Early on, according to Gates, he got about 50 submissions-on paper and brought to .Hood Canal in cardboard boxes, with submissions color-coded by topic and stamped MICROSOFT coNFIDENTIAL."I read them all and commented on them all," he said. "It was just me sitting there with a pen, and I would scribble on the thing and then go type up a Word document." Comments would go not only to the person who submitted a paper, but to a range of executives and engineers whom Gates thought should read them. ffitimately all his comments were put online on a SharePoint site, where they were categorized by topic. "I could then tell who read them and how long the comments were,"
Gates said. "And when I wanted to reply, I could just sit there electronically and type in my comments on various sections." Eventually all the submissions came in digital form.