Mags open the flood gates - Bill Gates - Brief Article

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 1, 1994 by Iris Cohen Selinger

Where is it written that just because a person is rich, he or she is inherently interesting? Answer: In five highly disparate magazines that scrutinize Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates. His name--or at least his company's name--made it onto the January or February covers of National Review, Entrepreneur, The New Yorker, Wired and Mirabella.

To spare you from reading the cumulative 40,000-or-so words, we bring you the most tantalizing tidbits of the boring lot:

Does Bill Gates have any peculiar habits? "While he is working, he rocks. Whether he is in business meetings, on airplanes, or listening to a speech, his upper body rocks down to an almost forty-five degree angle, rocks back up, rocks down again. His elbows are often folded together, resting in his crotch. He rocks at different levels of intensity according to his mood. Sometimes people who are in the meetings begin to rock with him."--The New Yorker, January 10, 1994.

How smart is Gates? "Bill is just smarter than everyone else," Mike Maples, an executive vp of Microsoft, says. "There are probably more smart people per square foot right here than anywhere else in the world, but Bill is just smarter."--ibid.

How does Gates create leaders? Says Gates: "Empowering leadership means bringing out the energy and capabilities people have and getting them to work together in a way they wouldn't do otherwise."--entrepreneur, January 1994.

How does he treat women? According to former executive Ida Cole: "He thrived on confrontation. ... There were times he'd yell uncontrollably at me, spit between his teeth, just like my little boy."--Mirabella, February 1994.

"He might look like the nutty professor, but he acts like Lothario."--ibid.

What was his wife's first impression of him? "She thought he was crude," says one woman who used to work at Microsoft.

How important is knowing Gates? "Microsoft, like any office, is a status theme park. ... Having Bill-o-centric contacts is way, way up there.--Wired, February 1994.--Debby Patz