be careful. Actually, he's a pretty personable guy. And, when you think about it, how could he be successful in that business without that kind of skill?

PLAYBOY: One might think he would be intimidated by you.

GATES: Sure. Not that I hoped for that. We've had lots of long dinners, and I went down and saw Creative Artists Agency. Its actually been almost two years since we first started talking with each other. We come from our own domains, where we're clearly hardworking, focused, quite successful. The issue is, what's the opportunity to work together? I've gotten to know a lot of these people over the past 18 months, and they are much more down-to-earth, practical, even humble, than you'd expect.

PLAYBOY: For instance?

GATES: Murdoch's a fairly quiet guy. Clearly brilliant, but quiet. Malone is straightforward in terms of talking about technology and strategy. He and I are damn similar. He worked at Bell Labs and understands both business and technology. We have a lot more in common than some of the other people these joint-venture things have exposed me to. I've met Diller several times. He came up here twice before landing at QVC, when he was just driving around and looking at the possibilities. He spent a lot of time here. He's a very sharp guy. He asked good questions. Not everybody loves him, but they all respect the hell out of him. Apparently he's a tough manager.

PLAYBOY: Meet any movie stars yet?

GATES: No. [Pauses] Actually, I did. I went to this Golden Plate thing where there were quite a few movie stars: Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Kevin-what's his name?

PLAYBOY: Costner?

GATES: That's a mental lapse, just to completely embarrass myself. I talked to Michael Crichton quite a bit, but he's not a movie star.

PLAYBOY: Did any of the celebrities recognize you?

GATES: I don't think so. But some of the scientists did. And a lot of the kids did, because kids tend to use computers more.

PLAYBOY: They had no idea they were shaking hands with the second richest guy in America?

GATES: No.

PLAYBOY: By the way, how much are you worth at this moment?

GATES: Well, remember, I don't own dollars. I own Microsoft stock. So it's only through multiplication that you convert what I own into some scary number.

PLAYBOY: Are people more intimidated by your brains or your money?

GATES: Not many people are intimidated by either. Here at work we're all just trying to get a job done. My people have the confidence of their convictions and they know their skills. And that occupies most of my time. The people I buy burgers from aren't intimidated, either. [Laughs] We all suffer from being hyped up in the press. These markets are very competitive. When people say things like, Bill Gates controls this or Malone controls this or Ovitz controls that, I hope people don't really believe it. Because every day were saying, How can we keep this customer happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will? If anything, people underestimate how effective capitalism is at keeping even the most successful companies on the edge.

PLAYBOY: Since you and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1975, the company's capacity for renewal has been unerring and wildly profitable. If you could sum up the corporate ethos in one sentence, what would it be?

GATES: Lets use our heads and think and do better software than anyone else.

PLAYBOY: How soon did it become more business than fun?

GATES: Pretty early, when I hired four guys and one of them didn't come in for a couple days. I said, Damn it, we're not going to get this stuff done. People are going to be upset. I've got salaries to pay. Fun became a serious responsibility. Back then I used to compute how much software we had to sell each day. I was directly involved in everything. I knew at ten in the morning if I'd already sold that days worth of software. If I had, then I wanted to take care of a weeks worth of sales.

PLAYBOY: A true businessman.

GATES: I have to admit that business-type thoughts do sneak into my head: I hope our customers pay us, I hope this stuff is decent, I hope we get it done on time. The little additions and subtractions that one has to do. Take sales, take costs and try to get that big positive number at the bottom.

PLAYBOY: Do you dislike being called a businessman?

GATES: Yeah. Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe ten percent to business thinking. Business isn't that complicated. I wouldn't want to put it on my business card.

PLAYBOY: What, then?

GATES: Scientist. Unless I've been fooling myself. When I read about great scientists like, say, Crick and Watson and how they discovered DNA, I get a lot of pleasure. Stories of business success don't interest me in the same way.

PLAYBOY: How come you're not in a lab coat somewhere?

GATES: Part of my skill is understanding technology and business. So lets just say I'm a technologist.

PLAYBOY: If business is ten percent, how does the other 90 percent break down?

GATES: [Blows a big raspberry]

PLAYBOY: Come on!!

GATES: This gets far too ephemeral and private. It is an interesting question, I will admit. But applying it to myself in a public way is probably

PLAYBOY: But you brought it up.

GATES: I did. OK. Ninety percent to all other.

PLAYBOY: [Blows raspberry]

GATES: This percentage thing is too hard because you always forget something important. Whoops, I forgot about my family. I mean, come on, this is too difficult.

PLAYBOY: Its hard to believe we found something too difficult for you.

GATES: There must be another metric to explain what I mean when I say that business is not the hard part. Let me put it this way: Say you added two years to my life and let me go to business school. I don't think I would have done a better job at Microsoft. [Stands] Let's look around these shelves and see if there are any business books. Oops. We didn't need any.

PLAYBOY: How do you define smart?

GATES: [Rolls his eyes] Oh, come on. It's an elusive concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To walk into a situation, have something explained to you and immediately say, Well, what about this? To ask an insightful question. To absorb it in real time. A capacity to remember. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective.

PLAYBOY: Whew. Are you smart?

GATES: By my own little definition I'm probably above average.

PLAYBOY: Why do some of your critics say you and by extension, Microsoft are not innovative, that you are evolutionary rather than revolutionary? Here's a quote: Bill is just a systems guy who has been able to fund a wider range of me-too applications on the basis of one extremely lucrative product MS-DOS practically handed to him ten years ago by IBM. All he's done since is hang in.

GATES: [Smiles] DOS has been as much as 25 percent of our profit. But believe me, those profits go to the bottom line. If the company weren't profitable you could say, Ah, DOS, they're using it to fund the other stuff. The fact is, everything is very profitable here. And we're doing so many innovative things now, even my harshest critics will never say that again.

PLAYBOY: Perhaps. But why did they say it in the first place that, along with vision, luck, timing and an unrelenting need to win, you've succeeded by picking up the fumbles of your competitors? You were given the right to license MS-DOS by IBM because it thought the future was in hardware, not in software or operating systems.

