At a recently held event for high-profile founders and venture capitalist Microsoft founder, Bill Gates shared how guilty he felt of not taking vacations in his 20’s because believe it or not you only live once!
During his conversation with entrepreneur Julia Hartz, Gates spoke about his work, his young self at the nascent stage of his company and much more.
On being asked about his work-life balance Gates expressed his guilt of not taking any vacations in his 20s and said, “My 20-year-old self is so disgusted with my current self.”
Now, a hardcore advocate of taking necessary breaks, Gates said, “I think you could over worship and mythologize the idea of working extremely hard. For my particular makeup — and it really is true that I didn’t believe in weekends; I didn’t believe in vacations; I mean, I knew everybody’s license plate so I could tell you over the last month when their car had come and gone from the parking lot — so I don’t recommend it and I don’t think most people would enjoy it.”
Gates added, “Once I got into my 30s, I could hardly even imagine how I had done that. Because by then, some natural behavior kicked in, and I loved weekends.”
Well over the years people have become more and more involved in work and office life leaving behind the beauty of living life and experiencing things.
In terms of Business, Gates said that his “greatest mistake ever” was the company losing to Android which has cost Microsoft nearly $400 billion and made Google the real winner in the Tech world.
“In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is. That is, Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win,” Gates told.
Google had acquired Android for just $50 million in 2005. The iPhone came out in 2007 and the first Android device was released in 2008. Since then, it has been a tough ride for Microsoft with Android having 85 percent of the smartphone OS market today and Microsoft Windows OS-based devices are nowhere in the market.
Also Read: 10 Brilliant Years Of Android: How It Changed The Smartphone World
With Gates approving and standing strong with the idea of taking breaks and living life, looks like finally, it is time to write that mail to our HR for a little break.
