redstoneINV
INV-ABC
寻找真实的比尔盖茨——为你揭开财富之谜
In Search of the Real Bill Gates
寻找真实的比尔盖茨
He's the most famous businessman in the world. Reams have been written about how he dominated the revolution in personal computing and is now poised to turn Microsoft into a media and Internet behemoth. But we know little about him as a person. What beliefs and values drive this man who, as much as anyone, will determine the way we look not only at computers but at ourselves and our world? Here's an intimate look at one of the most important minds and personalities of our era.
他是全世界最成功的商人。大量的文章曾经撰叙过比尔盖茨曾经如何主导个人电脑革命，并且现在如何准备让微软公司转型成媒体和互联网巨头。但是，我们对他个人却知之甚少。是什么信念和价值观驱使这个平凡的人来决定我们对于电脑、我们自己和这个世界的态度？下面我们将和我们这个时代最重要的思想者和代表人物之一近距离接触。
When Bill Gates was in the sixth grade, his parents decided he needed counseling. He was at war with his mother Mary, an outgoing woman who harbored the belief that he should do what she told him. She would call him to dinner from his basement bedroom, which she had given up trying to make him clean, and he wouldn't respond. "What are you doing?" she once demanded over the intercom.
比尔盖茨六年级时，他的父母决定让他接受个人心理辅导。他当时和他的母亲玛丽争执不休。玛丽性格外向，经常将自己的观点强加给比尔盖茨。比尔盖茨住在地下室，玛丽也不再给他清理房间。玛丽每次通过家里的对讲系统叫盖茨吃饭，但盖茨通常不会应答。“你在干什么？”有一次玛丽在对讲机那头询问。
"I'm thinking," he shouted back.
“我在思考，”盖茨吼道。
"You're thinking?"
“你在思考？”
"Yes, Mom, I'm thinking," he said fiercely. "Have you ever tried thinking?"
“是的，妈妈，我在思考，”盖茨言辞激烈。“你是否尝试过思考？”
The psychologist they sent him to "was a really cool guy," Gates recalls. "He gave me books to read after each session, Freud stuff, and I really got into psychology theory." After a year of sessions and a battery of tests, the counselor reached his conclusion. "You're going to lose," he told Mary. "You had better just adjust to it because there's no use trying to beat him." Mary was strong-willed and intelligent herself, her husband recalls, "but she came around to accepting that it was futile trying to compete with him."
父母给盖茨挑的心理医生是个“的确很酷的伙计”，盖茨回忆道。“每次会面后他都会给我一本类似于弗洛伊德理论的书，我也真的对心理理论很着迷。”经过一年的治疗和一系列测试，心理辅导师给出了他的结论。“你将会失败，”他告诉玛丽。“你最好就是去适应这种改变，因为和他对抗是根本没用的。”玛丽意志力坚强，并且聪明，她的丈夫如是回忆，“但她还是接受了和盖茨对抗就是徒劳的事实。”
A lot of computer companies have concluded the same. In the 21 years since he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, William Henry Gates III, 41, has thrashed competitors in the world of desktop operating systems and application software. Now he is attempting the audacious feat of expanding Microsoft from a software company into a media and content company.
许多电脑公司也得到了同样的结论。从盖茨哈佛大学辍学开始创建微软公司的21年里，41岁的威廉·亨利·盖茨三世在桌面操作系统和应用软件行业所向霹雳。现在，他正尝试进行一项大胆的举动，将微软公司改型成为一个媒体和主题公司。
In the process he has amassed a fortune worth (as of last Friday) $23.9 billion. The 88% rise in Microsoft stock in 1996 meant he made on paper more than $10.9 billion, or about $30 million a day. That makes him the world's richest person, by far. But he's more than that. He has become the Edison and Ford of our age. A technologist turned entrepreneur, he embodies the digital era.
在这个过程中，截止上周五，他已经拥有239亿美元财富资产。微软股票在1996年88%的跃升，意味着那一年他就在账面上净赚109亿美元，换种说法，每天进账大约3000万美元。这使他成为迄今为止世界上最富有的人。但是，他比这更厉害。他成为了我们这个时代的爱迪生和福特。一个技师转型成企业家，他代表了数字时代。
His success stems from his personality: an awesome and at times frightening blend of brilliance, drive, competitiveness and personal intensity. So too does Microsoft's. "The personality of Bill Gates determines the culture of Microsoft," says his intellectual sidekick Nathan Myhrvold. But though he has become the most famous business celebrity in the world, Gates remains personally elusive to all but a close circle of friends.
他的成功源于他的个性：一个出色的，有时候令人害怕的混合体，集智慧、劲头、竞争力和对自己的严格要求于一体。微软公司的员工们亦是如此。“比尔盖茨的个性决定了微软的企业文化，”他的得力助手内森·米尔沃说。虽然盖茨现在已经是世界上最知名的商业界名人，但是他依然让公众难以捉摸，只有一个亲密朋友圈子。
Part of what makes him so enigmatic is the nature of his intellect. Wander the Microsoft grounds, press the Bill button in conversation and hear it described in computer terms: he has "incredible processing power" and "unlimited bandwidth," an agility at "parallel processing" and "multitasking." Watch him at his desk, and you see what they mean. He works on two computers, one with four frames that sequence data streaming in from the Internet, the other handling the hundreds of E-mail messages and memos that extend his mind into a network. He can be so rigorous as he processes data that one can imagine his mind may indeed be digital: no sloppy emotions or analog fuzziness, just trillions of binary impulses coolly converting input into correct answers.
让他如此神秘的部分原因是他的智慧。漫步在微软公司，按下与比尔通话的按钮，听到电脑程序如此描述：他有“令人难以置信的处理能力”和“无限带宽”，能灵活地“平行处理”和“多任务操作”。看到办公桌前的他，就知道那些描述是什么意思了。他用两台电脑工作。一台电脑与互联网连接，拥有四帧序列数据处理能力；另一台则用来处理成百上千封的电子邮件和备忘录，这使他的思维延伸到网络中。他处理数据时是那么严谨，以至于让人想象他的大脑确实就是数字的：没有马虎情绪或者模棱两可，只有数万亿的二进制数字被冷静地转换成正确答案。
"I don't think there's anything unique about human intelligence," Gates says over dinner one night at a nearly deserted Indian restaurant in a strip mall near his office. Even while eating, he seems to be multitasking; ambidextrous, he switches his fork back and forth throughout the meal and uses whichever hand is free to gesture or scribble notes. "All the neurons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion," he explains. "We can someday replicate that on a machine." Earthly life is carbon based, he notes, and computers are silicon based, but that is not a major distinction. "Eventually we'll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system." The notion, he admits, is a bit frightening, but he jokes that it would also be cheating. "It's like reverse-engineering someone else's product in order to solve a challenge."
