Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates used to memorize employees’ license plate numbers so that
he could keep track of when they were arriving at work and leaving.
Gates,
who is now co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, described his
intense management style from Microsoft’s early days during an interview on the
BBC Radio 4 program “Desert Island Discs.”
"I
had to be a little careful not to try and apply my standards to how hard
(others at the company) worked. I knew everybody's licence plate so I could
look out the parking lot and see, you know, when people come in,” he said.
“Eventually I had to loosen up as the company got to a reasonable size."
Gates
was 19 when he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft with Paul Allen in
1975. He stepped down as the CEO of the software giant in 2000 and stepped down
as the company’s chairman in 2014.
The
philanthropist also described his relationship with Apple co-founder and tech
icon Steve Jobs during the radio interview.
"Steve
really is a singular person in the history of personal computing in terms of
what he built at Apple,” he said. “For some periods, we were completely allies
working together - I wrote software for the original Apple II. Sometimes he
would be very tough on you, sometimes he'd be very encouraging. He got really
great work out of people.”
Gates
also described how his relationship with Jobs changed over the years. The
former Apple CEO lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in 2011.
"In
the early years, the intensity had always been about the project, and so then
[when] Steve got sick, it was far mellower in terms of talking about our lives
and our kids,” he said. “Steve was an incredible genius, and I was more of an
engineer than he was. But anyway, it was fun. It was more of a friendship that
was reflective, although tragically then he couldn't overcome the cancer and
died."
On
“Desert Island Discs” guests are invited to choose the eight records that they
would take with them to a desert island. Among his selections, Gates chose
“Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen, Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced”
and “How Can Love Survive” from “The Sound of Music.”