Bill Gates, The Road Ahead; lecture notes

2nd edition, about 30% new material, seeing Internet as the platform for the information superhighway... and enabling us to see clearly the two main stages so far of the information-communication //computer revolution
P.C. grounded// Internet grounded

First edition vision: Intranet/MSN/AOL etc
Didn’t see coming of World Wide Web until mid-1995, then ordered Microsoft to develop new net products and to redesign all other products to be web-accessible
Famous memo;
Second edition of Road Ahead

Edstrom, Jennifer and Marlin Eller (1998) Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. New York: Henry Holt.
strongly anti-Bill Gates.... contests Gates' version of corporate history, that he was behind the curve on Windows, on Internet, did not provide great leadership, was lucky....author had ax to grind and cannot account for Gates' success....highly controversial figure and story; many sides, we get Gates...

Bill Gates, Microsoft, and US government: major antitrust trial of our time; Microsoft judged a predatory monopoly: control of software industry: Windows and net products
control of hardware product; i.e PCs
Key: control of desktop: icons to Microsoft products and networks....
integrated system control

1997 sued by U.S. justice department; protracted trial; found guilty of monopoly; now up for appeals…
see Ken Auletta World War 3.0. Microsoft and its Enemies, 2001

Gates tells the story of Microsoft dominance: from Dos to MsDos.... print to graphics,
Windows and Mouse, clicking, interactive, multimedia ...
new frontier: voice interactive....
cyberpunk: brain interactive: Gibson....
2000 ads on TV for Microsoft with Bill Gates assuring us that "the best is yet to come," new ideology, new buzz; Edstrom: pr and image-making....

Preface to second edition written in July 1996:
in the computer industry, change is the norm... need to constantly update and revise....
what does this mean for consumers?
turnover, upgrading, big investment
high profits for industry
Gates: better products at lower prices...
Seminar: increasing commodification; pay more
Dialectics of technology: positive/negative
Overcome one-sided positions: technophilia and apolegetics/ technohobia and trashing
Commodification/decommodification
Money involved to get Wired; expenses to stay wired
Free stuff:
Early Hacker Ethic: Information wants to be free

biggest change in Bill Gates's book, in computer world?

Internet... Bill Gates first grasped this when underling went to Cornell in late 1993-- any of us could have told Gates this!
dk in 1990, crisis in the Gulf, PeaceNet
Gulf war book in 1992: Nexis-Lexis
Bill Gates himself downplayed importance of Internet, was pc focused and then looking in early 90s toward broadband width, convergence of television and computer-- which is coming but was preceded by Internet linking pcs to more and more content and media-- graphics, sounds, video and moving pictures, music, movies, streaming radio and television, now just about everything though there is no doubt new technological breakthroughs coming...

xi everything Microsoft does is focused on the Internet

xii the level of investment in the Internet is amazing given that no one's making much profit on it yet....
outdated! megaprofits and stock orgy! Dot.com explosion
Then dot.com bust and stock market downslide

xii Gates: interactive networking is just starting...
keywords: interactive and networking
difference from television and previous media revolution: interactive
difference from pc: networking
Castells: Networked society
Gates: empowerment; ideological buzzword; see answer to DK

Let's turn now to Foreward and look at concepts and metaphors that Gates uses to describe new technologies and his key distinction; reading exercise: look for metaphors/buzz words

"The past twenty years have been an incredible adventure for me..."
Adventure: dominant ideology of modernity.... new postmodern adventure, entering new worlds...
note buzz words; personal computer, pc;
change... personal computer revolution.... great journal
upcoming communication revolution.... Internet revolution, following P.C. revolution these are key buzz words of modernity, Gates' is a highly ideological text; dominant ideology of our time
ideology: legitimates a given social order, or social relations of domination or exploitation
Gates is clearly in Western Enlightenment tradition: revolution, progress, democracy, individualism, freedom, empowerment, optimism, and utopia
Gates is totally Enlightenment ideologue, not postmodern...