GATES: [Stands, paces] So here's our management meeting: Well, I don't know what we're supposed to do. Has anybody fumbled anything recently? I mean, come on! Hey, Digital Research: I hear they're fumbling something. Let's go do something there. What was the first microcomputer software company? Microsoft. The very first! Who were we imitating when we dropped out of school and started Microsoft? When we did the Altair BASIC? When, early on, we did CD-ROM conferences and talked about all this multimedia software? And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel? It's just nonsense.

PLAYBOY: It's said that you have nothing less than industry domination in mind.

GATES: But what does it mean to win? If I were a guy who just wanted to win, I would have already moved on to another arena. If I'd had some set idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago?

PLAYBOY: Do you want to dominate the software industry?

GATES: No. We're only healthy if the industry as a whole is healthy and thriving. Most types of software aren't appropriate for us to do. For those that are, well always have competition. Its so simplistic. Whenever a company is successful, people say it's out to dominate. Take Disney. Its a wonderful company, but there are people within the entertainment industry who wonder about Disneys goals. Or IBMs, when it was successful. People impute all sorts of ridiculous motives and plans.

PLAYBOY: Such as Disney being called Mauschwitz because of the tough deals they drive?

GATES: They do great products and they're good businessmen. In our industry, some people are afraid of us because were so good. Outside the industry people say, Wow! This software stuff is confusing. You bet I want to go with a company that's going to be around and has proved it has things that work together and are pretty good. Actually, that scares successful companies in the industry. You get a good enough reputation and you're like an incumbent.

PLAYBOY: And vulnerable to incumbent-bashing?

GATES: Yes. The industry press has been tough on us for as long as we've been the largest company. We're involved in setting some fairly key standards and people are afraid of us because they think, Geez, they are quite capable. It's daunting, I suppose.

PLAYBOY: You suppose?

GATES: One thing people underestimate is how markets don't allow anyone to do anything except make better and better products. There's not much leeway. The world is a lot more competitive than most people think, particularly in a high-technology area. If a company takes its eye off improving its products, if it tries to do anything that would be viewed as an exercise of power, it'll be displaced very rapidly.

PLAYBOY: You're not suggesting you've never exercised your power.

GATES: OK, so we tried to get everybody to write software for Windows. If we discouraged people from writing software for Windows we would be hurting ourselves a lot.

PLAYBOY: And now Windows is so popular in the stand-alone-PC market that you've blown away competitors like IBM's OS/2 and HP's New Wave. Has Windows won?

GATES: If you define the term narrowly enough, you could say yes. Windows has a substantial share of the volume on DOS-based PC's. But we keep doing versions. And despite its current success, unless we keep the price low and keep improving the product dramatically, then it will be supplanted. Of course, we think there are enough improvements in the next version, 4.0, code-named Chicago, to extend Windows success another couple of years. And then we'll have a version after that.

PLAYBOY: Do you have an unfair advantage over your competition because your systems people who do things like MS-DOS and Windows exchange data freely with your applications programmers, thereby breaching the Chinese wall, the ethical boundary that's supposed to separate them? Its been an oft-repeated charge.

GATES: [Strongly] Chinese wall is not a term we've ever used. And companies often have more than one product. Kodak makes film and cameras, and those two parts of the company can work together. IBM makes computers, some peripherals, and software and applications. Ford not only makes cars, it makes repair parts. The day it thinks of a new car, it doesn't call in all the other repair-parts companies to build those repair parts. We're actually more open than any other company that has multiple products. We take lots of affirmative steps to help other companies. Naturally, our applications group is the most committed to Windows. In the early days they didn't hesitate when I said, Hey, we're going to do Windows. Other companies did, even though we begged them to write for Windows. That gave us a leadership position, which we've continued to increase over the years. We bet the company on Windows and we deserve to benefit. It was a risk that's paid off immensely. In retrospect, committing to the graphics interface seems so obvious that now it's hard to keep a straight face. But the big beneficiary of the whole PC phenomenon has been the users. Individuals can now get these tools at very low prices. This is the market working exactly as it should. And yeah, that's been tougher on some producers, and it means we have to keep working hard. We can't rest for a second.

PLAYBOY: Let's talk about the recent government investigations. Last year the Federal Trade Commission concluded a three-year look into Microsoft's affairs. During that time many of your competitors complained about alleged Microsoft strong-arm business tactics and monopolistic practices. After two votes the FTC decided not to proceed with any action. Now the Justice Department has picked up the ball. Is Justice asking questions different from the FTC's?

GATES: It's the same stuff.

PLAYBOY: Why don't you just refer them to the FTC files?

GATES: That's millions of pieces of paper.

PLAYBOY: Did these investigations take you by surprise?

GATES: At some point, with the kind of success we've had, it's both expected and appropriate for one government agency to review what's going on in the industry. The fact that we have a second one doing it, sort of double jeopardy, is unprecedented. But fine, we'll go through another one. It may take many years.

PLAYBOY: Are you hoping that it takes many years?

GATES: No. It would be better if it were over soon.

PLAYBOY: What was the toughest part of testifying before the FTC? GATES: No real problem. I was quoted once. I think the quote was misinterpreted as answering the question, What's the worst case in your dealings with the FTC? with, Well, if I trip on steps when I'm walking in and break my head open, that's the worst case.

PLAYBOY: It does seem rather cavalier.

GATES: It does. What I meant was that you multiply low-probability events by their probability. That's how you judge them. You don't just take this one-in-a-billion thing and spend everybody's time elaborating on it. In any case, we had no problem with a company as successful as Microsoft, in an industry as important as ours, being looked at by a government agency to make sure we're competitive and that things work the right way. In fact, we spent three years providing the FTC with millions of documents and explaining our industry so that it could be sure the status quo was being maintained. That's perfectly legitimate.

PLAYBOY: Does the FTC have to go through all that trouble to understand your industry?

GATES: Yeah. It takes some time. But if it hadn't looked at the software industry, then the status quo still would have been maintained.

PLAYBOY: This also happened to IBM and AT&T, with the latter being broken up. Do you fear that?

