Customer Reviews

The Plot to Get Bill Gates

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book contains the single funniest comment I've ever read. It's in the note at the bottom of page 260.

And oh yeah the rest of the pages are worth reading as well altho -- seriously -- I found myself getting depressed at reading how Gates and his company annihilate each rival like an army of ants devours enemies along its path. By book's end, Ellison's line about "the four stages of Microsoft" (p. 249) sure rang true.

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.

You will feel like you were a fly on the walls for the past decade in the fast paced fields of computer software and the internet. While others have tackled this topic, Rivlin's strict attention to the details and facts, his unwillingness to be swayed by anecdotes, plus his ability to retell a story, make for a more enjoyable fast read on a variety of levels. These corporate leaders are not driven by altruistic pursuits for the betterment of mankind, these are businesses run by highly influential men driven by money, ego and power. I now chuckle at PR fluff stories about Gates, Ellison and McNeally in magazines and newspapers. This book is so timely it seems as if it was written days, not months ago - the author's conclusions are constantly being validated by the daily headlines. Can't wait for his next book! Enjoy it.

Great read. The story of all those who've tried to take on the Great White Whale from Redmond--to prove themselves better or smarter than Bill Gates--and failed. It's a tale about the egos of these corporate moguls, including Gates, who comes off as wise beyond his years in all things business but as 10-year-old emotioanlly. Makes you realize these guys aren't role model successes but the adolescent whiners we all hated as kids. Rivlin shows they are all about whose is bigger, and money doesn't buy you personality or happiness. None of `em are leaving the earth a better place. Oh, yeah, the author's also uncovers that Gates was never very much of a programmer to boot.

Just caught up with this book. What a fun read! A great introduction to Bill Gates, warts and all -- and now understand why so many people resent him. May give away a lot of money, but kind of a cheater and certainly a freak of human being.

Pretty funny stuff

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.

As a non-techy, TPTGBG pulled me in. The technical stuff is coherent, the personalities are drawn with plenty of detail but not obsessively so, and Rivlin makes a convincing case that technological innovations now are the province of intelligent but mostly immature egotists. Gates isn't evil, he just is the most extreme example of this breed. For better or (probably) worse.

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.

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.