“我并不认为人类智慧有什么特别之处，”有天晚上，盖茨一家快要倒闭的印度餐厅吃饭的时候说道。这个餐厅位于他办公室附近的一家购物中心里。甚至在吃饭的时候，他也在多任务操作；他一心能二用，就在吃饭的时候，他经常将叉子在左右手中互换，以便于做手势或者做记录。“大脑中所有构成概念和情绪的神经元都以二进制的方式在工作，”他解释道。“总有一天我们将能复制大脑工作，将其运用于机器。”地球上的生命是由碳元素构成的，他说，而电脑是由硅元素构成的，但那不是最重要的区别。“最终，我们将能破译人类基因，并且复制自然如何在碳元素系统中发挥作用。”他也承认，这个想法有点让人害怕，但他开玩笑说那也能够骗人。“这就像逆向制造别人的产品来破解一项难题。”
Might there be some greater meaning to the universe? When engaged or amused, he is voluble, waving his hands and speaking loudly enough to fill the restaurant. "It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me." It's a mix of Descartes' metaphysics and Tom Stoppard's humor. "If so," he jokes, "it's sure going well for me, I must admit." He laughs; his eyes sparkle. Here's something machines can't do (I don't think): giggle about their plight in the cosmos, crack themselves up, have fun.
宇宙是否存在更深刻的意义？一旦他进入角色或者开心了，他就口若悬河，挥舞着双手，大声说话，足以让整个餐厅的人都能听见他的声音。“这是可能的，你永远也无法知道是否整个宇宙就是为我而存在”。这是笛卡尔的形而上学和汤姆斯托帕的幽默的结合体。“如果是这样，”他开玩笑，“那肯定对我特别有利，我必须接受。”说完，他笑了；他的双眼闪烁出智慧之光。有些事情机器无法办到（我不这么认为）：对着它们在宇宙中的困境傻笑，然后自我摧毁，并享受这一过程。
Right? Isn't there something special, perhaps even divine, about the human soul? His face suddenly becomes expressionless, his squeaky voice turns toneless, and he folds his arms across his belly and vigorously rocks back and forth in a mannerism that has become so mimicked at Microsoft that a meeting there can resemble a round table of ecstatic rabbis. Finally, as if from an automaton, comes the answer: "I don't have any evidence on that." Rock, rock, rock. "I don't have any evidence on that."
对吗？难道人类的精神没有点特别，甚至神圣之处吗？他的脸庞突然没有了表情，沉默不语，双手交叉，前后大幅度地摇晃着。这在微软公司也被竞相模仿，开会的时候就像坐了一圆桌欣喜若狂的拉比们。最后，就像自动应答机回答一样：“我对此没有任何证据”。摇晃、摇晃、摇晃。“我对此没有任何证据。”
The search for evidence about the soul that underlies Bill Gates' intellectual operating system is a task that even this boyish man might find a challenge.
对于精神证据的探索反映了比尔盖茨的思维操作系统。这个探索甚至对这个孩子气的男人也是个挑战。
"As a baby, he used to rock back and forth in his cradle himself," recalls Gates' father, a man as big and huggable as his son is small and tightly coiled. A retired lawyer, he still lives in the airy suburban Seattle house overlooking Lake Washington where Bill III--the boy he calls "Trey"--grew up. (The name comes from the card term for three, though the father is now resigned to being called Bill Sr.)
“小时候，他经常在摇篮里让自己前后摇晃，”盖茨的父亲回忆。他高大，受欢迎，而盖茨却生得很娇小，紧紧地蜷缩在一起。他是位退休律师，依然住在西雅图郊区空畅的能看到华盛顿湖的家里。比尔三世就在那里长大。他叫比尔三世“Trey”。（这个外号来源于纸牌中的三。现在父亲退休了，被称作比尔先生。）
His mother Mary was "a remarkable woman," Bill Sr. says. A banker's daughter, she was adroit in both social and business settings, and served on numerous boards, including those of the University of Washington, the United Way, USWest and First Interstate Bancorp. After her death in 1994, the city council named the avenue leading into their neighborhood after her.
盖茨的母亲玛丽曾经是个“出色的女人”，比尔先生说。她是一个银行家的女儿，在社交场合和商务活动中都能应付自如，在包括华盛顿大学，联合之路，USWest和第一洲际银行在内的多个理事会中任职。她1994年去世后，市议会将通向他们家所在街区的大道以她的名字命名。
"Trey didn't have a lot of confidence in social settings," says his father. "I remember him fretting for two weeks before asking a girl to the prom, then getting turned down. But Mary did. She was a star at social intercourse. She could walk into a room ..." He has the same toothy smile as his son, the same smudgy glasses covering twinkling eyes. But now, for just a moment, he is starting to tear up. His mind does not seem like a computer. He folds his arms across his stomach and starts to rock, gently.
“Trey曾经在社交场合中没有多少自信，”他父亲说道。“我记得他曾经在邀请一个女孩去舞会之前为此纠结了两个星期，然后被拒绝了。但是玛丽在这方面很有信心。她在社交场合是个明星。她能走进一间屋子……”和他儿子一样，比尔先生笑起来也是露齿的；也是厚厚的镜片下有一双闪闪放光的眼睛。但现在，仅仅那么一小会儿，他就不再跟他儿子那么相像。他的思维看起来并不像电脑。他交叉双臂，置于腹部，开始轻轻地摇晃起来。
He gets up to show some more pictures of Mary and of her mother. Both loved cards, and they would organize bridge games, as well as Password and trivia contests, after the big family dinners they held every Sunday. "The play was quite serious," Bill Sr. recalls. "Winning mattered."
他站起身来，展示了一些玛丽和他母亲的照片。他们俩都很喜欢玩扑克牌，每次周日大家庭聚会晚饭后，他们会组织打桥牌，还有密码游戏和一些小测试。“游戏非常严肃，”比尔先生回忆。“胜利很重要。”
As he wanders through the house, he points out more framed pictures of his son: Trey, the towheaded Cub Scout; Trey with sister Kristi, a year older, who now has the joy of being his tax accountant; and with Libby, nine years younger, who lives a few blocks away raising her two kids; with Bill Sr. and his new wife Mimi, the director of the Seattle Art Museum; and hugging his wife Melinda while listening to Willie Nelson play at their New Year's Day 1994 wedding in Hawaii.
他在房子里边走边指出更多的放在相框里的儿子的照片：Trey，童子军时头发蓬卷；Trey和大他一岁的姐姐克里斯蒂，现在是他的税务会计；和小九岁的妹妹利比，她住在几个街区之外，育有二子；和比尔先生、续弦米米，西雅图艺术博物馆的经理；还有一张是，1994年元旦在夏威夷结婚时拥抱着妻子梅琳达一起听威利·内尔森演唱。
"He's a busy guy," says Bill Sr., "so we don't see him a lot, but we spend holidays together." Thanksgiving was in Spokane, Washington, at Kristi's house, Christmas playing golf in Palm Springs, California, where Bill Sr. and Mimi have a place. They communicate mainly by E-mail. Just this morning he got one describing a photocopier Trey bought him for his birthday.
