Thu
27 Jan 2005
9:28 pm
society/education/college
Archived Posts from this Category
Fri
21 May 2004
3:36 pm
Jon Stewart's Commencement Address at William & Mary
Posted by shimon under funny , society/education/collegeNo Comments
Tue
2 Mar 2004
9:50 pm
Perspectives on Microsoft's Computer Science Roadshow
Posted by shimon under business/companies/Microsoft , kind of writing/rants , society/education/collegeNo Comments
Bill Gates has recently visited several schools to talk up computer science as an area of study and work. One interesting perspective is from Kevin Schofield, a Microsoft Researcher who travelled with Gates and was particularly impressed by the increasingly cross-disciplinary role of computer science. There are also some wonderfully/painfully cynical comments at Philip Greenspun's weblog. Dave says "People were choosing computer science as a career because they hoped to be the next Bill Gates, not because they wanted to work for Bill Gates."
I say there is some hope: Microsoft hasn't been 100% successful so they still have to make occassional improvements and enhancements to some of their products in order to get people to buy the latest versions. Therefore, they still depend on startups to come up with good ideas (so that they can be purchased or cloned). Add to this the inevitable inertia of a 50,000-employee corporation, and a smart entrepreneur has a good shot at 3 or 4 years of fun, profitable, independent existence before Microsoft absorbs or destroys him. (See also my essay on Microsoft vs. Google.)
Tue
13 Jan 2004
5:39 am
Full Entries RSS