How I emailed Bill Gates and How I got a response from him!

With four people in my office chanting “Do it! Do it!” I pressed the send button. Last Friday afternoon, I forwarded the Business Week article to Bill Gates. I highlighted the first sentence of the article that mentioned my name and my blog, and, most importantly, I highlighted the last sentence of the first paragraph that read, “And Bill Gates is happy.” I jokingly wrote, “I hope this isn’t a misquote =)” in the body of the email.

A couple of days later, I get a reply back, saying,

I’m happy. Nice article!

It was awesome to grab my coworkers on Monday morning saying, “come check out this mail” just to see the look on their faces (and to here their expletives of course). Before I knew it, I had a small crowd in my office applauding and cheering. Saurabh forwarded the mail around to our product unit. Lots of people have been telling me congratulations. The email hangs outside my door with “Real!” handwritten above the header.  The whole experience was pretty funny.

The Business Week article Blogging with the Boss’s Blessing now appears to be available publicly (no subscription required). It should comes out in print really soon.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Wow. Congrats!

    I've only known one person who's emailed billg (back in 1995). And I've seen the amount of space normal folks gave the guy when they saw him somewhere on campus doing something mildly official.

    To get a response, that's probably almost unheard of.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Wow! Super cool :)

    Congrats on getting your name in there :)

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Have I mistakenly stumbled across the fabled 'lost chapter from Microserfs' ;-)

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Woo! You go girl! :)

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Very cool. Congratulations on the email and the article.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    I can understand the euphoria for you... but I think it's not a good thing that the big boss of a company is so "unreachable"... congratulation from an entire department for a boss reply to your mail makes me worried.

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    A co-worker of yours could have gotten a good laugh by faking the e-mail. Did he sign the e-mail?

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Nah, it's just some other guy called bill gates who you sent this e-mail. I don't think the real Billy-boy would respont to an email recieved from just an ordinary worker. Got this strange feeling that Bill's e-mail is restricted to recieve mail just from microsoft workers and bill's mates including friends. If not, he would get spammed, trolled and so on from millions of people. No way, he would never even respond to an email which sits in the inbox with millions of other more important messages..

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    yup.. that's a good article..
    http://weblogs.asp.net/sbchatterjee/archive/2004/06/22/163103.aspx

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    oh, those silly skeptics. Why wouldn't it have been him? Nice going, Sara!

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    I just got my glossy new copy of BWeek in the mail yesterday and there you were on page 100!

    Congrats! Viva la Blog!

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Anonymous Coward:

    Just because you have zero self-esteem and self-worth does not mean that others do as well.

    I've received a response from Steve Ballmer to the two emails that I have sent to him. These guys aren't as unreachable as you may think. You may only get a couple of words, but you do get a response.

    Go and pee in your own pool!

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    coresite.org: ben's writings » So Gates really does respond to email…

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    why is that so special issue at all!!

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    How I emailed Bill Gates and How I got a response from him! How I emailed Bill Gates and How I got a response from him! Sara just heard from her boss...both her comments and the Business Week article are

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    It was me. Now leave her alone.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Sara, as I said before.... YOU GO!!! Congrats....

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Someone explain to me why this is such a big deal. I have never understood why people are so enthralled with Bill G or any other celebrity for that matter. So he has a mountain of money...it's not like he's going to whip out his checkbook and write you a big fatty. So why get all fired up if the guy replies to an email of all things. Very strange.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004

    Knowing .NET

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    I doubt that the fascination with BillG and STEVE B AT MICROSOFT DOT COM has little to do with their bottom lines. It's about the contribution they've made to the technology that many of us love. Love 'em or hate 'em, they have become icons in the world; and getting an email from an icon; well, that's just COOL!

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Euphoria! Microsoft is clearly a cult of Koresh'ian proportions.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    sigh I get a lot of replies every day, and not one from bill.
    I get them from important people. Important to me that is.
    bill is not in any way a person, that i'd like to get a mail from.

  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    phew, I'm 100% sure that it was just one of the bill's secretaries...

  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2004
    Naw, I've gotten responses from his secretaries before. They're far more verbose ;-)

  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2004
    C'mon!


    Do you really think Bill Gates email is billgates@microsoft.com?

    CHISUS!

    IF I had that kind of money in my hands, email would not be my favorite sport....

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2004
    No, I don't think that, his email address is BILLG AT MICROSOFT DOT COM

    has been for years. Although now it's filtered by agents and a team of ninja secretary for external email. There are also other internal microsoft aliases that he uses for his main email.

    some of the email was released into the public domain as part of the evidence for the antitrust trials.

  • Anonymous
    June 26, 2004
    nice work Sara!

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2004
    hi
    bill how r u

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2004
    Right on! You go!

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2004
    Your Blogging with the Boss's Blessings was wonderful and we are very proud of you. We are happy that Bill Gates responded to your e-mail and are very happy for you. Love you

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2004
    Congratulations Sarah!

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2004
    Lietuvoje weblogai/blogai/moblog/*blog ir panaios ries sistemos engia pirmuosius ingsniukus ir netgi prasideda tam tikras filtravimas - dl vairi prieasi vieni pasitraukia al ir uima skaitytojo viet, kiti danai pildo savo svetaines vairaus plauko crap'ais ir susilaukia dmesio, kiti bando...

  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2007
    PingBack from http://www.genetibase.com/blog/2007/05/19/how-i-emailed-bill-gates-and-how-i-got-a-response-from-him/

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2009
    PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=sara-ford-s-weblog-how-i-emailed-bill-gates-and-how-i-got-a-response