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The Misfits the rebels the troublemakers

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the round pegs in the square holes the
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ones who see things differently they're
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not fond of rules and they have no
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respect for the status quo you can quote
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them disagree with them glorify or
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vilify them about the only thing you
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can't do is ignore them because they
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change things they push the human race
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forward while son may see them as the
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crazy ones we see genius because the
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people who are crazy enough to think
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they can change the world are the ones
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who do
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I'm honored to be with you today for
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your commencement from one of the finest
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University for me told I never graduated
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from college this is the closest I've
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ever gotten to a college graduation
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today I want to tell you three stories
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from my life that's it no big deal just
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three stories the first story is about
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connecting the dots
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my parents are on waiting lists that
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fall in the middle of the night asking
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we've got an unexpected baby boy do you
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want him
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they said of course
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this was the start in my life
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it wasn't all romantic I didn't have a
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dorm room so I slept on the floor and
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friends rooms I returned coke bottles
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for 5 cent deposits to buy food and I
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would walk the settle miles across town
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every Sunday night to get one good meal
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a week at the Hari Krishna time I loved
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it and much of what I stumbled into by
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following my curiosity and intuition
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turned out to be Christ
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of course it was impossible to connect
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the dots looking forward when I was in
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college but it was very very clear
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looking backwards 10 years later again
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you can't connect the dots looking
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forward you can only connect them
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looking backwards so you have to trust
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that the dots will somehow connect in
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your future you have to trust in
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something your gut destiny life karma
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whatever because believing that the dots
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will connect down the road will give you
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the confidence to follow your heart even
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when it leads you off the well-worn path
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and now to make all the difference
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Karina and I have a wonderful family
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Oh
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sometime life sometimes life's going to
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hit you in the head with a brick don't
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lose faith I'm convinced that the only
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thing that kept me going was that I
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loved what I did you've got to find what
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you love and that is as true for work as
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it is for your lovers your work is going
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to fill a large part of your life and
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the only way to be truly satisfied is to
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do what you believe is great work and
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the only way to do great work is to love
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what you do if you haven't found it yet
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keep looking and don't settle as with
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all matters of the heart you'll know
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when you find it and like any great
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relationship it just gets better and
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better as the years roll on so keep
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looking don't settle
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and yet death is the destination we all
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share no one has ever escaped when I was
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17 I read a quote that went something
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like if you live each day as if it was
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your last someday you'll most certainly
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be right
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you
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since then for the past 33 years I have
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looked in the mirror every morning and
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asked myself if today were the last day
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of my life what I want to do what I am
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about to do today and whenever the
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answer has been no too many days in a
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row I know I need to change
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remembering that I'll be dead soon is
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the most important tool I've ever
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encountered to help me make the big
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choices in life
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no one wants the doll even people who
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want to go to heaven don't want to die
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to get there
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you
00:01
He consistently ranks in the Forbes list
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of the world's wealthiest people.
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He's one of the best known entrepreneurs
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of the personal computer revolution.
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He's the second most generous philanthropist in America,
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having given over twenty-eight
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billion dollars to charity.
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He's Bill Gates, and here are his top ten rules for success.
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When I started Microsoft, I didn't think of it as all that risky.
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I mean, I was so excited about what we were doing.
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It's true (that) I could have gone bankrupt.
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uh, but, I had a set of skills that were highly employable,
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and, in fact, my parents were still willing to let me go back to Harvard
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and finish my education if I wanted to.
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You've always got a job with me, Bill. (laughter)
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And, the only, the thing that was scary to me,
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wasn't quitting and starting the company,
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it was when I started hiring my friends, and they expected to be paid.
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uh...(laughter)...and then we had customers who went bankrupt,
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customers that I counted on to come through,
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and so then I, I got this incredibly conservative approach
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that I wanted to have enough money in the bank to pay a year's worth of payroll,
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uh, even if we didn't get any payments coming in
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and I'm almost, uh, true to that the whole time,
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we have about ten billion now, which is pretty much enough for the next year. Uh...(laughter)
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Uh....(laughter)
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01:23
A-anyway, you know, I...if you're going to start a company, it takes so much energy,
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that, you know, you'd...you'd better
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overcome your, your feeling of risk.
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I don’t think that you necessarily, if you’re gonna start a company,
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should do it at the start of your career.
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I think there’s a lot to be said for working for a company learning how they do things,
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If you’re young, it’s hard to go and lease premises. They made that hard for me.
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You couldn’t run a car when you were under 25 at the time, so I was always taking taxis to go see customers.
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People would say, “well we’re gonna go have a discussion in the bar”. Well, I couldn’t go to the bar.
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That’s fun ‘cause I’ll tell you, when people are first sceptical and they go “this kid doesn’t know anything”,
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then when you show them you’ve really got a good product and you know something,
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they actually tend to go overboard and they think “wow…they know a lot. Let’s really do an incredible amount with
these people”.
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So our youth, at least in this country, was a huge asset for us once we reached a certain threshold.
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It is hard to hire older people because,
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they’ll be a little bit conservative about whether they should come and take the risk.
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It took 3 or 4 years first before we could go out into the normal employment pool.
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But those problems that come from starting a firm, you better think of those as part of the pleasure,
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part of the challenge that is part of the excitement.
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I want to thank Harvard for this honour.
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I’ll be changing my job next year,
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and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.