“他是个很忙的家伙，”比尔先生说，“所以我们也很少看到他，但是我们一起度假。”感恩节是在华盛顿州斯波克恩Kristi的家里度过的；圣诞节在加州棕榈泉一起打高尔夫，在那比尔先生和米米有个住处。他们主要是通过电子邮件交流。就在今天早上，他收到一封Trey的邮件，描述了Trey送给他的生日礼物，一台复印机。
He lumbers over to a table where he has gathered some pictures of summer vacations they used to take with friends at a cluster of rental cabins known as Cheerio on the Hood Canal, about two hours away. There were nightly campfires, family skits and the type of organized competitive games the Gates family loved. "On Saturdays there was a tennis tournament, and on Sundays our Olympics, which were a mixture of games and other activities," Bill Sr. recalls. "Trey was more into the individual sports, such as water skiing, than the team ones."
他脚步沉重地走到一个桌子旁，上面摆放着一些和朋友们在租来的小木屋过暑假的时候拍的照片。那是个坐落在胡德运河旁名叫奇里奥的地方，离比尔家大约两个小时车程。那时候，每晚都会有篝火、家庭短剧和盖茨家最喜欢的那种有组织的竞争游戏。“每个周六都会有网球比赛，而每个周日就是我们的奥林匹克盛会了，会有一系列的比赛和其它活动，”比尔先生回忆。“相对于团队比赛，Trey更擅长个人项目，例如滑雪。”
In 1986, after Microsoft became successful, Gates built a four-house vacation compound dubbed Gateaway for his family. There his parents would help him replicate his summer activities on a grander scale for dozens of friends and co-workers in what became known as the Microgames. "There were always a couple of mental games as well as performances and regular games," says Bill Sr. as he flips through a scrapbook. These were no ordinary picnics: one digital version of charades, for example, had teams competing to send numerical messages using smoke-signal machines, in which the winners devised their own 4-bit binary code.
1986年，微软公司一举成功，盖茨为他的家人盖了一座拥有四间房子的度假院落。在那里，他的父母能帮助他复制他的夏日活动，但更大规模，可以同时几十个朋友或者同事同时参与其中，这也成为日后为人所知的微软游戏。“始终都会有一些智力游戏和表演以及一些普通游戏，”比尔先生一边翻阅剪贴簿一边说道。这些都不是普通的野餐：例如，一个数字版本的哑谜要求每个队伍利用烟雾信号机发送数字信息，比赛的胜者都得设计自己的四位二进制代码。
"We became concerned about him when he was ready for junior high," says his father. "He was so small and shy, in need of protection, and his interests were so very different from the typical sixth grader's." His intellectual drive and curiosity would not be satisfied in a big public school. So they decided to send him to an elite private school across town.
“他准备上高中时我们都很为他担心，”他父亲说。“他那么瘦小和害羞，需要保护，并且他的兴趣爱好也普通的六年级学生大不相同。”他对知识的渴望和好奇不可能能在大型公立学校得到满足。于是，他们决定将盖茨送到镇子那头的私立精英学校上学。
Walking across the rolling quad of the Lakeside School, Bill Sr. points out the chapel where his son played the lead in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy. "He was very enthusiastic about acting. But what really entranced him was in there," he says, pointing to a New England-style steepled classroom building. With the proceeds from a rummage sale, the Mothers' Club had funded a clunky teletype computer terminal.
一起在湖滨学校的校园里散步的时候，比尔先生指着一所教堂说，他儿子曾经在那里表演过彼得谢弗的黑色喜剧，并充当主演。“他特别热衷于表演。但最令他喜欢的演出是在这里，”他指着一幢新英格兰式的尖顶教学楼说道。母亲俱乐部用义卖所得款项资助购买了一台笨重的电脑打字机终端。
Learning BASIC language from a manual with his pal Paul Allen, Trey produced two programs in the eighth grade: one that converted a number in one mathematical base to a different base, and another (easier to explain) that played tic-tac-toe. Later, having read about Napoleon's military strategies, he devised a computer version of Risk, a board game he liked in which the goal is world domination.
和好友保罗艾伦从一本手册上学习了入门的编程语言后，Trey在八年级的时候编了两个程序：一个程序是将数字从数学基础转移到另一个基础；另一个程序（解释起来更简单）是三子棋游戏。随后，读了拿破仑的军事战术后，他设计了一个电脑版的Risk游戏，这是那时候他喜欢的棋盘游戏，目标就是称霸世界。
Trey and Paul were soon spending their evenings at a local company that had bought a big computer and didn't have to pay for it until it was debugged. In exchange for computer time, the boys' job was to try (quite successfully) to find bugs that would crash it. "Trey got so into it," his father recalls, "that he would sneak out the basement door after we went to bed and spend most of the night there."
不久，Trey和保罗就每天晚上都会去当地一家公司调试新购入的一台大型电脑，直到调试完才拿到了佣金。作为使用电脑的交换条件，他们俩的任务就是尽力找出并解决电脑故障（非常成功）。“Trey对此非常着迷，”他父亲回忆，“他甚至会在我们睡着之后悄悄从地下室溜出去，在那公司花上大半夜时间。”
The combination of counseling and the computer helped transform him into a self-assured young businessman. By high school he and his friends had started a profitable company to analyze and graph traffic data for the city. "His confidence increased, and his sense of humor increased," his father says. "He became a great storyteller, who could mimic the voices of each person. And he made peace with his mother."
心理治疗结合上电脑帮助他变成了一位自信满满的年轻商人。高中时，他和他的朋友们就开了一家利润颇丰的公司，专门为城市交通数据提供分析和图表。“他的信心提升了，幽默感也随之增加了，”他父亲说道。“他的口才变得非常棒，甚至能模仿每个人说话。并且，他和他母亲和好了。”
"In ninth grade," Gates recalls over dinner one night, "I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn't been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A's without taking a book home. I didn't go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam. That established my independence and taught me I didn't need to rebel anymore." By 10th grade he was teaching computers and writing a program that handled class scheduling, which had a secret function that placed him in classes with the right girls.
“九年级的时候，”盖茨在某天晚餐的时候回忆道，“我又有了新的叛逆情绪。虽然我那会儿成绩一直都不是太好，但我决定每天回家都不复习而要成绩全优。我不去上数学课，因为我知道得足够多了，并且上课前我已经学习过了，最后我在一个能力考试中排名全国前十。那奠定了我独立的性格，也教会了我不再需要去叛逆。”到十年级时，他开始教授电脑课，并且设计了一个解决排课任务的程序。其中有个很秘密的作用，将他和一些好女孩分在了一起。
His best friend was Kent Evans, son of a Unitarian minister. "We read FORTUNE together; we were going to conquer the world," says Gates. "I still remember his phone number." Together with Paul Allen, they formed the official-sounding Lakeside Programmers Group and got a job writing a payroll system for a local firm. A furious argument, the first of many, ensued when Allen tried to take over the work himself. But he soon realized he needed the tireless Gates back to do the coding. "O.K., but I'm in charge," Gates told him, "and I'll get used to being in charge, and it'll be hard to deal with me from now on unless I'm in charge." He was right.
