Bill Gates: "Challenges and Strategy"

To: Jim Allchin, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Jeremy Butler, Pam Edstrom, Frank Gaudette, Aaron Getz, Gary Gigot, Rob Glaser, Pete Higgins, Joachim Kempin, Jon Lazarus, Rich Macintosh, Mike Maples, Paul Maritz, Dave Marquardt, Bob McDowell, Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Neukom, Scott Oki, Jeff Raikes, Darryl Rubin, Brad Silverberg, Chris Smith, Marty Taucher, Bernard Vergnes, Melissa Waggener, Min Yee
From: Bill Gates
Date: May 16, 1991
Subject: Challenges and Strategy

Prologue: The Reason for this Memo

Every year I set aside at least one “think week” to get away and update myself on the latest technical developments - reading PhD theses, using competitive products, reading books, newsletters and anything I can get my hands on. Several valuable thoughts have come out of these retreats (tables for Word, outlining in Excel, treating DOS as more of an asset), however the complexity of the industry and its technology means that a lot of my time is spent just trying to keep up rather than coming up with new product ideas. It is no longer possible for any person, even our “architects”, to understand everything that is going on. Networking, processors, linguistics, multimedia, development tools, and user interfaces are just a subset of the technologies that will affect Microsoft. My role is to understand enough to set direction. I enjoy these weeks a great deal - not because I get away from the issues of running Microsoft but rather because I get to think more clearly about how to best lead the company away from problems and toward opportunities. A lot of people choose things for me to read. By the end of the week I make an effort to synthesize the best ideas and make our technical strategy clear.

This year I decided to write a memo about overall strategy to the executive staff. As we have grown and faced new challenges my opportunities to speak to each of you directly has been greatly reduced. Even the aspects of our strategy that remain unchanged are worth reinforcing.