As we all know, Bill Gates played key role in the personal computer revolution which made him arguably now the richest and most powerful person in the world, so its not surprising that he describes this sage as an "incredible adventure," which I'm sure it is -- first metaphor is adventure, connected to travel, the road ahead...
Moving inexorably into future; would become dominant buzz of globalization discourse, not fully developed in this Gates book but in 1999 book

pc revolution is epochal event of massive significance -- it has affected millions of lives, so what do we make of it, how do we theorize it?

key distinction: two stages of computer revolution:

pc revolution// Internet -- Road ahead

important distinction; the real revolution is the Internet;
pc initially a glorified typewriter; then mail system; then research tool; now a way of life...

properly speaking, the current information revolution is a cultural revolution, a social revolution, a thoroughgoing technological revolution that involves not just information, but labor, leisure, entertainment, communication, education, culture and thus is part of a major cultural and social shift: from TV to computer as center of home and leisure, but with computer its work and leisure, this is really big... changing the nature of work and leisure and everyday life
Bill Gates claims we can see the changes already although more is to come
Gates doesn’t adequately theorize the "revolution"
For technological underpinings, we need McLuhan\
For grounding in development, restructuring, of capitalism, we need Robins and Websters
Gates, rather, is an ideologue or booster and not theorist; allows us to do diagnostic critique of dominant discourse on computers and info revolution, to dissect technophilia; bible of optimism

P C and software is the foundation for information/communication revolution... or so Gates would like to believe... indeed, he has ever more aggressively gotten into the Internet since publishing book; merger with nbc/microsoft and buys one new technologies company after another; more a question of multimedia and Internet than just personal computer, though computer may be the delivery system....
technology and delivery system is still an open question with major companies scrambling for the market
computer or television?
telephone company with copper wires....
or cable broad band fiber optic...
or satellite??

follow capital and technology to see the contours to road ahead; business pages and press important...

Bill Gates also describes another major shift in computer revolution: mainframe/pc
he started on mainframe... programmed it with Paul Allen, began Microsoft... story of opening chapters

so three stages:
mainframe
pc
Internet

Turkle: mainframe = modernity
Big institutions: Biz, Govt, Military, University
centralization and hierachy
positions user as object
rationality: one way to do it; hierarchized knowledge and skills; technoelite

pc= postmodernity
personal; empowers individuals
decentralized
user as subject: interactive
new subjectivities: flexible, multimodal, inventive

ironically, Microsoft and Bill Gates were involved with pc revolution that put computer in individuals' hands, created personal computer, decentralized computing, made it available to the little guy, to everyone, and thus broke ibm monopoly over mainframe...
Gates used terms like individual, empowerment, free, interactivity, constantly....
now Gates and Microsoft are monopolists! Target of government investigations, found guilty, big backlash [though uncertain how this would turn out…]

Bill Gates describes his involvement in pc revolution in terms of his work with Paul Allen...
it was unexpected... "it has led us to places we had barely imagined..."
adventure, voyage, and triumph: hence metaphor of road
several sets of metaphors:
adventure:
vision; insight; seeing the future; road ahead
technical: developing new technologies
business: exploiting new technologies for business purposes, to make money

all of these metaphors and this discourse is a marketting strategy; in early 1980s, Microsoft hired Pr firm to do a make-over of Microsoft image, using Bill Gates as the representative; question of establishing brand name; story told in

Edstrom, Jennifer and Marlin Eller (1998) Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. New York: Henry Holt.
strongly anti-Bill Gates....

dk: thought talk of computer revolution, or information revolution, was hype; was technophobic in 60s; computer was symbol of alienation--Mario Savio
post-industrial society; hype
now a reality, its happening; no choice really.... this is another Gates metaphor: determinism, inexorability, progress....
dominant ideology of modernity.....