他当时最好的朋友是肯特埃文斯，一个传教士的儿子。“我们一起阅读《国富论》；我们计划征服世界，”盖茨说。“我至今还记得他的电话号码。”和保罗艾伦一起，他们成立一个听起来很官方的湖滨程序员小组，并且为当地的一家公司设计工资管理系统。保罗尝试自己一个人接受这个工作时，第一次激烈的争吵随之而来。但他不久就意识到，他需要不知疲倦的盖茨回来编码。“行，但是我得负责一切，”盖茨告诉他，“我习惯管理一切，并且从现在开始，除非我负责，我将撂挑子不干。”他是正确的。
To relieve the pressures of programming, Evans took up mountain climbing. One day Gates got a call from the headmaster: Evans had been killed in a fall. "I had never thought of people dying," Gates says. There is a flicker of emotion. "At the service, I was supposed to speak, but I couldn't get up. For two weeks I couldn't do anything at all."
为了释放编程的压力，埃文斯开始登山。有天盖茨接到校长的电话：埃文斯坠山而亡。“我从没想过死亡，”盖茨说道。他情绪开始有点变化。“当时情况下，我应该说些什么，但是我不能。整整两周，我什么事都干不了。”
After that he became even closer to Paul Allen. They learned an artificial-intelligence language together and found odd jobs as programmers. "We were true partners," Gates says. "We'd talk for hours every day." After Gates went off to Harvard, Allen drove his rattletrap Chrysler cross-country to continue their collaboration. He eventually persuaded Gates to become that university's most famous modern dropout in order to start a software company, which they initially dubbed Micro-Soft (after considering the name Allen & Gates Inc.), to write versions of BASIC for the first personal computers. It was an intense relationship: Gates the workaholic code writer and competitor, Allen the dreamy visionary.
在那事件之后，他和保罗艾伦之间的感情更深了。他们开始一起学人工智能语言，偶尔找到些编程工作。“我们是真正的搭档，”盖茨说道。“我们每天都会在一起聊数个小时。”盖茨去哈佛大学后，艾伦开着他的克莱斯勒牌老爷车横穿美国继续他们的合作。他最终说服盖茨从哈佛辍学一起开一家软件公司。这也成为现代最著名的大学辍学案例。他们最终称其公司为微软（之前还考虑过阿伦和盖茨公司），开始用BASIC语言为个人电脑写程序。这是种深层次的关系：盖茨是不知疲倦的代码编写者和竞争者，而阿伦是富有梦想的预见者。
Over the years they would have ferocious fights, and Allen would, after a Hodgkin's disease scare, quit the company and become estranged. But Gates worked hard to repair the relationship and eventually lured Allen, who is now one of the country's biggest high-tech venture-capital investors (and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers), back onto the Microsoft board. "We like to talk about how the fantasies we had as kids actually came true," Gates says. Now, facing their old classroom building at Lakeside is the modern brick Allen/Gates Science Center. (Gates lost the coin toss.)
那些年，他们有过激烈的争执。在霍金森综合症疾病的恐惧之后，阿伦可能退出公司，与公司越来越疏远。但是盖茨努力地修复他们的关系，最终让阿伦回到微软董事会。阿伦现在是全美国最大的高科技风险资本投资人之一（波特兰开拓者队的老板）。“我们喜欢聊聊孩童时代的梦想，如何在现在最终实现，”盖茨说。现在，在他们的母校湖滨学校那栋老教学楼对面，盖起了一座现代化的艾伦盖茨科技中心。（因为盖茨扔硬币输了，所以他的名字在后。）
Steve Ballmer, big and balding, is bouncing around a Microsoft conference room with the spirit of the Harvard football-team manager he once was. "Bill lived down the hall from me at Harvard sophomore year," he says. "He'd play poker until 6 in the morning, then I'd run into him at breakfast and discuss applied mathematics." They took graduate-level math and economics courses together, but Gates had an odd approach toward his classes: he would skip the lectures of those he was taking and audit the lectures of those he wasn't, then spend the period before each exam cramming. "He's the smartest guy I've ever met," says Ballmer, 40, continuing the unbroken sequence of people who make that point early in an interview.
史蒂夫巴尔默身材高大，秃顶了，在微软会议室附近转悠，依然怀着曾经哈佛大学橄榄球队经理的意志。“哈佛大学二年级时，比尔住在我楼下，”他说。“他能玩扑克玩到凌晨六点，我能在早饭时候遇到他，然后一起讨论应用数学。”他们在一起修研究生水平的数学和经济课程，但是盖茨极少去上课：他会逃掉他应该上的课程，但会很认真地上他没有选的课程。然后在考试前一段时间开始恶补。“他是我迄今为止遇到的最聪明的家伙，”巴尔默说。他今年40岁，继续着我在先前的采访者那里得到的不变的结论。
Ballmer nurtured the social side of Gates, getting him to join one of the college's eating clubs (at his initiation Gates gave a drunken disquisition on an artificial-intelligence machine), playing the video game Pong at hamburger joints and later wandering with him to places like the old Studio 54 during visits to New York City. "He was eccentric but charismatic," says Ballmer.
大学时候，巴尔默扩大了盖茨的社交面，让他加入了大学里的饮食俱乐部（在他的启发之下，盖茨写了一篇精彩的关于人工智能机器的专题论文），汉堡店玩一个名叫Pong电子游戏，然后在纽约城玩的时候一起去54号老工作室之类的地方转悠。“他的性格古怪，但是很有魅力，”巴尔默如是说。
When Microsoft began to grow in 1980, Gates needed a smart nontechie to help run things, and he lured Ballmer, who had worked for Procter & Gamble, to Seattle as an equity partner. Though he can be coldly impersonal in making business decisions, Gates has an emotional loyalty to a few old friends. "I always knew I would have close business associates like Ballmer and several of the other top people at Microsoft, and that we would stick together and grow together no matter what happened," he says. "I didn't know that because of some analysis. I just decided early on that was part of who I was."
微软公司1980年开始成长的时候，盖茨需要一个聪明的人来帮助他管理事情，他找到了巴尔默。巴尔默当时在宝洁公司工作，在西雅图是一个资产合作者。虽然在商业决策上他可能冷酷、不近人情，但是盖茨对他的一些老朋友有着深厚的感情。“我一直相信我能在微软拥有像巴尔默这样亲密的商业伙伴，和其他一些顶尖的人才。无论发生什么，我们都会团结在一起，一起成长，”他说。“因为一些分析，我现在才知道这个道理。我当时仅仅是早早地那么决定这就是我个性的一部分。”
As with Allen, the relationship was sometimes stormy. "Our first major row came when I insisted it was time to hire 17 more people," Ballmer recalls. "He claimed I was trying to bankrupt him." Gates has a rule that Microsoft, rather than incurring debt, must always have enough money in the bank to run for a year even with no revenues. (It currently has $8 billion in cash and no long-term debt.) "I was living with him at the time, and I got so pissed off I moved out." The elder Gates smoothed things over, and soon the new employees were hired.
