man i wish i could meet bill gates...he seems really cool

@BLAKELEY:
you look horrible

It's funny that Bill Gates gave you 20 minutes of his time and I won't give you 20 minutes of my time to watch it! Love you guys though.

Nice job on the interview. Wonder what he will say about Vista when the next os comes out. Will it be the ME edition?

I hate it how so many people hate Gates... He never did anything bad, in fact, he did quite the opposite... He innovated in so many ways... I wish I worked for Microsoft (I'm only 16 in a week, so it looks like I'll be waiting a while)

Put it on your site. Youtube's one of the few sites that's blocked at my work, and probably is at most workplaces. And I imagine most of your audience is dudes who are at work.

@yooper1019: You're missing out, buddy.

@Kered: Sorry about the lack of YT access. The decision was based on the length of the video and the opportunity to embed, but we will investigate hosting it on our site next week.

Excellent interview, you could really see how he opened up after a couple minutes. (Especially after dropping the whole defending Vista thing in Time...I kid I kid) It is nice to see the human side to what are usually faceless corporate whores.

Hopefully Gates will be able to bring as much focus and power to his foundation as he did with creating and managing Microsoft, because we all (Mac, Windows and even Linux-ers) can benefit greatly from the work they are doing.

@crazysamz:

I have nothing against Bill either. It's just I don't have 20 minutes to watch it. Super Mario Galaxy isn't going to beat itself. j/k

@yooper1019:

They all die in the end.. sorry.

@rudeadly: Do you work for YouTube or something?

@Kered: Luckily for me, youtube is one of the few sites at my office that isn't banned yet. Not having access to my flickr account kinda burns.

Bill Gates is a beast. Its good to know that he'll still have a say in Msoft, and that he'll be spending more time on his foundation. He has stayed humble (as far as the video shows) and that is important on so many levels. Good to see the richest man EVER laugh at himself too.

(Yes, I'm probably a Fanboy, but I try to stay as unbiased as possible)

Was that a dig at the Cubs in there too?

Gee where's the Steve Jobbs interview? I thought he was like totally awesome and not some elitist bastard.

Wait... did Bill just admit he took the idea from apple?
Thats surprising.

Probably the best interview with Bill Gates I've seen. Too bad there won't be a Gizmodo CES 2009

Was that a helicopter or a lawnmower in the background?

(Great video nonetheless. Thanks for putting it online in a whole.)

I love the whole one arm slung over the back of a chair thing he's got going on. Very Han Solo.

Great vid.

Like....uh...like...yea..um

Oh and um..yea..like..."top nerd"....that was so corny.

Did anyone else think that was startlingly sycophantic? I hadn't realized how softball those questions were when it was all cut up. Is everyone learning journalism from Barbara Walters these days?

Bill Gates gave Giz twenty minutes of his time?

If time equals money--and friends, it certainly does--then I think Giz just received the equivalent of a million dollars (how much Bill Gates makes every 20 minutes...)

Bill Gates Foundation gave my disease's Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis, 20 million dollars, so I hold him as a person in very high regard. I've always viewed him as a separate entity from MS.

How about a transcript for those of us who like to, um, read?

Horrible interview. Wasting his time with questions like it was crowded wasnt it...? right bill?

You had an opportunity to sit down with a legend and you wasted it.

i don't have a huge problem with bill gates. he seems like a decent guy most of the time. it's ballmer that i have the problem with.

@japancarblog:

Come on now, it was first question he asked the guy.. sounded like small talk before the questions.

What kind of questions would you have asked?

Congrats on getting that interview! I don't know who you had to hound to get him to agree to 20 minutes, but.. well played.

Also, to the people complaining of the "softball" questions : It was probably AGREED that there wouldn't be any grilling. A (relatively) small niche news outlet doesn't get interviews when they have a rep for being dicks.

center your subject.

There are only two kinds of interviews you can do with a guy like that. One is a nice personable interview where you get to know him. That is what you did and it worked very well. The other type is a pointed, direct question interview. Those usualy end up being a quiz. Like, whose idea was it to make the Vista start button round? I do care about that kind of stuff but when a reporter gets twenty minutes with the richest man in the world that reporter does not want to ask trivial questions.
The only other question I would have like to have heard was why wasn't the Vista music problem fixed before it shipped? But that is beside the point.
I would like to see an hour long interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs sitting next to each other and ask them about the future of computing. I would do pay per view for that one.

this guy impresses me. tonnes of respect. i like how he mentions google, i often wonder what it would have been like if him and jobs could have worked out the differences the way the 2 google founders did (granted it would have been post corporation as opposed to pre).

"thanks man" thanks man" "allright see ya later"

@FThorn: Not necessarily. They were shooting 16:9 (which, by the way, you should have exported to that ratio when you uploaded to youtube), and if you have a subject at the center of a 16:9 frame, it looks incredibly awkward.

The comment about stealing an idea from Apple was a jab. You'll note that Micrsoft stole the idea of personal liberation from Apple two years before Apple had the idea, according to the interview.

That was a great interview. Bill Gates is such a great interviewee (If that's even a word). It seemed like things were really getting rolling just as that dude said to wrap it up. Hopefully in some of his free-time he'll be able to do more interviews or even write a book?

Apple constantly copies Microsoft? Whoa, the interview just lost all credibility.

A bit one-sided?

omg, he drinks diet coke!

@iomatic: ... well, what would you expect Bill Gates to say?

Hey Giz! How about posting these videos in a format I can watch on my iphone?

@Sqube: No, the interviewer said it as an unfounded provocative. Gates actually says they copy Apple. About 3/4 of the way through.

Wow, I enjoyed that joke Gates made about the roof holding his briefcase and coffee... And how the interviewer didn't get it.

Interview: Bill Gates & Steve Jobs on the same stage:
[www.youtube.com]

I think it would have been really funny if someone off to the side had a remote and kept switching off the camera, or maybe an air horn they'd blow each time Gates started to speak.

That would have been a riot!

I have just seen the interview.
Really good questions, some mumbling in the way but still great, I get the vibs that the interview was made on the run, could it be?
The best of it, I think is the subjects chosen, enough talking about the same things every time we see a video, this one has family, fashion, the fundation, so great.
I hope you could get to steve jobs to ask same level of questions, like more personal, and apart from the "the product you've just released".
Moreover, it would be nice if you could make a new topic about (what questions would you ask to steve jobs) so there you take "geek" info.
good job, carry on!