why is it inexorable?
capital
globalization

evidence:
1) mergers: follow capital as well as technology; follow both;
follow technology and capital
2) media; see newspapers; Monday in nyt or lat-- follow computer news on websites: nyt and usa today
observe proliferation of dot.com ads on television, billboards; e.g. Superbowl
3) stock market orgy in high tech stocks, nasdq

information and communication revolution dominates business news, its whats happening in biz world

simultaneous economic restructuring and technological revolution; globalization, involves economy and technology--Castells and Robins and Webster give us the best handle on this...

avoid technological and economic determinism -- not just a question of technology, or economy, but both
and interaction with human beings
technological revolution may be inevitable, but which ways it goes, what sort of technology we develop, what we do with it, is subject to human imagination and vision

overall moral or lesson from Gates' book is that: we are all beginning another great journey... upcoming communication and information revolution-- Road ahead -- seeing the future, moving and travelling, adventure...
our challenge: how to use Internet for democratization, for education, for overcoming digital divide, for social justice and progressive social change...

Gates claims he will analyze benefits and problems -- which would provide a dialectical optic, though in fact his book is purely celebatory, positive, boosterism...
mentions problems to explain them away and so Gates is techophile, ideologue and booster for new technologies
need a critical perspective more than ever...
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that gates is the dominant ideologue of our time, that the information revolution, the information superhighway, is the dominant ideology-- specifically that it will bring wealth and opportunity to all, create a technoutopia of everyday life, empower everyone, rather than the few

yet this is a new adventure and terrain... there is no reliable map for unexplored territory... so Gates will do for a start....
that is, he reveals a lot about the current technoscape
ideology can have a core of truth....
Marx with Adam smith and Hegel
requires what we use to call sympotomatic reading

curiously, he does so through metaphors...

adventure The Road Ahead... information Superhighway... information highway... ultimate market

in the Foreward and throughout he says that we can draw lessons from previous revolution;

again: key distinction: popular culture revolution// new information revolution

xi i i creation of the highway will mirror the history of the personal computer industry...
technological breakthrough, killer app, will be quickly adopted, -fast changes -- true re Internet programs, cd-roms,
as we speak; audio and video is proliferating on Internet, new era of multimedia when everything is digitized...

key: miniaturization: bits not atoms
telecommunication
(Gilder: Microcosm and telecosm)
digitization (Negroponte: being digital)
metaphysics of the information revolution

highway is not just the Internet or 500 channels of TV
what is it?
information-entertainment delivery system... personal communication... Ultimate Market... technological transformation of everyday life... new houses, appliances, modes of entertainment and information, of games, of sex even, forms of leisure activity
dk: new information/entertainment matrix

not just information revolution: infotainment explosion creating new infotainment society
entertainment pervades everything;
Michael Wolff, The entertainment society

on the horizon: biotechnology; implosion of humans and technology;
film: The Matrix

total transformation of work... education... way people relate and communicate...
fantasy or reality?? very big question...

dramatic changes in communication are just beginning... will take several decades and will be driven by new applications, new tools, often meeting currently unforeseen needs...

debate; need for participation...

Bill Gates promises to provide a travel guide for the forthcoming journey... how accurate a guide?? how much debate does it provide?? adequate articulation of downside?
no! need to go to Stoll, Shenk, Robins-Webster or other critics of new technologies for critical perspective

not an autobiography but look ahead... wants to shape perceptions and debate -- though his prestige derives from his biography so there is a fair amount of biography in the book
not overly technical; not bad as a book, definitely worth reading...

Chapter 1 A Revolution Begins... hype... maybe justified...
but is revolution the best term?

revolution in the '60s: world process of transformation; upheaval; new relations of production; new social theory;
counterculture
alternatives

term "revolution" quickly coopted
advertising: revolution in detergents, mouthwash, shampoo, whatever...
Gates assimilates this to the technological explosion and global restructuring of capital...
remember it is change of economy and technology

p. 3 picture of Bill Gates and Paul Allen working at computer terminal at Lakeside...

revealing aside.. top of p. 2 "we, the kids, could control it..."
empowering... fun... highly profitful!!

generational thing; geek generation; Gates has great confidence in them...
potential generational divide; wired and unwired; clued-in and clueless
could be war between generations, though some have been won over; tension in schools and educational establishment;
dk: Delta school project
university level: older generation, esp "humanists" are against it
more ambiguous in K-12; generation thing?

though changes are happening and adoption seems irreversible...

battle over instruments of socialization and education: books and print media vs TV, broadcasting, computer and multimedia

p. 3 Gates' generation took their toys and tools into adulthood... note that what was once a game, a plaything, became big business generating a literal revolution... [see literature on postmodern management]
happened fast... inexpensive computer chips...

