Thursday, 15th July 2006 - Hello *New* World
The world will never be the same - at least for me. Took me a while to let the dust settle in, and to realize that the press conference and the emails that I saw on Thursday were really real. The man responsible for changing the world, to what it is today, is talking about transition plans from the company he created from scratch. Did he choke while ending his talk and introducing Ballmer? I can't believe he said all that till the end with a broad smile. Bill Gates is to Software what Einstein is to Physics. We can't imagine Einstein having had said he will work on Physics part time can we? But then again, this is Bill Gates we are talking about - he is one of a kind - he does the right thing. Software means more to me than Physics - explains why I still have to pinch myself to actually make me believe this is all real.
Where ever you are reading this blog from, I can say with 93% certainty that you are reading it on the software that Microsoft created. For me Microsoft is much more than just a software company that I work for - its a way of life, everything that you do, you impact millions of people, changing the world is a habit at Microsoft. The 70,000 of us worldwide, are inspired to do that only by the *xtra larger than life* leadership. Anybody who has had even a glimpse of the passion and aggression expressed in our annual company meetings and global briefings knows Microsoft isn't to be taken lightly; this isn't just a company, its probably 1 point less than being a religion. No matter how humble Gates was being during the press conference on Thursday in saying that his contribution to the hot new products Microsoft comes out with is over estimated - Well Mr. Gates every employee in your company can do that cause he/she is inspired by you, its not *just* your technical talent, its just the person that you are that inspires everything we do.
Being successful is probably the easy part - what is difficult is not to let success get to your head - not to let the success we've had in the past to change us, not to let that change then cause us not to be successful in the future. Gates has been an inspiration and an icon for me in this respect. Being humble when being the worlds richest man I'm sure isn't easy. I still recall from late 2005 in my second meeting with Gates, a colleague of mine asked (the most asked question) how is it being the worlds richest man? Gates giggled - and then the reply he gave was almost identical to what he said this Thursday, with wealth comes responsibility and he feels responsible on how he spends his wealth and that he has to give back to society the wealth the society has given him in the right areas which is health and education. No one can replace Gates at Microsoft - he will be very dearly missed. I'm sure he will continue to stand by us and continue to inspire the teams at Microsoft even after two years to head out and "Change the world, in ways, it needs to be changed".
In the era of the dotcom boom - I remember seeing an advertisement of a company called 3rd agenda. The advertisement carried the justification for the company's name - Gods 1st Agenda was to create the world, 2nd to send his messengers to spread religion and this company was entrusted with the 3rd agenda which was to evangelize technology. At that time, way back in the year 2000, I was amused but nothing else by the wit. Today it comes back to me. I'm a religious person, have strong belief in god and his prophets, I also believe that there will no more prophets. Maybe technology was really next on Gods agenda, maybe we really are witnessing the execution of the 3rd Agenda. Nothing has changed in the past 30 years as much as Technology and Gates was at the center and was responsible for most of this change.
Though it’s very difficult for me to accept the fact that Gates will no longer be our Cheif Software Architect but for the nobel cause that Gates will be devoting his time to two years from now, my respect for Gates has only grown many folds.
Friday morning saw the dawn of a whole new era, a whole new Microsoft, a whole new world. The leadership that gates is handing over the flag to is strong, young, energetic, inspired, aggresive and passionate about changing the world in just the same way that Gates was 31 years ago. Hello *New* World. Microsoft's leadership might have changed but not its source of inspiration - which has only got stronger, with which we will build better products that out customers can derive more value from, With Gates still as our Chairman we will continue to in Gates's words “change the world, in ways, it needs to be changed”.