GATES: No. The government decides when something's important enough to look into. Then it allows all your competitors to call it up and say, Please hold them back this way. Please make it harder for them to create good products in this way. Please tell them not to compete with us anymore. Microsoft makes a little mouse, so we had these guys who make mice saying, Why don't you tell them not to do mice. They do Windows and they do mice. Some guy who does Arabic software layers complained that he didn't like the way we were doing Arabic software layers. The government looks at all the mud that gets thrown up on the wall. We did have one competitor who launched a paranoid political attack against us with the FTC in an attempt to persuade the government to help it compete.

PLAYBOY: Everybody knows that was Ray Noorda, chief executive of Novell.

GATES: That was disappointing.

PLAYBOY: Careful word, disappointing. Didn't it piss you off when you thought Noorda was working against you?

GATES: To the degree that he failed, we can be magnanimous about it.

PLAYBOY: Was the outpouring of negative sentiment hurtful?

GATES: No. This is a very competitive business.

PLAYBOY: You're blase about it.

GATES: It's cheap for a competitor to pick up the telephone and say, in effect, Please hurt my competition in the following way. It's straightforward. It's absolutely to be expected.

PLAYBOY: Is there nobody you'd like to restrict or retaliate against? For instance, one of your most vocal critics is Borland chief executive Philippe Kahn. It seems he goes out of his way to attack you.

GATES: When we got into the Apple lawsuit, he said, Oh, Windows, it's like waking up and finding out that your partner might have AIDS. That was his quote in Time. In another magazine, I think it was Business Week, he chose to compare us to Germany in World War Two.

PLAYBOY: And your response?

GATES: That was so extreme. I don't think it will mislead people in any way. People who do that discredit themselves. It's so outrageous and so offensive and inappropriate. Just think back to the Holocaust and all the tragedy. But what bothers me more is when facts are twisted so that people can't tell what's right or wrong. You won't find us ever doing anything like that with any of our competitors. Philippe is a smart guy. I've been critical of his company's inability to make more money, but that's something I do to his face. Everything I'm saying to you about Philippe, I've said to him directly.

PLAYBOY: Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus, says Microsoft has won and now the industry is the kingdom of the dead.

GATES: I have immense respect for Mitch. We've agreed and disagreed on many things but stayed friends through the years. After he said that, I saw him and asked, Hey, Mitch, what was that?

PLAYBOY: Had he really said it?

GATES: He has strong opinions, and I think that the remark was taken out of context. He's given us good feedback on our software for a long time.

PLAYBOY: Is Microsoft so big that you never go on the offensive?

GATES: Never. And as we move onto this information highway, believe me, most of the companies involved are far bigger than we are. We're dealing with the German telephone company and with British Telcom. We're dealing with NTT, the worlds highest-valuation corporation. Are they going to compete with us? Work with us? Were a small, small company in that arena. There may be some point when we feel that somebody is using market muscle against us and wish we had a way to avoid it.

PLAYBOY: How long do you anticipate staying active with Microsoft?

GATES: At least for the next ten years, I see myself being in very much the role I am in today. Then there will be a point where somebody younger, probably younger, should be given the prime role here. I'd still have a role, but it wouldn't be as CEO.

PLAYBOY: Does depending on someone else's vision make you nervous?

GATES: No, I just have to pick the right person.

PLAYBOY: Would that have to be somebody like you?

GATES: No. You have to be open-minded. Somebody could do it differently and still do it well. You can't have this bias that they need to do things the same way. Of course, it'll be somebody who understands technology very well and has high energy and likes to think ahead. There are certain requirements.

PLAYBOY: Like your management style? We hear you're brusque at times, that you won't hesitate to tell someone their idea is the stupidest thing you've ever heard. It's been called management by embarrassment challenging employees and even leaving some in tears.

GATES: I don't know anything about employees in tears. I do know that if people say things that are wrong, others shouldn't just sit there silently. They should speak. Great organizations demand a high level of commitment by the people involved. That's true in any endeavor. I've never criticized a person. I have criticized ideas. If I think something's a waste of time or inappropriate I don't wait to point it out. I say it right away. It's real time. So you might hear me say, That's the dumbest idea I have ever heard many times during a meeting.

PLAYBOY: What do you mean when you say something is random?

GATES: That it's not a particularly enlightened idea. [Sarcastically] So, how do you have a successful software company? Well, you get me and Microsoft executive vice president Steve Ballmer and we just start yelling.

PLAYBOY: Do your employees stand up to you?

GATES: Oh, sure.

PLAYBOY: In the beginning, why did you and Paul Allen decide to do only software when everyone else was doing hardware?

GATES: Paul and I believed that software would drive the industry and create substantial value. And we understood it best.

PLAYBOY: Didn't Paul originally want to do hardware?

GATES: Hardware and software, and I thought we should do only software. When you have the microprocessor doubling in power every two years, in a sense you can think of computer power as almost free. So you ask, Why be in the business of making something that's almost free? What is the scarce resource? What is it that limits being able to get value out of that infinite computing power? Software. Another way to look at it is that I just understood a lot more about software than I did about hardware, so I was sticking to what I knew well and that turned out to be something important.

PLAYBOY: Your big move into operating systems was when you did the 16-bit MS-DOS operating system.

GATES: We always knew that we were going to do operating systems, though we initially thought just high-end. When we were helping to design the original IBM PC hardware, the question was whether we would do the operating system.

PLAYBOY: And now MS-DOS runs on more than 90 percent of all personal computers, or about 100 million, and it made Microsoft. Was the partnership the key to winning?

GATES: Our restricting IBM's ability to compete with us in licensing MS-DOS to other computer makers was the key point of the negotiation. We wanted to make sure only we could license it. We did the deal with them at a fairly low price, hoping that would help popularize it. Then we could make our move because we insisted that all other business stay with us. We knew that good IBM products are usually cloned, so it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that eventually we could license DOS to others. We knew that if we were ever going to make a lot of money on DOS it was going to come from the compatible guys, not from IBM. They paid us a fixed fee for DOS. We didn't get a royalty, even though we did make some money on the deal. Other people paid a royalty. So it was always advantageous to us, the market grew and other hardware guys were able to sell units.