就像和阿伦在一起一样，他们之间的关系有时会很恶劣。“我坚持是时候我们多招募17个雇员了。此时，我们第一次大的争执暴发了，”巴尔默回忆道。“他宣称我在使他破产。”盖茨在微软有条规定，公司在银行必须始终都要有足够的资金，能让公司在无利润的情况下运营一年，而不是负债。（它现在有80亿美元的现金，并且没有长期债务。）“我当时和他住在一起，但后来我烦透他了，就搬了出去。”年纪更大点的盖茨把事情理顺之后，不久就招募了新员工。
"Bill brings to the company the idea that conflict can be a good thing," says Ballmer. "The difference from P&G is striking. Politeness was at a premium there. Bill knows it's important to avoid that gentle civility that keeps you from getting to the heart of an issue quickly. He likes it when anyone, even a junior employee, challenges him, and you know he respects you when he starts shouting back." Around Microsoft, it's known as the "math camp" mentality: a lot of cocky geeks willing to wave their fingers and yell with the cute conviction that all problems have a right answer. Among Gates' favorite phrases is "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," and victims wear it as a badge of honor, bragging about it the way they do about getting a late-night E-mail from him.
“比尔带给公司一个理念，那就是争执是件好事，”巴尔默说。“这和宝洁公司的理念完全不同。礼貌在那里是备受推崇的。比尔知道避免客套性礼貌的重要性，因为那不能让人迅速地了解到事件的核心。他喜欢别人，甚至低级员工，挑战他。他向你反击时，那是他对你尊敬的表现。”在微软，这被称为“数学夏令营”心理：许多自大者都喜欢摇动他们的手指表示反对，并且乖巧地嚷嚷，在他们眼里所有问题都已经有了正确答案。“那是我听过最愚蠢的想法”是盖茨的喜欢的口头禅，而被骂者则以此为荣，并为深夜时候收到一封盖茨寄出的关于他们所作所为的邮件大加吹嘘。
The contentious atmosphere can promote flexibility. The Microsoft Network began as a proprietary online system like CompuServe or America Online. When the open standards of the Internet changed the game, Microsoft was initially caught flat-footed. Arguments ensued. Soon it became clear it was time to try a new strategy and raise the stakes. Gates turned his company around in just one year to disprove the maxim that a leader of one revolution will be left behind by the next.
争论的气氛能提升灵活度。微软网络从一个专有的在线系统开始，类似于CompuServe或者美洲在线。互联网开放标准改变游戏规则的时候，微软最初被打了个措手不及。争执随之而来。但是不久便达成一致，是时候尝试新战略和提升市场份额了。盖茨仅仅花了一年时间就让公司扭转了颓势，由此打破了一条格言，革命领袖必定在下次革命中被淘汰。
During the bachelor years in the early '80s, the math-camp mentality was accompanied by a frat-boy recreational style. Gates, Ballmer and friends would eat out at Denny's, go to movies and gather for intellectual games like advanced forms of trivia and Boggle. As friends started getting married, there were bachelor parties involving local strippers and skinny-dipping in Gates' pool. But eventually, after Gates wed, he took up more mature pursuits such as golf. "Bill got into golf in the same addictive way he gets into anything else," says Ballmer. "It gets his competitive juice flowing."
上个世纪80年代早期，他还是单身的日子里，数学夏令营心理也伴随着兄弟会休闲的风格。盖茨、巴尔默和他的朋友们会去Denny‘s一起吃饭，看电影，聚在一起玩类似于改进版的Boggle的小型益智游戏。随着朋友们开始陆续结婚，盖茨家的单身聚会会邀请当地脱衣舞女郎和身材纤细的美女。但最后，盖茨结婚后，他开始对些更成熟的像高尔夫的追求感兴趣。“比尔玩高尔夫也是像其它事情一样的痴迷，”巴尔默说。“他争强好胜的性格也体现在高尔夫也中。”
It's a rainy night, and Gates is bombing around in his dark blue Lexus. He loves fast cars. When Microsoft was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in its early years, he bought a Porsche 911 and used to race it in the desert; Paul Allen had to bail him out of jail after one midnight escapade. He got three speeding tickets--two from the same cop who was trailing him--just on the drive from Albuquerque the weekend he moved Microsoft to Seattle. Later he bought a Porsche 930 Turbo he called the "rocket," then a Mercedes, a Jaguar XJ6, a $60,000 Carrera Cabriolet 964, a $380,000 Porsche 959 that ended up impounded in a customs shed because it couldn't meet import emission standards, and a Ferrari 348 that became known as the "dune buggy" after he spun it into the sand.
那是个下雨的夜晚，盖茨开着他深蓝色的雷克萨斯飞驰。他喜欢开快车。微软迁址至新墨西哥州的阿尔布开克后，在头些年，他买了辆保时捷911，经常在沙漠里飙车；曾经由于一次午夜飙车，保罗阿伦还将他保释出狱。他曾经在微软从阿尔布开克搬去西雅图的那个周末得了三张超速罚单——两张是来自同一个警察，那警察盯上了他。随后，他又买了辆保时捷930T，他称之为“火箭”，然后是奔驰、美洲虎XJ6，价值6万美元的卡雷拉敞篷964，价值38万美元的保时捷959，但这辆车在进入海关的时候被扣押，因为不符合进口排量标准。他还买了一辆法拉利348，他开着它在沙漠里兜风并陷进进沙丘之后就成了闻名的“沙滩车”。
Despite this record, Gates is not wearing a seat belt. (A dilemma: Is it too uncool to use mine?) He rarely looks at you when he talks, which is disconcerting, but he does so when he's driving, which is doubly disconcerting. (I buckle up. As his mother and others have learned, it's not always prudent to compete.) He turns into a dark drive with a chain-link fence that slides open as the Lexus approaches. It's nearing midnight, and the security guard looks a bit startled.
尽管有这个记录，盖茨也不会系安全带。（一个两难困境：如果系安全带是不是太不拉风了？）他在交谈时很少会看着你，这令人不安；但是他在开车的时候就会看着你说话，这使人加倍不安。（我系上了安全带。从他妈妈和其他人那里学到，和他竞争永远不是件慎重的事。）他的雷克萨斯接近时，铁丝网栅栏慢慢打开。他让汽车自动巡行。将近午夜，保安看似有点惊讶。
Gates' home of the future has been under construction for more than four years, and is not expected to be completed until this summer. Built into a bluff fronting Lake Washington, it has 40,000 sq. ft. of space and will cost about $40 million. Looming against the night sky are three connected pavilions of glass and recycled Douglas fir beams, looking a bit like a corporate conference center masquerading as a resort.
