The Road Ahead, Chapters 2 & 3, by Lisa
Dague
Bill Gates
These two chapters give background and context,
autobiographical and historical
Chapter 2, The Beginning of the Information Age (pages 21-37)
"…this chapter is devoted to giving readers who aren’t familiar
with the history of computing and the principles by which computers handle information
enough to go on so that they can enjoy the rest of the book." (22-23)
What we learn about technology
- Digital storing of information uses binary code vs. analog system which
uses gathering techniques
- Charles Babbage (1830’s) thought that information could be manipulated
by machines, created first programming language
- Alan Turing (1930’s) proposed general calculating machine
- Claude Shannon (late 1930’s) fonder of information theory
Using binary code, idea of data compression
- Vacuum tube ENIAC artillery-aiming calculator in WWII
- John von Neumann (1945) created paradigm that included storing instructions
in computer memory — "von Neumann Architecture"
- 1960’s Bell Labs silicon circuitry
- 1965 Gordon Moore (cofounder of Intel) predicted "Moore’s Law"
— chip capacity doubles every 18 months (exponential increase)
- Fiber optic cable (AKA: ‘fiber’) transmits light signals
Useful and fun concept explanations
Binary number system: pages 27-28 & 31 Bugs: page 29
Data compression: page 33 Bandwidth: page 33-34
Exponential growth: pages 34-36
What we learn about Gates
- In awe of Information Age idea
- Good at "combinatorics" (encoding/decoding)
- Questions why information is becoming so important (22) but answers "how"
Chapter 3, Lessons from the Computer Industry (pages 38-70)
This chapter goes over a number of business concepts and gives examples from
the computer industry: a statement of the Gate’s business philosophy
What we learn about the industry
- Positive spiral vs. negative spiral: success breeds success, and failure
breeds failure.
- Faltering visionaries: Ken Olsen (DEC), An Wang (Wang Laboratories), Thomas
Watson (IBM), and Xerox all failed to anticipate coming trends or what their
innovations could do
- Piracy problem with hobbyists lead to selling software licenses to computer
manufacturers which lead to more enforceable copyrights
- When enough people buy a product and more companies develop accessories
for that product a critical mass will cause that product to become an industry
standard (VHS vs. Beta, IBM computer compatibility vs. systems that required
their own software)
- Development of a standard has more to do with price and availability of
products than with technological superiority (though Gates claims that major
advances will always win).
- Hire the best and pay with stock options (reward for doing well)
- Too many cooks/ingredients spoiled the OS/2 and UNIX
Useful and fun concept explanations
Standards: pages 50-51
What we learn about Gates
- Fiscally conservative but likes to gamble (poker)
- Calls Japanese clients babysitters, but admires Japanese business colleague,
Kazuhiko Nishi’s business skill
- Originally into the tech end, had to learn sales
- Didn’t learn much in college except how to procrastinate, though
he often refers to ideas that he had in college
- True believer in the benefits of market economics for technology development
but wary about own downfall
Some Reservations
As with all historical accounts, the author must select the events/facts to
be used and provide a reading of the meaning of those events. Gates’ reading
of the history of the computer industry is marked by romanticism
The epic saga feel of comparing "Information Age" to "Iron
Age" and "Bronze Age" and comparing our view of the information
highway to the impossibility of a stone age man imagining Ghiberti’s
Baptistery doors in Florence.
Prone to exaggerating: human eyes can’t see 70 miles, so it’s
hard to imagine looking through anything that thick.
Standards explanation ignores the fact that Bell Labs’ advances were
produced by a government-sanctioned monopoly, and that the clock shape and
layout probably had more to do with the layout of the sundial.
Often uses "best" to mean "most successful" as in his
claim to be working on making windows the best way to access the internet.
Seems to treat certain concepts lightly/brashly: UNIX, Steve Jobs, OS/2?