PLAYBOY: By 1986, DOS had won.

GATES: Right. Subsequently there were clone competitors to DOS, and there were people coming out with completely new operating systems. But we had already captured the volume, so we could price it low and keep selling.

PLAYBOY: Has DOS peaked?

GATES: I don't know. DOS continues to be sold on a high percentage of PC's. But within a few years it will be replaced by a next-generation operating system. This is a case where we're obsoleting our own product I hope. Or somebody else will. Actually, it would have been obsolete some time ago if we hadn't come along with Windows and sort of built it on top of DOS, to renew its capabilities. The fact that we did that as an add-on to DOS allowed people to keep running DOS applications. We thought that would be of some benefit to people.

PLAYBOY: And to yourself. Perhaps to buy time.

GATES: No. People wanted to run their DOS applications. Believe me, it would have been a lot easier to write Windows so it didn't run DOS applications. But we knew that we couldn't make the transition without that compatibility. In fact, the next version of Windows further enhances our ability to run DOS applications.

PLAYBOY: What happened to IBM? According to one book, you supposedly told a group of Lotus employees over too many drinks that IBM would fold in seven years. IBM is still here, of course, but it's restructuring and streamlining. So you were partially right.

GATES: In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless youre running scared all the time, you're gone. IBM could recover, but in terms of what it was, it'll never have a position like that again. It was during the glory years, its years of greatest profit and greatest admiration, that it was making the mistakes that sowed the billions of dollars of losses that came later.

PLAYBOY: What were those mistakes?

GATES: The idea of how you run software development properly is not something you can capture in a few sentences. It's how you hire people, organize people, how you plan the spec, how you let it change, how you do the testing, how you get feedback from customers. IBM's only real software success had been with mainframes, where they were the only choice. Consequently IBM didn't develop those processes very well.

PLAYBOY: Could that be happening to Microsoft now? In terms of corporate power, your company has been called the new IBM.

GATES: I've thought about that, but I don't think so.

PLAYBOY: That's what IBM said.

GATES: That's right. But did IBM try to renew its vision, did it really look at the early signs that things weren't going right? Did management really focus on those things, or did they let themselves get a little complacent about their success? Were they working hard, were they hiring new people? And remember, when IBM was run by its founder it thrived and for several generations of management after that. When you have a founder around, or if that founder picks the right successor, companies can do well. But we have to prove ourselves. I can't prove that decay hasn't set in. Five years from now you can call me and say, Well, Bill, it looks like the decay didn't set in. At least I hope the evidence will show that.

PLAYBOY: What was your first meeting like with Lou Gerstner, IBM's new chief?

GATES: It was my chance to tell him what Microsoft is.

PLAYBOY: He didn't know?

GATES: I'm not saying that. I wanted to talk more about the company. It was a bit awkward because when I went there they said, Thank you for coming, Mr. Manzi. [Laughs] Jim Manzi [current head of Lotus, a Microsoft rival] and I don't look alike, so that set me back a little. Then we went into this room, the famous Tom Watson Library, a place I'd been probably a dozen times and know the history of pretty well. Gerstner took some time explaining it to me, though I already knew. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to stop him or not. We eventually talked about the business. I did not endeavor to give him any advice. He knew I'd been talking to the board and chided me a little about that.

PLAYBOY: Do you expect to get along?

GATES: Microsoft and IBM are perfectly complementary companies with the exception of one small group IBM has that does PC system software.

PLAYBOY: Where does the relationship stand today?

GATES: IBM is our best customer. It's porting a lot of its key software into the Windows environment. Every month we find more and more things we can do together.

PLAYBOY: Over the years, have your youthful looks been more help or harm?

GATES: Its hard to say. If you're asking whether I intentionally mess up my hair, no, I don't. And certain things, like my freckles, they're just there. I don't do anything consciously. I suppose I could get contact lenses. I suppose I could comb my hair more often.

PLAYBOY: We are talking about knowing that your youthful, or can we say nerdish? looks would throw potential competitors and partners off balance and give you an advantage going in.

GATES: [Smiles] I think that my looks were a disadvantage, at least back then. But once our competitors had to admit we knew what we we're doing, they had a hard time knowing what category to put us in. We were young, but we had good advice and good ideas and lots of enthusiasm.

PLAYBOY: You recently got married, an event many of your competitors have fervently wished for. Now, they say, you'll concentrate less on work.

GATES: They're just joking. If they really think I'm going to work a lot less just because I'm married, thats an error.

PLAYBOY: Isn't there a kernel of truth in any joke?

GATES: Married life is a simpler life. Who I spend my time with is established in advance.

PLAYBOY: You were one of the world's most eligible bachelors. No doubt there are many women who would love to be in Melinda's place.

GATES: What? They want to do puzzle contests with me? They want to go golfing with me? How do they know its interesting to be around me? They want to read the books I read?

PLAYBOY: What was it that attracted you to Melinda?

GATES: Oh, I don't know. That's probably too personal. Even before I met Melinda, if someone asked me a question like that I'd always say I was interested in people who are smart and independent. And I'm sure I'll continue to meet lots of interesting, smart, independent people.

PLAYBOY: Something about Melinda must have made you turn the corner. Don't tell us you're just getting older and it was time.

GATES: There's some magic there that's hard to describe, and I'm pursuing that.

PLAYBOY: Can you describe how she makes you feel?

GATES: Amazingly, she made me feel like getting married. Now that is unusual! It's against all my past rational thinking on the topic.

PLAYBOY: We know you're kidding and not kidding. Let's go back farther. Which parent most influenced you?

GATES: My mom was around more, but my dad had the final say on things. They were both major influences. I was raised pretty normal. We didn't get to watch TV on weeknights. We were encouraged to get good grades. Our parents talked a lot about the challenges they were dealing with and treated us as though we could understand and appreciate those things. My parents took us around and traveled some. When we were young our grandparents read to us a lot, so we got into the habit of reading. My sister is two years older than I am and we learned a lot of stuff together.

PLAYBOY: How were you encouraged to get good grades?

