FOR EVERY JACK WELCH, maybe there's a Bill Gates. If Welch used
General Electric's sprawling teaching facility at Crotonville to
continually reinvent the company (see Chapter 7), Gates at Microsoft
did it all by himself. From 1992 to 2008, Gates' once- or
twice-a-year Think Week was a Crotonville unto itself. Aqned
only with stacks of proposals and, later on, e-mails, Gates-sequestered
from staff and family-recalibrated his company's strategic
direction during his Think Weeks in the Pacific Northwest.
It is where he thought of The Road Ahead, his first book; it was
where the concept ofXbox Live got the green light; it is where the
notorious "Internet Tidal Wave" memo began. Most companies
are collegial. So was Microsoft. Its most significant products were
born of teamwork. But the company's core always was singularly
managed by Gates-and it was the odd, brilliant conception of
Think Week that allowed him to contemplate, cogitate, and plot
Microsoft's future.