Advice to Bill G

By Dave Winer on 1/15/07; 2:07:57 PM.

One of the services I've provided to Microsoft over the years is free consulting. I do it in the open, so everyone gets the benefit. I recommended in 1994 that he give up on OLE and other hugely complicated attempts to control the universe and join the messy world of the Internet. After dismissing the idea, a year later, he turned his company upside-down in an effort to catch Netscape. I've done it many times since, and after reading this piece on his desire to chase Google (it's not going too well), I have another bit of advice. 

Find the CP/M of the Internet. It's gotta be ugly and geek-friendly. A piece of software with a command-line that today's 12 year old nerd could add something to that would make everyone's life more fun, and give us something to do with the Internet that you could never sell inside a large tech organization like Microsoft or Google. Something like Visicalc, dBASE, 1-2-3 or Wordstar. MacPaint, MacWrite, Pagemaker or Flight Simulator. Tetris, PacMan, MySpace & Napster.  

You aren't going to get there by zigging where Google zigs, you have to zag to their zig, if you get my drift. 

And Bill, fire a few people who are too comfortable in their jobs. They're running your company to suit their purposes, not for the benefit of users and shareholders. I know because they're always alarmed by things I say. Hey the things I say have helped your company see opportunities it otherwise would have missed. These people don't want to think, that's what you gotta root out. And most people will think, if they believe their livelihood depends on it.