GATES: We got 25 cents for an A. It was kind of funny because there was a whole period when I got terrible grades and my sister got straight A's. That was until I was in eighth grade. Then my sister discovered boys. She never got straight A's again. My grade point average went from a 2.2 to a 4.0 over the summer. I wanted to get straight A's. I decided to get straight A's.

PLAYBOY: Why?

GATES: There was no reason. It takes a little bit of effort. I guess I didnt want people to think I was dumb. And when you get straight A's once, its easier.

PLAYBOY: Were you a discipline problem?

GATES: People thought I was a goof-off, a class clown at times. That was OK, not really a problem. Then I went to private school, and there was no position called the clown. I applied for it, but either they didn't like my brand of humor or humor wasn't in that season. In fact, I didn't have clear positioning for a couple of years. I was trying the no-effort-makes-a-cool-guy routine. When I did start trying, people said, Whoa, we thought he was stupid! Better reassess.

PLAYBOY: Did your parents wonder if you might be stupid?

GATES: Oh, no. They just thought I was underachieving dramatically. When I did get into trouble in school, they sent me to this psychiatrist. He gave me a little test and books to read, and he would talk to me about psychological theories just getting me to think about things. He said some profound things that got me thinking a little differently. He was a cool guy. That's why I always liked the movie Ordinary People, because this guy was just like the psychiatrist in that movie. I only saw him for a year and a half, and never saw him again, and I haven't been to anybody like that since. But my mind was focused appropriately.

PLAYBOY: What did he say to you?

GATES: I said, Hey, I'm in a little bit of a battle with my parents. He said, Oh, you'll win, don't worry. I said, What? What's the story here? He said, You'll win. They love you and you're their child. You win.

PLAYBOY: And the implication was?

GATES: That if you think you need to put more effort into winning with them, don't. It's a fake battle. It's ridiculous. It was enough to get me to think, Hmm, that's interesting. He also had me read all this Freud stuff.

PLAYBOY: How old were you?

GATES: I was 11. But he was an enlightened guy. He was always challenging me. He would ask me questions, but he would never tell me whether my answer was right or not. He would say, That's an OK answer. Then our time would always be up and he'd give me more stuff to read.

PLAYBOY: Ever wonder what might have become of you if you had gone to public school instead of Lakeside, where you met Paul Allen and fell in love with computers?

GATES: I'd be a better street fighter.

PLAYBOY: When did you know you had something special to offer? When did you become aware you were different?

GATES: [Big raspberry] I have something special to offer, Mom! Mom, I just figured it out: I have something special to offer! So don't make me eat my beans.

PLAYBOY: You know what we mean.

GATES: When I was young we used to read books over the summer and get little colored bookmarks for each one. There were girls who had read maybe 15 books. I'd read 30. Numbers two through 99 were all girls, and there I was at number one. I thought, Well, this is weird, this is very strange. I also liked taking tests. I happened to be good at it. Certain subjects came easily, like math. All the science stuff. I would just read the textbooks in the first few days of class.

PLAYBOY: Even though your parents are well off on their own, how have they reacted to your extreme wealth?

GATES: I don't show it to them. I hide it from them. I have it buried in the lawn. It's bulging a little bit, and I hope it doesn't rain.

PLAYBOY: Bad bet, living in Seattle.

GATES: My money is meaningless to them. Meaningless. It has no effect on anything I do with my parents. [Pauses] If somebody's sick we can get the best doctors, so it has that impact. But we talk about things that money doesn't affect.

PLAYBOY: We're not suggesting that you talk only about money.

GATES: We never talk about money.

PLAYBOY: Does your net worth of multi-billions, despite the fact that it's mostly in stock and the value varies daily, boggle your mind?

GATES: It's a ridiculous number. But remember, 95 percent of it I'm just going to give away. [Smiles] Don't tell people to write me letters. I'm saving that for when I'm in my 50s. It's a lot to give away and it's going to take time.

PLAYBOY: Where will you donate it?

GATES: To charitable things, scientific things. I don't believe in burdening any children I might have with that. They'll have enough. They'll be comfortable.

PLAYBOY: Youll give them only a billion, maybe?

GATES: No, no, are you kidding? Nothing like that. One percent of that.

PLAYBOY: But they'll grow up thinking, Gee, if Dad leaves me some of the money. . . .

GATES: I'll make it clear that it'll be a modest amount.

PLAYBOY: So you want them to be as self-made as you?

GATES: No, that's not the point. The point is that ridiculous sums of money can be confusing.

PLAYBOY: In general, or only to the young or inexperienced?

GATES: I think to anyone.

PLAYBOY: Is it confusing to you?

GATES: I'm very well grounded because of my parents and my job and what I believe in. Some people ask me why I don't own a plane, for instance. Why? Because you can get used to that kind of stuff, and I think that's bad. It takes you away from normal experiences in a way that is probably debilitating. So I control that kind of thing intentionally. It's one of those discipline things. If my discipline ever broke down it would confuse me, too. So I try to prevent that.

PLAYBOY: So why not give the kid a billion dollars and let him try to control it as well?

GATES: Not earning it yourself, knowing you have it from a young age, being so different in that respect from the other kids you grow up with, would be very confusing.

PLAYBOY: Won't your being their dad be confusing enough?

GATES: I will seek to minimize that in every way possible. I'll be as creative as I can. That experience is bad for a kid.

PLAYBOY: How do you entertain yourself with your money?

GATES: I swallow quarters, burn dollar bills, that kind of thing. I mean, when I buy golf balls I buy used golf balls, and that entertains me. Ha, ha, ha.

PLAYBOY: Seriously.

GATES: I'm building a house. It has serious functions, but entertainment is most of it. It has a screening room. And I'm putting in these huge video screens and buying the digital rights to the world's masterpieces and all sorts of art. I guess that's indulgent.

PLAYBOY: Rumor has it the house is mostly underground.

GATES: Completely false.

PLAYBOY: When will it be done?

GATES: I thought it would take four years. It will take five, then I'll move into the project.

PLAYBOY: What else entertains you?

