The Plot to Get Bill Gates: An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest Man... and the People Who Hate Him

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Money and success do strange things to people, especially when they're not their own. Perhaps no better example of this phenomenon is Silicon Valley's obsession with Microsoft and its leader, Bill Gates, an obsession that Gary Rivlin examines with great relish and in great detail in The Plot to Get Bill Gates. Rivlin discovers a "king-sized obsession among one-dimensional workaholics" that's known in the industry as "Bill Envy," a phenomenon that has destroyed companies, inspired dozens of jokes (e.g., "How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None. Bill Gates will just redefine Darkness ^TM as the new industry standard"), and for some raises the possibility of a wider conspiracy that pits Microsoft against everyone else--Silicon Valley, the Justice Department, even Ralph Nader.

From Gates's awkward adolescence to his position as the world's richest man, Rivlin takes a deep look into his character and uses him as a means to reveal the character of those that oppose him, a drama that he likens to that in Moby Dick. Unlike other books about Microsoft (The Microsoft File, How the Web Was Won, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates), Rivlin's tries not to take sides. Nevertheless, the Captain Ahabs (Ray Noorda, Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison, among others) come off looking less flawed, but certainly not as smart or as calculating or as dangerous as the white whale (Gates). While most of this material will be familiar to anyone who follows Microsoft and its competitors, Rivlin manages to keep the pages turning with dozens of entertaining anecdotes and stories about Gates and his enemies. The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a must for anyone who loves a good old-fashioned high-tech food fight. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

To understand the magnitude of Bill Gates, one must first understand the people who hate him, most of whom suffer from an acute case of "Bill Envy."

The Plot to Get Bill Gates is the true, hilarious story of a loosely knit cabal of Silicon Valley's wealthiest and most successful leaders and their quest to defeat the richest man in the world. These leaders are known within Microsoft as Captain Ahab's Club for their self-destructive fixation with harpooning the Great White Whale of Redmond, all two hundred pounds and $50 billion of him. Acclaimed journalist Gary Rivlin tells their tale as a high-tech variation on Moby-Dick, and by taking us deep inside the world of Gates and his enemies, he vividly reveals their consuming obsession.

Lead players in The Plot are Lawrence Ellison of Oracle, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, Ray Noorda of Novell, Marc Andreessen and James Barksdale of Netscape, Philippe Kahn of Borland, and Gary Kildall (the unsung programmer who could have been Gates), with special guest appearances by venture capitalist John Doerr, consumer activist Ralph Nader, zealous attorney Gary Reback, and the Fraternal Order of Antitrust Lawyers. The author describes each man's ill-fated attempt at besting Gates, who seems to become bigger, hungrier, and more dangerous after each attack.

Rivlin also conducts an in-depth investigation of Gates himself, examining each crucial step in the ascension of the slope-shouldered billionaire with bad hair and unearthing the most telling details to explain why Gates is so rich and we aren't. (The short answer: monomania.) Rivlin concludes with an illuminating analysis of Microsoft's latest upgrade of its CEO, Gates 3.1, which seems to be operating with fewer bugs than previous incarnations.

Gary Rivlin's reporting is irreverent and intellectually independent, free of the romanticized portraits and techno-hype perpetuated by many in the media. As an award-winning political reporter, he brings a fresh perspective to the avaricious, bloodthirsty behavior of these new icons. The result is a savagely funny morality play about big business at the century's end.

Customer Reviews:

sad but true.......2002-03-24

Alternately amusing a frightening account of our contemporary robber barons. Manages to convey developments in the software industry over the past two decades through personality profiles. Reaches its high point (or low point depending on one's perspective) with Rivlin's contention that Microsoft's Bill Gates suffers from a mild form of autism, which explains his extraordinary talents in certain dimensions and his apparent utter lack of any basic interpersonal or social consciousness or awareness.