盖茨的未来之家已经建造四年多了，预计直到今年夏天才能完工。房子在华盛顿湖畔，规模巨大，面积有4万平方英尺，造价将在4000万美金左右。夜幕之下，三个用玻璃和可回收的道格拉斯冷杉木建造的大亭子，看起来就像伪装成度假村的企业会议中心。
Gates swings into a vaulted 30-car garage carved into the hillside. In the corner, like a museum piece, sits his parents' red Mustang convertible that he drove as a kid. "The first pavilion is mainly for public entertaining," he says as he picks his way past construction debris down four levels of stairs. Despite the hour, three technicians are working in the ground-floor reception hall, with its view of the Olympic Mountains across Lake Washington, adjusting two dozen 40-in. monitors that will form a flat-screen display covering an entire wall. "When you visit, you'll get an electronic pin encoded with your preferences," he explains. "As you wander toward any room, your favorite pictures will appear along with the music you like or a TV show or movie you're watching. The system will learn from your choices, and it will remember the music or pictures from your previous visits so you can choose to have them again or have similar but new ones. We'll have to have hierarchy guidelines, for when more than one person goes to a room." Like Gates himself, it's all very fascinating, fun and a little intimidating.
盖茨拐进一个拱门，那是建在山洞里的可容纳30辆车的车库。在角落，就像个博物馆，那里停放着他小时候开过的他父母的红色野马敞篷车。“第一个亭子主要用来提供公共娱乐，”他边说边在厚达四层楼的建筑废料中寻路而走。尽管在这个时间，仍然有三个技师在一楼客厅里工作，从那可以看见华盛顿湖那头的奥林匹克山。技师们在调试两打40英寸的显示器，最终可以在整面墙上全屏演示。“你来访时，你将会得到一个记录你爱好的电子针，”他解释道。“你漫步到任一房间，你喜欢的图片会随着你喜欢的音乐一起出现，或者是你正在关注的电视节目或电影。系统将会了解你的选择，并且记住你上次到访时的音乐或图片选择，这样你又可以重新选择他们或者选择另外类似的。系统还会有层次指引，这是为多人同时进入一个房间准备的。”就像盖茨本人，这房子也是引人入胜、充满乐趣的，并且还有点令人害怕。
Moving into the center pavilion, Gates shows off what will be the library. A mammoth carved wooden dome hangs just above the floor, waiting to be raised into the cupola. (I wonder: Does this grand chamber dispel my fear that he will relegate print to museum status? Or inadvertently confirm it?) He has hired a New York rare-books dealer to stock the library for him. His current reading is eclectic. "On a recent trip to Italy," he says, "I took the new Stalin biography, a book about Hewlett-Packard, Seven Summits [a mountaineering book by Dick Bass and the late Disney president Frank Wells] and a Wallace Stegner novel." He's also a fan of Philip Roth's, John Irving's, Ernest J. Gaines' and David Halberstam's, but his all-time favorite novels are the schoolboy standards The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby and A Separate Peace. A nearby room will be filled by an enormous trampoline; at the office he sometimes surprises colleagues by joyfully leaping to touch the ceiling, and he finds bouncing on a trampoline as conducive to concentration as rocking.
进入中间的亭子，盖茨自豪地说那将会是他的图书馆。巨大的雕花木质穹顶搁置在地上，等待着被吊上圆屋顶。（我怀疑：这个大房子是否会消除我的恐惧，是否他又会将这图书馆变成博物馆？或者说，无意间已经给出肯定的答案？）他已经雇佣了一个纽约珍稀图书经销商来为他的图书馆置办书籍。他现在的阅读是兼容并包的。“最近一次去意大利，”他说，“我买了本新的斯大林传记，一本关于惠普的书，《七座山峰》【迪克巴斯和迪斯尼主席弗兰克威尔斯写的一本关于登山的书】和一本华莱士斯泰格纳的小说。”他也是飞利浦·罗斯, 约翰·埃尔文, 欧内斯特·格内斯和戴维·哈尔博斯坦的拥蹙者，但是他一直所钟爱的小说是中学生标准的《麦田守望者》、《伟大的盖茨比》和《一次分裂的和平》。附近的一间房子将会放满无数蹦床；在办公室，他有时会高兴地跳起来摸到天花板，这让同事惊讶不已。他发现，在蹦床上跳跃和摇晃一样有利于精力集中。
The only completed part of the house is the indoor pool under the family quarters. A sleek lap pool reflecting images from a wall snakes through glass into an outdoor Japanese bath area. The security guard reappears and warns, "Be careful of what you do in there, since the boats on the lake can see inside." As the door to the pool room closes, Gates doubles over in laughter. Does he come in here often at night? "Sometimes with Melinda," he says.
房子唯一完成的部分是卧室下面的室内泳池。时尚的泳池倒影着墙壁，蜿蜒延伸到室外一个日式的沐浴区。保安再次出现，并警告说，“在里面干什么事得小心，因为从湖里的船上能看见里面。”由于通往游泳池的门关上了，盖茨开始放声大笑。他经常晚上来这里吗？“有时候会和梅琳达一起来，”他说。
We wander out to the deck, and the wind slams the door shut. It's locked. Gates tries to call the guard, but he's disappeared to a distant part of the estate. So he leads the way past bulldozers into trenches that will someday become an estuary and stocked trout stream. At the moment, however, it's a quagmire that proves impassable. Remarkably, Gates is able to avoid looking sheepish. After a few more minutes of shouting, he attracts the guard's attention.
我们信步走到楼顶，晚风将门狠狠地关上了。我们被反锁上了。盖茨尝试着叫保安来，但是他已经远远地消失了，去了这个豪宅另外的地方。于是，他带路穿过推土机来到一个壕沟，日后这里将成为饲养鳟鱼的小溪的入水口。然而此时，它只是一个无法通过的沼泽地。值得注意的是，盖茨总是能避免尴尬。呼喊保安几分钟之后，他终于叫来了保安。
Gates chose the austere and natural architectural style before he got married, but Melinda is now putting her own imprint on it. "The exposed concrete is going to have to go," he says, expressing some concern about how the architect might take this.
盖茨在他结婚之前就喜欢上了这种朴素自然的建筑风格，但是梅琳达现在正注入自己的风格。“暴露在外面的水泥都会被去掉，”他说，语气中表达着对建筑师将如何处理的担心。
Gates met Melinda French 10 years ago at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan. She was working for the company and later became one of the executives in charge of interactive content. Their daughter Jennifer was born last April. Melinda, 32, is no longer at Microsoft, and she is active in charity work and on the board of Duke, where she studied computer science as an undergraduate and then got a graduate degree in business. Like Gates, she is smart and independent. Like his mother, she is also friendly and social, with an easy manner of organizing trips and activities. But she zealously guards her privacy and doesn't give interviews.