GATES: I like to learn. I like puzzles. Ive even played some golf the past year and a half, because everybody else in my family does. Actually, right now I'm a little addicted. I get a kick out of being out there on the green grass. I'm just getting into the 90s now.

PLAYBOY: We hear you don't watch TV.

GATES: I do watch television. I don't have any TVs with their over-the-air receivers connected in my house. But when I'm in a hotel room or other places that have a TV, then I turn it on and flip the channels just like everybody else. I was watching cartoons on Nickelodeon on Sunday. Its amazing.

PLAYBOY: What was on?

GATES: Ren & Stimpy and Rugrats. Great! Cartoons have improved a lot since I was a kid. I'm not immune to the lures of television. I just try to stay away from it because I like to read. PLAYBOY: What do you read?

GATES: The Economist, every page. Also The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. And I read Time. If I'm traveling, every once in a while I'll pick up an issue of People. I read USA Today.

PLAYBOY: What's the most random thing you read?

GATES: Fiction. That's true randomness. My older sister has read all the trashy books. So, occasionally, I have her recommend one. Otherwise, I'm in the same traffic as everybody else. I'm in the same airplane delay as everybody else. I sit in the same coach seat as everybody else. Yeah, I'm here in meetings all day. Here at Microsoft I work hard. There are a lot of experiences I haven't had. There are a lot of sitcoms I haven't seen. I haven't had a child yet. There are religions I don't belong to. I think we all have our own slice of life. I eat at McDonald's more than most people, but that's because I don't cook.

PLAYBOY: You're back to eating meat?

GATES: Yes. That was only a three-year period when I was proving to myself I could do it. But in terms of fast food and deep understanding of the culture of fast food, I'm your man.

PLAYBOY: Jack-in-the-Box? McDonald's?

GATES: Well, McDonald's is more pervasive around here. We also have Jack-in-the-Box. I'm not the kind of guy who decides that just because a few people got sick, it's necessarily going to happen to me. It wasn't very crowded for a while, but I thought that was fine.

PLAYBOY: The recent biographies of Bill Gates and Microsoft, Gates and Hard Drive, both explore the mythology that's developed about your quirks, habits and exploits. We'd like to sort the actual from the apocryphal.

GATES: Fine.

PLAYBOY: We'll start with an easy one. It's always written that you rock compulsively in your chair, and we can attest that you're doing it now and have been for most of this interview.

GATES: Right.

PLAYBOY: What about your penchant for driving fast and accumulating speeding tickets?

GATES: [Smiles] I get fewer speeding tickets than I used to.

PLAYBOY: Did you once get a cop fired for giving you a speeding ticket?

GATES: Thats false.

PLAYBOY: What about the story that while driving from Albuquerque to Seattle, you got three speeding tickets in one day from the same cop?

GATES: No, no, no. I've always told the truth about that one. I got twospeeding tickets from the same cop. Two. Not three. I got three tickets on the drive, but only two from the same cop. But I don't think anybody ever suggested that I said I got three from the same cop.

PLAYBOY: There's the story that your mother chooses your clothes and helps you color-coordinate by pinning them together this from a former girlfriend, who seems to repeat it without incurring your disapproval.

GATES: There was one point in my life when my mother was trying to explain to me about what color shirt to wear with what ties. But this goes way back. And I think people listen to their mother's advice when it relates to fashion. It's not an area in which I claim to know more than she does. And it's not that much effort to pick one shirt versus the other. I don't look down at the color I'm wearing during the day. So if it pleases other people that I know a little bit more about which shirt to pick with which tie, thats fine. At that time I didn't know much about it. I think I know a little bit about it now, but below average.

PLAYBOY: Is it true that you cornered the market in McGovern-Eagleton buttons after Eagleton was dumped as a running mate?

GATES: It's certainly true that I made a lot of money selling McGovern-Eagleton campaign buttons. I'll be glad to show them to you, but I don't think it matters how much I made. It doesn't aggrandize me when things get less and less accurate the farther they get from the source.

PLAYBOY: Next: the $242 that you supposedly paid for a pizza to be delivered one night.

GATES: That is just reporters' randomness to the max.

PLAYBOY: Did you have a million-dollar trust fund while you were at Harvard?

GATES: Not true. [Throws up his hands, stands and starts pacing] Where does this randomness come from? You think it's a better myth to have started with a bunch of money and made money than to have started without? In what sense? My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area. I was lucky. But I never had any trust funds of any kind, though my dad did pay my tuition at Harvard, which was quite expensive.

PLAYBOY: How did he feel when you dropped out?

GATES: I told him it was a leave of absence, that I was going back.

PLAYBOY: Nice move.

GATES: Hey, if I had completely failed I would have gone back, of course. Harvard was willing to take me back. I was a student on leave.

PLAYBOY: When you were at Harvard, did you frequent the Combat Zone, home of hookers, drugs and adult films?

GATES: That's true. [Laughs] But just because I went there doesn't mean I engaged in everything that was going on. But I did go there. It's easy, you just take the subway. And it's pretty inexpensive. I ate pizza, read books and watched what was going on. I went to the diners.

PLAYBOY: Ever take LSD?

GATES: My errant youth ended a long time ago.

PLAYBOY: What does that mean?

GATES: That means there were things I did under the age of 25 that I ended up not doing subsequently.

PLAYBOY: One LSD story involved you staring at a table and thinking the corner was going to plunge into your eye.

GATES: [Smiles]

PLAYBOY: Ah, a glimmer of recognition.

GATES: That was on the other side of that boundary. The young mind can deal with certain kinds of gooping around that I don't think at this age I could. I don't think you're as capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your body as you get older. However, I never missed a day of work.

PLAYBOY: Here's the wildest rumor: You once trolled Seattle in a limo looking for hookers.

GATES: No, no, that is not true. A Korean friend of mine in high school rented a limousine one night, and we went to Burger Master. He liked one of the girls there, so he thought it would be fun to pull up in a limousine and leave a big tip at this drive-in place. But that is quite a metamorphosis from this nice hamburger girl to something more lurid. This isn't the rock-and-roll industry. The computer industry doesn't have groupies like rock does.