Don't Judge this Book By Its Cover.......2001-07-08

Despite a sensationalistic title and a poorly designed cover, The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a wonderful piece of reporting. Rivlin, while an obvious admirer of the technology tycoons, presents a fairly unbiased (though tilting a little in favor of Bill Gates) story about the growth of Microsoft, the computer industry in general, and the ever growing group of anti-Microsoft competitors. It does a very good job of describing all the players in this game, following the industry for the past twenty years, and explaining the technology so even computer illiterates like myself can understand. Rivlin obviously did a tremendous amount of research, interviewed hundreds of technologists, and really put his findings together well. This book is well written (though the flow is sometimes interrupted when Rivlin seems to remember something he forgot to add earlier and makes a long tangent out of it), very interesting (though nothing terribly original is presented if you are well acquainted with the technology industry), and entertaining. I would highly recommend it for people who want to learn more about Gates, other technology tycoons, the technology industry, or just want a look at how competitive companies operate and interact.

Insightful!.......2001-03-02

Author Gary Rivlin presents an in-depth, if not completely objective, look at Bill Gates' hard-nosed take-no-prisoners approach to battle. He follows Gates' campaign to create a software empire and annotates the enemies he made along the way. The book reads like a novel as Rivlin traces Gates' beginnings in Washington, where he first became fascinated by computers. Early on, Gates strategically manipulated everyone, even his partners, so that he was in charge and got the best of the deal. Rivlin cuts away some of the myths about Gates being a skilled program developer; from the beginning Gates was first and foremost a businessman with dreams of mastery. We...recommend this excellent, engaging book that will have broad appeal. As you follow the drama of Gates' behind-the-scenes maneuverings, stay alert for the business strategy lessons along the way.

Well written "tell all" book.......2001-02-20

Reading this book makes me wonder if the climate around the "robber barons" was so intense. Without a doubt, Bill Gates has become the focus of admiration and ire throughout the computer industry. This book attempts to answer the question "why?".

Few come out of this work unscathed by the unflattering portrayal Rivlin gives computer industry heavys. Gates is scrutinized intensely in the beginning of the book, during the rapid ascent of Microsoft, but the vast majority of the book concerns itself with "the people who hate him." Leaders from giants Novell, Oracle, Wordperfect, and others are reduced to defining themselves by what they are not: Bill Gates.

For whatever reason, only two women discussed (Heidi Roisen and Kim Polese) are portrayed in a mildly positive light. Perhaps all this just comes down to testosterone after all.

The book contains an interesting history about products as well as people: OS/2, MS Word, Excel, NetWare, and, of course Windows. There is a particularly long description of the genesis of Java, perhaps the only thing Gates has not been able to either crush, co-opt, or corrupt. Java's story alone is worth the price of the book.

Tell-all books rarely deserve more than a middle-of-the-road rating. However, this one was well written enough and well researched enough to "sneak up" to a four-star assessment. For those interested in the subject, this book is well worth your time.

Save Your Money.......2000-09-23

Don't waste your time. The author seems to know very little about the history of software, even less about the software applications and operating system discussed, and nothing whatsoever about software development. He began with an interesting premise -- that a lot of very bad business decisions have been and are being made in reaction to or even anticipation of Microsoft -- but makes a total mess of things due to his ignorance of software. That's what it all comes down to, and unless you understand the topic it's impossible to understand Gates and his competitors. And that's why almost everyone in this book seems so stiff and their actions seem so inexplicable (except Scott McNealy, who doesn't understand softwar either).

For example, the author portrays Phillipe Kahn's abdication to the Redmond Borg as an example of how Microsoft destroys competitors by wearing them down without mentioning Lotus's lawsuit against Borland -- and Kahn has on many occasions blamed Lotus and not Microsoft for destroying Borland. The author no doubt ignored this bit of trivia because it didn't fit his premise, but it really does. Gates got where he did not just because of his monopoly -- Microsoft had a monopoly on DOS, too, but was still a fraction the size of Lotus and Ashton-Tate, among others -- but because of the blunders of his competitors. Like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates has been very lucky in the enemies Fate has sent his way, and the story of the software industry's March of Folly (Ed Esber, anyone? John Scully? IBM's bungling of OS/2?) is the true story of how Gates came to dominate the landscape.

The Plot to Get Bill Gates An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest Man...and the People Who Hate Him
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The Plot to Get Bill Gates An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest Man...and the People Who Hate Him
Gary Rivlin
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Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0Y3WW

The Plot to Get Bill Gates : An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest
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The Plot to Get Bill Gates : An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest
Gary Rivlin
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