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I applaud the graduates for taking a much more direct route to your degrees.
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From my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson called me, “Harvard's most successful dropout”.
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I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class.
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I did the best of everyone who failed.
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But I also want to be recognised as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school.
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I’m a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation.
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If I’d spoken at your orientation…fewer of you might be here today.
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I’m in meetings a lot. My calendar gets very full with those and then at night after the kids have gone to bed,
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I’m on email a great deal. I get messages during the day, that’s my chance to give long responses.
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Then over the weekend, I send a lot of mail as well. I take 2 weeks a year to just go off and read and think.
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Where I’m not interrupted by work or anything else. I’m just solidly trying to think about the future and,
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people get to send me things to read as part of that so-called “think week”. So it’s a nice mix of things.
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About 25% of the time that I’m out, travelling around, meeting with customers: Europe, Asia.
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That sort of helps me think, do we have the right priorities?
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What are people responding well to? What will they like to see us do better?
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Hello, I'm Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft.
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In this video, you’re going to see the future. Windows.
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Microsoft first came up with the Windows concept back in 1983.
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Today the leading software users have switched into the Windows environment.
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It’s really incredible how quickly our powerful applications like Word and Excel and PowerPoint have been adopted.
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It’s not just Microsoft applications, even companies like WordPerfect and Lotus,
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have now come out with Windows applications. Every week we see new innovative work.
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It’s really attracting all the innovation in the industry. We predicted this a long time ago and now it’s the future.
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The key point there is, you’ve got to enjoy what you do every day and for me, that’s working with various smart people,
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it’s working on new problems. Every time we think, “hey, we’ve had a little bit of success”,
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we’re pretty careful not to dwell on it too much because the bar gets raised.
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I love Bridge. Bridge helps you think. It’s a game you can play your entire life and keep getting better and better
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I think anybody who’s good at Bridge, is going to degrade a lot of things so,
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I really encourage people to get involved and I want to thank the people who’ve put things together for juniors.
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They’ll be thanking you the rest of their life ‘cause bridge is such a great sport.
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I’ve talked to my dad, I’ve talked to Warren, I’ve talked to my wife Melinda so,
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I have enough people that know me and actually know where my judgement is not it’s strongest.
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Where I get over excited about something or forget to think about something and so,
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They’re good at correcting, particularly Melinda, good at correcting whatever those blind spots are.
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I think it’s good to encourage your friends and advisors to really give them that license.
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I can go to a party and forget to say hello to various people or something.
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- That’s a very minor example of my blindspots. - Not to the hostess.
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- Melinda would help me do that. - Yeah, she would.
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A small number of people that you can turn to on certain key things is a great asset.
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My best business decisions really have to do with picking people.
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Deciding to go into partnership with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list then subsequently,
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hiring a friend, Steve Ballmer and having somebody who you totally trust, who’s totally committed,
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who shares your vision and yet has a little bit different set of skills and also acts as a check on you.
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Some of the ideas you come up with, you run by them because you know they’re going to say, “wait a minute. Have
you thought about this and that?”
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The benefit of sparking off of somebody whose got that kind of brilliance,
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it’s not only made it fun, but it’s really led to a lot of success. So, picking a partner is crucial.
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I had one habit that I developed when I was at college. It was actually a very bad habit, which was,
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I liked to show people that I didn’t do any work and I didn’t go to classes and I didn’t care.
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Then at the very last minute, like two days before the test, I’d get serious about it.
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People thought that was funny. That was my positioning: the guy who did nothing until the last minute.
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Then when I went into business, that was a really bad habit.
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It took me a couple of years to get over that. Nobody praised me because I would do things at the last minute.
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I tried to reverse to students that I didn’t think that highly of, who were always organised and had things done on time.
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- I’m still working on it but procrastination is not a good habit. - Bill can change clothes in the car…
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So I’m gonna challenge Bill Gates, my partner on Facebook Sheryl Sandberg and Netflix’s founder and CEO Reed
Hastings.
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I’m glad to give to ALS. It’s a great cause. But I want to accept this challenge. I want to do it better than it’s been
done.
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Been working on this. Got this design. There we go. It’s gonna be great.
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I’m here to join the people bringing attention to Lou Gehrig's disease by taking the ALS ice bucket challenge.
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I’m gonna challenge 3 more people. Elon Musk, Ryan Seacrest and Chris Anderson of Ted, consider yourself
challenged.
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You have 24 hours. Good luck.
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#People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend. He’s a warm-hearted person who’ll love me to the end.#
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#People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend. He’s the one boy, cuddly toy, my up, my down, my pride and joy.#
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#People let me tell you ‘bout him, he’s so much fun. Whether we’re talking man to man…#
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#…or whether we’re talking son to son ‘cause he’s my best friend.#
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Is it true that you can leap over a chair from a standing position?
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It depends on the size of the chair. I’ll cheat a little bit.
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#What is love?#
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By the way, I believe in winners and losers and especially the freedom to fail.
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- Who him? Who him? Me? - Who him? Who him? What?
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#I don’t know when you’re not there…#
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- No way! - #What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…#
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Oh, behave.
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Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because a bunch of you guys were asking me to.
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So if there’s a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next,
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leave in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do. I’m also curious to know what you think of Bill Gates as an
entrepreneur and,
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which of the ten rules most resonates with you. Leave it below in the comments and I’m gonna join the discussion.
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Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe and I’ll see you soon.