Now that computing is astoundingly inexpensive and computers inhabit every part of our lives, we stand at the brink of another revolution. This one will involve unprecedentedly inexpensive communication; all the computers will join together to communicate with us and for us. Interconnected globally, they will form a network, which is being called the information highway. A direct precursor is the present Internet,

New network combining information and entertainment, work and leisure, communication and appliances; totally wired world

key terms: inexpensive... network
exciting... adventure...

p. 4 sets himself up as a visionary... envisioned the impact that low-cost computers could have... "A computer on every desk and in every home" became Microsoft's corporate mission...

new network; new devices, the road ahead... preview

pp. 4-5 promises technological utopia
pc: passport into a new, mediated way of life...

unmediated firsthand experiences// mediated experiences
reality// hyperreality
this is crux of critique by many.... questionable assumptions
Gates is right to question this dichotomy

p. 5 theory of technology... tools
informational tools are symbolic mediators that amplify the intellect rather than the muscle of their users...
technology as extension of the human...
Kubrik: 2001
weapons extension of arms
wheels extension of legs
glasses extension of eyes
pleasant harmony or congruence of human and technology
McLuhan will problematize and radicalize this theory of technology

pp. 5-6 information superhighway... popularized by then-senator Al Gore...
did Al Gore actually coin term information superhighway??
by the way, Gore never claimed he "invented" the Internet; republican pr ploy against him...

The highway metaphor isn't quite right though...
linear and spatial; information superhighway communication is instantaneous and highly mediated
public: built by government... regulation...
too linear... too spatial... didn't capture complexity of Web...

Bill Gates liked Ultimate Market... but was advised against using this--gave away crass commercial infrastructure and ethos of it

importance of metaphors in framing our understanding; will pay close attention to dominant metaphors which are key to perceptions and vision of new technologies: web, net, electronic frontier, information superhighway, all carry different connotations

p. 6 Bill Gates promise: information at your fingertips
ultimate market... will give you anything... friction-free capitalis
better term: infoentertainment matrix
totalizing thrust; megamedia

anyway, computer revolution is purely positive for Bill Gates:
increase choices...
work, education, communication will be transformed... note 'educated' in quotes...
more key words: choice and empowerment...

identity transformed... In short everything will be done differently... Gates will make it happen...

p. 7 makes it personal... will you participate...
At&T ad: you will! Gates mentality...

new technologies always promote resistance:
Bill Gates: resistance to technology is overcome when incorporated into everyday life...
quotes Antoine de Sant-Exupery: "Little by little, the machine will become part of humanity"
chilling: we become technobodies, cyberoids; implosion of human and technology; major theme of postmodern theory; Katherine Hayles book, How We Became Posthuman; films like The Matrix and eXistenZ

p. 8 railroad: from iron monster to iron horse

telegraph;
film;
radio; TV...
now computers... technology... technological revolution...