PLAYBOY: Really? You've been described by one of your own people as Bill Gates, rock star. Wasn't there a young woman in Mensa, from Atlanta, who said she needed some software for her Mac which you delivered personally?

GATES: Who told you that? I sent it to her. There are elements of truth in all mythology, along with a good dose of exaggeration that I have not contributed to. Here's the point: People think, Hey, here's this guy, he's single, has all this success, isn't he taking advantage of it a little bit? I mean, geez, just a little bit?

PLAYBOY: And the answer?

GATES: Those people wouldn't be completely disappointed. They'd be somewhat disappointed because at night they'd find me sitting at home reading the molecular biology of the gene or just working late, or just lying around doing new deals and things like that. My job is about the most fun thing I do, but I have a broad set of interests, going places, reading things, doing things.

PLAYBOY: And when you do fly, you fly in coach.

GATES: It's quite a mix there. I fly coach when I'm in the U.S. on business. But when I fly to Europe, I fly business class. When I go to Trailblazers games with Paul Allen, I fly on the plane he owns. I also drive my own car.

PLAYBOY: Does privilege corrupt?

GATES: It can, I've noticed. It's easy to get spoiled by things that alienate you from what's important.

PLAYBOY: Are you afraid it would look bad to the people at Microsoft?

GATES: No, it's for me personally. I wouldn't want to get used to being waited on or driven around. Living in a way that is unique would be strange.

PLAYBOY: Do the rumors bother you?

GATES: Rarely. But its difficult. Microsoft being well known and having people know we do great software and getting people enthused about new things, that's an important part of Microsoft, challenging these new frontiers. It's natural for a company to be associated with its co-founder and leader. But as far as my personal life goes, its kind of a drawback. Even so, my experience with being exposed to the public is nothing like that of really well-known people.

PLAYBOY: Are you ready for celebrity?

GATES: No. I haven't even taken the introductory course.

PLAYBOY: Why not write your own book?

GATES: If I were to, I'd do it about the future instead of the past. When I reach a ripe old age, like 60 or something, then maybe I can be reflective.

PLAYBOY: You can set the record straight right now.

GATES: [Sighs] That some degree of oversimplication occurs is unavoidable. It's not like I'm complaining. Actually, my only complaint is that I wish somebody had written a decent book. And perhaps in the future somebody will. I just don't happen to like the ones that exist. They're incredibly inaccurate. Worse, they don't capture the excitement, the fun. What were the hard decisions? Why did things work out? Where was the luck? Where was the skill? You just don't get a sense of it. In fact, at one point we wanted to encourage a writer of reputation to do that, but we decided against it because we didn't want to put the time into it.

PLAYBOY: Don't you think people would want to read your Iacocca?

GATES: [Peeved] Now what does that mean? I think the answer is no to all such things. And when I do, I'll do it a hundred times better than any book done so far. But right now I don't want to be huger. I'm huger than I want to be. I'd like to shrink a little.

PLAYBOY: Then why are you talking with us?

GATES: For the message that personal computers can do neat things, that software is great stuff, that there's an exciting opportunity here and Microsoft is involved in it, that's a worthwhile message for Microsoft to get out. And if you want to just put Microsoft spokesman next to all those comments, that would be fine, except I know that people are more interested in human stories than they are in what technology can do for them.

PLAYBOY: Perhaps thats a strong clue to what should be done with emerging technologies.

GATES: That's true. We should let people communicate with other people.

PLAYBOY: Communicate with us: Who is Bill Gates?

GATES: I don't think theres a simple summary of anyone.

PLAYBOY: That said, give it a try.

GATES: [Laughs, then grudgingly, almost by rote] I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to gure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact. I don't like to waste time where I'm not hearing new things or being creative.

PLAYBOY: Like these questions?

GATES: Some of them I've heard before. Certainly the history of the company has been widely discussed.

PLAYBOY: We mean questions about who you are.

GATES: Nobody's ever asked me the question in that form before. Who are you? Just get right to the meat of the issue. Lets make it multiple choice.

PLAYBOY: Make it a free-association test. It must conjure some thoughts.

GATES: [Long pause] No, I don't know if I'm thinking of anything.

PLAYBOY: Try again.

GATES: OK, I have a nickname. My family calls me Trey because I'm William the third. My dad has the same name, which is always confusing because my dad is well known and I'm also known. If they'd realized that would occur, they wouldn't have called me the same name. They thought I'd be unknown so they said, Hey, just use the same name, what the heck. When people say Bill, that's work, mostly, and I think of all the stuff I should be doing. When people call me Trey, I think of myself as the son. I think of myself as young. I think of my family, of just being a kid, growing up.

PLAYBOY: Do you like the public Bill that we've described to you?

GATES: I think the observations about me are all over the map, so it's hard to respond to that. When I got engaged, the Star said that I had a little contest for Melinda and that as soon as she finished the contest, I asked her to marry me. And then she said, Yes, oh yes! I find that humorous because it's so unreal and so ridiculous. The National Enquirer hired an astrologist Id never met to say various things about me. That struck me as ridiculous. Forbes does this whole thing about who's wealthy and what they think. I thought what they wrote about me was silly, but this year they had a nice article on my friend Warren Buffett that I thought was pretty good. So I guess it's easier reading about other people. My guideline has always been to avoid a focus on me personally. Not because of any deep, dark secrets. Rather just a sense of privacy. I guess it's kind of silly in a way.

PLAYBOY: People see what you have wrought and want to know what kind of person becomes a guy like you.

GATES: You mean if they have the same kind of personal life then maybe they'll become like me?

PLAYBOY: Come on. Isn't this whole information highway based on wanting and having access to more information?

GATES: Yeah, but there are lots of things you can be interested in.

PLAYBOY: And this is one of them.

GATES: But it's sort of prurient, isn't it?

PLAYBOY: Maybe only to the guy who's the center of attention.

GATES: When we have the information highway, I'll put it out there. Everybody who wants to pay, I don't know, one cent, can see what movies I'm watching and what books I'm reading and certain other information. If I'm still interesting, I'll rack up dollars as people access that part of the highway.

PLAYBOY: How many buildings are on this campus? Have you visited them all?