十年前，在一次微软公司在曼哈顿举办的记者会上，盖茨第一次遇见了梅琳达。她当时在微软公司工作，随后成为互动内容的负责人之一。他们的女儿詹妮弗在去年四月份出生。梅琳达今年32岁，已经没有在微软工作了。她活跃于慈善事业，是杜克大学董事会成员，她在那里获得了计算机科学学士学位和商业硕士学位。跟盖茨一样，她也聪明独立。就像盖茨的母亲，她也为人和善、善于社交，精于组织出游和各种活动。但是她很注意保护自己的隐私，没有接受我的采访。
"I used to think I wouldn't be all that interested in the baby until she was two or so and could talk," says Gates as he shows off the more intimate family quarters. "But I'm totally into it now. She's just started to say 'ba-ba' and have a personality."
“我曾经想我对小孩一点兴趣都没有，直到女儿两岁左右开始说话我才改变这个想法，”盖茨边说边给我热情地展示更温馨的卧室。“但是我现在完全进入当父亲的状态了。她刚刚会说‘ba-ba’，很有个性。”
Melinda is Catholic, goes to church and wants to raise Jennifer that way. "But she offered me a deal," Gates says. "If I start going to church--my family was Congregationalist--then Jennifer could be raised in whatever religion I choose." Gates admits that he is tempted, because he would prefer she have a religion that "has less theology and all" than Catholicism, but he has not yet taken up the offer. "Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient," he explains. "There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
梅琳达是个天主教徒，会去教堂，她也希望如此培养詹妮弗。“但是她给了我一个提议，”盖茨说。“如果我开始去教堂--我家是个多宗教家庭--那么，詹妮弗就会按照我的选择来按照哪个宗教培养。”盖茨承认他被这个建议吸引了，因为他更希望她有个比天主教“神学性更少”的宗教，但是他迄今为止还未接受这个提议。“仅从时间资源的分配上来看，宗教不是太有效率，”他解释道。“周日早上我还能做很多别的事情。”
If Ballmer is Gates' social goad, his intellectual one is Nathan Myhrvold (pronounced Meer-voll), 37, who likes to joke that he's got more degrees than a thermometer, including a doctorate in physics from Princeton. With a fast and exuberant laugh, he has a passion for subjects ranging from technology (he heads Microsoft's advanced-research group) to dinosaurs (he's about to publish a paper on the aerodynamics of the apatosaurus tail) to cooking. He sometimes moonlights as a chef at Rover's, a French restaurant in Seattle.
如果说巴尔默是盖茨社交能力的鼓励者，那么内森·米尔沃（和Meervoll的发音一样）就是他智慧的鞭策者。内森·米尔沃37岁，喜欢开玩笑说他比温度计获得的学位还多，其中包括普林斯顿大学的物理学博士学位。他喜欢快速大笑，他对从技术（他是微软先进技术研究小组的头儿）到恐龙（他将要发表一篇关于雷龙尾巴的空气动力学的论文）到烹饪所有的学科都有着极大的热情。他时常在西雅图一家名叫Rover's的法国餐厅做兼职厨师。
When he arrives there for dinner, owner Thierry Rautureau comes out to hug him and pour champagne. There follows a procession of a dozen courses, from black truffles and pureed celery root in smoked game consomme to venison with obscure types of mushrooms, each with different vintage wines. (The bill for two comes to $390, and picking it up assuages my discomfort that Gates had insisted on putting the previous evening's $37 tab at the Indian restaurant on his MasterCard.)
他去那吃晚饭的话，老板Thierry Rautureau会出来给他拥抱，为他倒香槟。接下来，会上十几道菜，从黑松露和烟熏芹菜根泥清汤到鹿肉伴稀有蘑菇，每道菜都会有不同的陈年葡萄酒。（两个人的费用高达390美元，我拿起账单付账以平息我的不适，因为盖茨坚持将昨晚在印度餐厅37美元的费用算到他账上。）
"There are two types of tech companies," Myhrvold says in between pauses to inhale the aroma of the food. "Those where the guy in charge knows how to surf, and those where he depends on experts on the beach to guide him." The key point about Gates is that he knows--indeed loves--the intricacies of creating software. "Every decision he makes is based on his knowledge of the merits. He doesn't need to rely on personal politics. It sets the tone."
“技术公司有两种，”米尔沃闻着食物香味的间歇时说道。“一种是负责人会冲浪的公司，另一种是负责人等着海滩上的专家指导的公司。”关键点就是，盖茨是那种懂得--确切的说是热爱--软件编写中复杂性的老板。“他所做的每个决定都是基于对任务的认识。他不需要依赖个人政治。基调已经定下。”
Myhrvold describes a typical private session with Gates. Pacing around a room, they will talk for hours about future technologies such as voice recognition (they call their team working on it the "wreck a nice beach" group, because that's what invariably appears on the screen when someone speaks the phrase "recognize speech" into the system), then wander onto topics ranging from quantum physics to genetic engineering. "Bill is not threatened by smart people," he says, "only stupid ones."
米尔沃这样描述盖茨典型的私人会晤。他们会在屋里来回踱步，会就将似于语音识别（他们称这个小组为“美好破坏者”，因为在屏幕上总是有一个人对着系统说“识别讲话”，）的未来技术谈论数个小时，然后在从量子物理到基因工程的话题中漫谈。“比尔不会被聪明的人吓倒，”他说，“只会被蠢蛋吓倒。”
Microsoft has long hired based on I.Q. and "intellectual bandwidth." Gates is the undisputed ideal: talking to most people is like sipping from a fountain, goes the saying at the company, but with Gates it's like drinking from a fire hose. Gates, Ballmer and Myhrvold believe it's better to get a brilliant but untrained young brain--they're called "Bill clones"--than someone with too much experience. The interview process tests not what the applicants know but how well they can process tricky questions: If you wanted to figure out how many times on average you would have to flip the pages of the Manhattan phone book to find a specific name, how would you approach the problem?
微软长期以来都是根据智商和“智力带宽”来招募员工的。盖茨就是个无可争议的理想原型：微软公司有这么一个说法，和大多数人交谈就像从喷泉中饮水一样，但是和盖茨聊天就像从消防水栓里喝水一样。盖茨、巴尔默和米尔沃都认为，聪明且未经雕琢的年轻人--他们称之为“比尔克隆人”--比那些很有经验的人更好。面试程序不是测试申请者所知道的，而是他们如何处理充满迷惑性的问题：如果你想知道每次为了找个特定的名字而查阅曼哈顿电话本，平均每次会翻转多少次黄页，你会如何解决这个问题？
Gates' intellect is marked by an ability, as he puts it, to "drill down." On a visit to Time Inc.'s new-media facility, he answered questions from a collection of magazine editors as if by rote, but on his way out he asked to see the Internet servers and spent 45 minutes grilling the claque of awed techies there. Broad discussions bore him, he shows little curiosity about other people, and he becomes disengaged when people use small talk to try to establish a personal rapport. Even after spending a lot of time with him, you get the feeling that he knows much about your thinking but nothing about such things as where you live or if you have a family. Or that he cares.
