Watching non-programmers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf.
In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions, and not a ‘party line’. Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.
The Internet? We are not interested in it.
Bill Gates in 1993
Simplicity is hard to build, easy to use, and hard to charge for. Complexity is easy to build, hard to use, and easy to charge for.
I’ve never been impressed by middle-ground or art-of-the-possible stuff. Why would people bother with politics if that’s all they wanted to do? If you weren’t trying to see if you could expand the art of the possible, break the limits of the feasible, redefine it, expand it—why would you bother? Who wants to be just a manager?
Even his drinking, though still heavy, has been rationalised. If he is an alcoholic, he is a controlled, high-functioning one. He makes a display of comparing the prettiness of his youth with ‘the mammal you now see before you.’
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:Documents and SettingsbillgMy DocumentsMy Pictures seem clear.
Bill Gates, in an email sent after trying, and failing, to download and install Microsoft Movie Maker.
The word design is everything and nothing. We think of design as not just the product’s appearance, it’s what the product is, how it works. The design and the product itself are inseparable.
Your new bill for DIRECTV account 1234567890 is now available online. Your total amount due is No Payment Due. Payment is due by No Payment Due.
DirecTV, in the statement emailed to me today. How can such a simple problem be solved so poorly?
It was later that afternoon when Steve and I realized we had a common problem with finding new and interesting content every morning (and again when we were bored at class during the day, or in the library, or…) I was the one with about twenty tabs open and Steve had long been a Slashdot user and student of great community content. Somehow it became the problem we’d solve, Paul Graham seized it and aptly titled our quest, ‘building the front page of the web.’