Gates: Early software founders were 'quite lazy' by his standards
Bill Gates · Bill Gates x Nikhil Kamath Part 2 | People by WTF | Ep.8 · Nikhil Kamath · Apr 11, 2025 · at 9:11
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates discusses his extreme ambition and work ethic in his twenties compared to other software company founders.
0:00 / 0:05exact quote · 5.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Compared to everybody else who was starting software companies. I mean, by my standards, they were quite lazy.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Bill Gates
Gates: In 20 years, AI and robotics will eliminate labor shortages
“The, let's say, 20 years from now, AI will have changed things enough that, you know, that just this pure capitalistic framework probably won't explain much because as AIs, both as sort of white-collar type work and as blue-collar workers, the robots will get …”
Gates: Elon Musk is singular, while Mark Zuckerberg is a normal person
“You know, maybe Elon in his, in a different way is, is kind of singular.
I think of Mark as a pretty normal person, actually.”
Gates: Mathematical ability is not the only proxy for talent and IQ
“Somebody who's a good salesperson or a good manager, you know, may not be good at the way I think of IQ. IQ is much more varied. Talent is more varied than I realized. You know, I sort of thought, well, if you can do math, you can do anything. And if you can't…”
Gates: Paul Allen was key to Microsoft but did not enjoy life
“Like my friend Paul Allen you know, he was wonderful, he was key to the success of Microsoft, but he actually didn't end up enjoying himself you know, he felt like maybe people were gonna take advantage of him, and that, that's, you know, this guy, Who had eve…”
Bill Gates: No philanthropic action is completely pure without ego
“You can never do anything that's totally pure. Because if it's really deeply moral, then a little bit, you think, oh, people will praise that.”
Gates: AI will render skills obsolete within a single generation
“I think it's a rate of change that's greater than most, most periods of history. You know, when we made in the US, you know, when we went from 50% farmers to two percent farmers, It, you could still farm your whole generation. It was your children that stopped…”