GATES: Twenty-five. Yeah, I've been to all of them, but there are a few I've been to only once.

PLAYBOY: Do you wander around here late at night?

GATES: Actually, I'll do that tonight. It's Friday and I have no plans.

PLAYBOY: Do you look in people's offices?

GATES: I see if people are around, see what they put up on the walls. I want a little sense of what the feeling is, how lively, how much people personalize things. They put industry articles up on the walls, ones that are particularly rude to us or particularly nice to us. They put up their progress, their number of bugs or new things that work. And you run into people. Even on a Friday night there'll be a bunch of people here, and I'll get a chance to ask what they're thinking.

PLAYBOY: Let's start to wrap up with a more global perspective. What should our attitude be toward the Japanese?

GATES: This Japanese-bashing stuff is so out of control. It's almost racist the way people have these stereotyped views of why Japanese companies are successful, without gathering many facts.

PLAYBOY: Even though they're in a slump now, why have the Japanese been so successful?

GATES: For good reasons. Great products. A long-term approach. Focus on engineering and what it takes to turn products around quickly. Being able to adapt to what's necessary to sell effectively in markets around the world. Believe me, they have some challenges ahead. But what they did with no natural resources and, essentially, no world power is a miracle.

PLAYBOY: And we did none of the above? What were our mistakes?

GATES: Actually, America has also done pretty well during this period. Some American companies made mistakes, and there are things we could do to improve our products. For instance, we could improve our education system. Also, get rid of short-term thinking. Focus on product engineering instead of financial engineering. We could fine-tune. But we've contributed a lot, too. America and Japan are the two leading world economies in terms of technology and innovative products. And in software, information-age technology and biotechnology, our second most important business, the U.S. has an amazing lead.

PLAYBOY: Our auto business is recovering. We're finally focused on making better cars instead of on holding down Japanese imports. But what in the American psyche let our lead slip away?

GATES: I don't think it's the American psyche. We don't have to dig that deep to find rot. The way those car companies managed their engineering process and their manufacturing process was wrong. It was out of date, and it took an unbelievable amount of time to get those processes reformed. It really took Ford to set the pace.

PLAYBOY: Does Microsoft follow the Japanese model?

GATES: There are aspects. Look, our workers are all Americans, so we don't sing company songs and things like that. The idea of taking a long-term approach, taking a global approach, many fine American companies have done that, and have that in common with the Japanese. But in no sense would I say were following some broad set of Japanese approaches.

PLAYBOY: How should our society think about the future?

GATES: More optimistically. As there is progress, which is partly advances in technology, in a certain sense the world gets richer. That is, the things we do that use a lot of resources and time can be done more efficiently. So people wonder, Will there be jobs? Will there be things to do? Until were educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do. And as society gets richer, we can choose to allocate the resources in a way that gives people the incentive to go out and do those unfinished jobs.

PLAYBOY: One story about you suggested that if Microsoft manages to write and deliver the software running inside the box it will, on the most basic levels, influence how we interact with the information highway. How does it feel to know you can have the same impact in the next 20 years as you had in the first 20?

GATES: Because we've had leadership products, we've had an opportunity to have a role. But this would have happened without us. Somebody would have done a standard operating system and promoted a graphics interface. We may have made it happen a little sooner. Likewise, the information highway is going to happen. If we play a major role it'll be because we were a little bit better a little bit sooner than others were.

PLAYBOY: If you don't take the next step, are you concerned about falling from the heights you've achieved?

GATES: There may be a better way to put it. If we weren't still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear should guide you, but it should be latent. I have some latent fear. I consider failure on a regular basis.

PLAYBOY: Personally, are you slowing down any?

GATES: I used to take no vacations. I used to stay up two nights in a row. I don't do that anymore.

PLAYBOY: What about keeping up with the technology? Overwhelming?

GATES: No. But it's harder than when I was young.

PLAYBOY: What's the last thing you didn't understand?

GATES: The quantum theory of gravity. [Laughs] Look at this office. Who can read all this stuff? Maybe tomorrow I'll return the hundreds of e-mail messages that are in my in-box right now.

PLAYBOY: People might find it hard to believe that you just barely keep up.

GATES: How would they know? I can tell them that's the truth. The same with the degree of success I have had. I never would have predicted it. I didn't set out to achieve some level of wealth or size of company. I remember in 1980 or 1981 looking at a list of people who had made a lot of money in the computer industry and thinking, Wow, that's amazing. But I never thought I'd be on that list. It's clear I was wrong. I'm on the list, at least temporarily.

PLAYBOY: Temporarily?

GATES: I'm waiting for the anticlimax. I hate anticlimax. In terms of being able to do new and interesting things, I would hate to lose that. That's partly why I work as hard as I do trying to stay on top of things.

PLAYBOY: Is the one success of Microsoft enough for you?

GATES: Microsoft has had many, many successful products. It's like saying to somebody whos been married 50 years, Well, hell, you've had only one wife. What's wrong with you? You think you can do only one? I mean, I'm committed to one company. This is the industry I've decided to work in.

PLAYBOY: An interesting metaphor you choose, the wife thing.

GATES: You're welcome to print it.

PLAYBOY: Put it this way: You're 38, a billionaire, you co-founded the world's largest software company and transformed the industry. What do you want to do for an encore if there is one?

GATES: Encore implies that life is not a continuous process, that there's some sort of finite number of achievements that defines your life. For me, there are a lot of exciting things in front of me at Microsoft, things that we want to see if we can make happen with technology. There are great people here who are fun to work with. And in the next decade the most interesting industry by far will be information technology, broadly dened. We have a chance to make a major contribution to that. Its very competitive. We won't know until late in that period whether we did it right or not. I'm excited about that. And were still on a pretty steep curve in terms of making even better word processors or figuring out how an electronic encyclopedia or movie guide should work, guring out what sort of tools for collaboration we should offer to people. That will be my focus for the foreseeable future.

PLAYBOY: What about tomorrow? Any plans for Saturday?

GATES: [Smiles] Work.

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Copyright Playboy Enterprises Inc. 1994, downloaded from WWW 94/12/08.