盖茨智慧的标志就是能力，正如他所说，“不断深入”。参观时代公司新的媒体设施时，他非常程序性地回答了许多杂志编辑的提问，但是在出去的时候他请求看下互联网服务器，并花了45分钟在那里向惊讶的技师们提问。他喜欢广泛的讨论，对别人的没有多少好奇心。别人尝试与他进行私人交谈以建立私人关系时，他会变得心不在焉。即使在和他聊了很长时间之后，你会觉得他更了解你的想法而对你住在哪里、是否成家丝毫没有概念。或者是他关心的话题。
In that regard he is the opposite of, say, Bill Clinton, who brackets the other end of the baby boom: Gates analytically rigorous and emotionally reserved, the President equally smart but intellectually undisciplined and readily intimate. They played golf on Martha's Vineyard once, and the President, as usual, worked hard at bonding emotionally and being personally charming and intimate. He expressed sorrow about the death of Gates' mother, shared the pain of the recent death of his own mother and gave golfing tips to Melinda. But Gates noticed that Clinton never bore in or showed rigorous curiosity about technological issues. Though he vaguely considers himself a Democrat, Gates stayed neutral in the presidential election.
从这方面来看，他和比尔·克林顿代表的婴儿潮尾声的一代完全相反：盖茨在分析上严谨，情感上有所保留；总统先生也同样聪明，但在学识上散漫，随时发展亲密关系。他们曾经在马耳他庄园打过一次高尔夫。和平时一样，总统在结交情感上狠下功夫，在私人关系上拥有魅力，与人亲密。他表达了对盖茨母亲逝世的悲伤之情，并也道出了他母亲前不久逝世的痛苦，并且教给梅琳达打高尔夫的一些小技巧。但是，盖茨注意到克林顿从没钻研过对科技问题，甚至没有一点点好奇心。虽然他似乎表示过他是个民主党人士，但是盖茨在总统选举时保持中立态度。
Warren Buffett, the Omaha, Nebraska, investor whom Gates demoted to being merely the second richest American, seems an unlikely person to be among his closest pals. A jovial, outgoing 66-year-old grandfather, Buffett only recently learned to use a computer. But as multibillionaires go, and they enjoy taking vacations together. Buffett's secretary apologetically explains that Buffett isn't giving interviews these days and at the moment is traveling, but she promises to pass along the request. Less than three hours later, Buffett calls to say he happens to be in the Time & Life Building with some free time between meetings in Manhattan, and he would be happy to come by to be interviewed. He likes to talk about Gates.
来自内布拉斯卡州奥马哈的沃伦·巴菲特是个投资者，仅此于盖茨，是全美第二富有的人。他们似乎不可能成为亲密的伙伴。巴菲特今年66岁，性格开朗快活，是个爷爷辈的人了。他最近才学会如何操作电脑。但同时作为亿万富翁，他们喜欢在一起度假。巴菲特的秘书非常遗憾得解释说，巴菲特这些天都不接受采访，此时他正在履行，但是她承诺她将采访请求传达给他。不到三个小时，巴菲特打电话过来说他刚好在时代生活大厦，并在曼哈顿的一系列会议中间有些空闲，他很高兴过来接受采访。他想和我谈谈盖茨。
His favorite story is about the 1995 excursion to China that Bill and Melinda organized for seven couples. "For part of the trip we stayed on a ship in the Yangtze with five decks that normally accommodates hundreds of people," he says with the glee of a kid describing Walt Disney World. "Each evening Melinda arranged different activities." There was karaoke singing in the ship's ballroom, performances of quickie versions of Shakespeare plays, "and a trivia quiz on such things as how many meals we'd eaten, with prizes that Melinda and Bill handed out." When relaxed, Buffett says, Gates has a fun sense of humor. In the Forbidden City they were given a show of huge ancient scrolls that were silently rolled and unrolled by women trained for the task. "There's a $2 fine," Gates whispered, "if you return a scroll not rewound."
他喜欢的故事就是1995年比尔和梅琳达组织七对夫妇去中国的旅行。“有一段旅程，我们是在扬子江上的一艘五层邮轮上度过的。一般来说，那艘邮轮能承载成百上千人，”他说话的时候就像一个小孩快乐地描述着迪斯尼公园。“每天晚上，梅琳达都会安排不同的活动。”在邮轮舞厅里唱卡拉OK，表演莎士比亚短剧，“还有琐事竞猜，譬如我们已经吃过多少顿饭，比尔和梅琳达还会派送奖品。”巴菲特说，休息的时候，盖茨非常有幽默感。在紫禁城，他们观看了一场巨大的古代春联展，一切都无声地进行，接受过此项培训的女演员们为他们展开和合上一幅幅春联。“发现一副没有合上的春联就会给演员2美元的罚款。”盖茨低声地说。
When Gates decided to propose to Melinda in 1993, he secretly diverted the chartered plane they were taking home from Palm Springs one Sunday night to land in Omaha. There Buffett met them, arranged to open a jewelry store that he owned and helped them pick a ring. That year Gates made a movie for Buffett's birthday. It featured Gates pretending to wander the country in search of tales about Buffett and calling Melinda with them from pay phones. After each call, Gates is shown checking the coin slot for loose change. When she mentions that Buffett is only the country's second richest man, he informs her that on the new Forbes list Buffett had (at least that one year) regained the top spot. The phone suddenly goes dead. "Melinda, Melinda," Gates sputters, "you still there? Hello?"
1993年盖茨决定向梅琳达求婚时，他悄悄地改变了本该在周日晚上从棕榈泉回家的既定飞行路线，而降落在了奥马哈。巴菲特在那里遇到了他们，安排到一个属于他的珠宝店帮他们挑了一个戒指。那年，盖茨为了给巴菲特庆生，特地为他制作了一部电影。电影讲述了盖茨假装周游全国寻找巴菲特的故事，并在公用付费电话给梅琳达打电话。在电影里，盖茨每次打完电话都会检查硬币槽是否还有找零的钱。她提到巴菲特仅仅是全国第二富有的人的时候，盖茨会告诉她，在新的福布斯财富榜上巴菲特已经坐上了头把交椅（至少那一年是这样）。电话突然断线。“梅琳达，梅琳达，”盖茨不停地喊着，“你还在那儿吗？喂？”
Last October Gates brought Melinda and their new daughter to visit Buffett and his wife in San Francisco. They ended up playing bridge for nine hours straight. Another marathon session in Seattle started in the morning and lasted--with a break for Melinda to pick up lunch at Burger King--until guests started arriving for dinner. "He loves games that involve problem solving," Buffett says. "I showed him a set of four dice with numbers arranged in a complex way so that any one of them would on average beat one of the others. He was one of three people I ever showed them to who figured this out and saw the way to win was to make me choose first which one I'd roll." (For math buffs: the dice were nontransitive. One of the others who figured it out was the logician Saul Kripke.)
去年十月份，盖茨带