But: computers are bigger and more consequential than any previous technology...
Bill Gates is aware of this:

McLuhan: The only other single shift that has had as great an effect on the history of communication took place in about 1450 when Gutenberg invented movable type and printing press...
that event changed western culture forever...
McLuhan: individualism, nationalism, secularism, rationalism, alienation, fragmentation, -- latter problems will be overcome in electronic media age

printed word: first mass medium
journalism, pamphlets, books
Literacy became an important skill that revolutionized education and altered social structures...
books...
print culture...
education traditionally focused on this culture

Gouldner: print abstracted, framed, generalized and created critical reflexivity, individuality

changes today??
traditionalists resist: see Postman
Lanham and Landow: reconceptualize education
dk: need for new literacies

p. 9 The global interactive network [earlier: information highway] will transform our culture as dramatically as Gutenberg's press did the Middle Ages...
very big claim! true?!
interesting shift toward global, interactive, network....
follow language as well as capital and technology.... concepts and metaphors are also a key to social development and social reality...

note that he says the information highway and global interactive network not P C...
Pcs have altered work habits but it is the evolving Internet that will really change our lives....
[earlier: they haven't really changed our lives much yet -- questionable... see global interactive network as key...]

p. 9 utopian promise again...
information that today is difficult to retrieve will be easy to find and store...
compare Stoll, Shenk and critics who warn of a degrading of information, too much and not reliable...

Bill Gates by contrast promises a utopia of total information, information superhighway, information and communication revolution...

10 changes in this magnitude make people nervous... jobs... withdrawal... increase gulf between haves and have nots...

11 but Bill is confident and optimistic...
confident in his generation, what they already did
geekoid "optimism"... his favorite word
need to overcome optimism/ pessimism dichotomy
not optimism or pessimism, but ups and downs, costs and benefits, practices and effects
curious that major technogeeks are "optimists": Gates, Negroponte, John Perry Barlow--pronoia, universe is for us, with us....
critics are "pessimistic": Robins and Webster
dk: overcome this dichotomy, not a question with computers and information technology are good and bad, clearly they are both, but what we can do with them...

moreover, "One thing is clear: We don't have the option of turning away from the future"
determinism; make the best of it... "progress will come no matter what, we need to make the best of it--not try to forestall it..."
combines Enlightenment optimism and determinism....

thrilled by feeling that I'm squinting into the future and catching that first revealing hint of revolutionary possibility"
visionary
revolutionary: interesting cooptation of word "revolution"

Bill Gates' Geek adventures: tells of evolution of computers and software; working with giant mainframes; hearing about microprocessing chip from Intel in 1972; envisaging pcs in every home, a computer revolution...

he and paul begin building their own computers
started traf-o-data to measure traffic flow... didn't sell...

1973 bill went to Harvard; Paul to cambridge to program computers...

p. 16 Popular Electronics Altair 8000
this was it! first pc that could be in every home!
new Intel chip and the Gatesian vision; could revolutionize pcs

1975 Bill Gates and Allen undertook to write the first software program for microchip... start company... Microsoft...
reflect on concept of micro-soft
small // friendly, sensuous

contrast with hard industrial capitalism: -- user-friendly capitalism
not a phallic patriarchal term
has taken on its own connotations, not positive...

Bill Gates: a Horatio Algier Story;
Time magazine cover story: the golden geeks; capital needs such success stories...
Thomas Edison and Henry Ford
today Gates, Paul Allen, apple dudes,
time, newsweek, and media culture endlessly celebrate them
new gods
prove that capitalism works...

p. 18 gates and allen founded company and gates enters business at 19...
From the start, Paul and I funded everything ourselves; self-made men; protestant heros; new era of self-reliance and enterprise; new heros for our times...

And so Bill Gates himself is a dominant ideologue for infocapitalism, a booster of the new technology and economy, and of course an apologist for Microsoft:
Ideological technophiliac discourse
Note his bias, what is left out, agenda
From InfoHighway to Tollroad…

original vision: what if computing was free, pc in every home? everyone will need software... Microsoft will supply it!

new horizon and new vision: what if information and communication was nearly free... entertainment and information utopia...

use to think of computer business; now speaks of highway-- also biz!

Bill Gates did great public relations blitz when his book was published, was in all the TV shows, heavily promoted Windows98, but since the antitrust trial and his pathetic media appearence has been laying relatively low....
though he has a column and posts his speeches on the Internet
also published a new book

follow Gates and Microsoft... key markers to new economy

Homepage: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html