Bill Gates answers questions about Java during a deposition (1998) [video]

I&#x27;m stealing one of the YouTube comments, because I actually thought it was pretty interesting. I started watching this thinking the interviewer was an idiot, but I think the issue is a little more complicated than it seems at first. Comment from YouTube user &quot;tapo&quot;:<p>So in the 90&#x27;s Sun Microsystems created Java, which has two components, the programming language and the runtime. The runtime (the Java you install) lets you run things written in Java on any device regardless of OS or CPU architecture. Write once, run anywhere. This was a huge threat to Microsoft. Why write Windows programs when you could write Java programs and they&#x27;d run on any computer?<p>So Microsoft wrote their own Java runtime called the MS JVM, and made it part of Windows, it extended Java to do Windows-only things, meaning there were now &quot;Java&quot; apps that could only run on Windows, destroying the whole point of Java.<p>This became part of the antitrust trial because it ruined Sun&#x27;s product. In a separate case, Sun sued Microsoft and won.

This is surprisingly interesting to watch.<p>The way he responds is almost like he is playing a high-level chess match, which is unfortunately absolutely necessary because the person deposing him is fishing for a simple &quot;yes&quot; answer to a question without all the context he already provided (so that this can be introduced in a dramatic way such that even if those deciding the case get the full context later they will have already made up their mind that &quot;Java == Competitive Threat&quot; based on the introduction).<p>Having been on a 6 week long jury trial that included a lot of these sorts of deposition &quot;revelations&quot; where people (who you&#x27;d think would be smarter, though it is difficult to adjust for how much stress this sort of questioning puts them under) said something that sounded terrible in local context (but innocuous in the wider context that the defense later showed), the local context that is introduced first is really all that sticks with a lot of people, if the majority of the people on my jury were any indication.<p>In this case, all of his answers are smart, which isn&#x27;t that surprising since like him or not Bill Gates is clearly a really smart fellow (and one who was surely coached for this up-front by a crack legal team).

From 32m 50s, one of the most wonderfully pedantic exchanges I&#x27;ve heard:<p>Q: Did you send this email Mr. Gates, on or about Aug 8, 1987?<p>A: I don’t remember sending it.<p>Q: Do you have any doubt that you sent it?<p>A: No it appears to be an email I sent.<p>Q: You recognize that this is a document produced from Microsoft’s files, do you not?<p>A: No.<p>Q: You don’t?<p>A: Well how would I know that?<p>Q: Well, you see the document production numbers down at the bottom?<p>A: I have no idea what those numbers are.<p>Q: Do you recognize this as the form in which email has been printed out by Microsoft?<p>A: I don’t know what that means. All email printed by anyone looks just like this. So the fact that it looks like this doesn’t give me any clue as to who printed it.<p>Q: Well, let’s begin with that sir. E-mail printed out by other people are not stamped with Microsoft confidential stamps and Microsoft document production numbers. You would agree with that?<p>A: That has nothing to do with printing out.<p>Q: Do you understand my question sir?<p>A: Nope.<p>Q: Okay. Do you see down at the bottom where there are “confidential” stamps, and a stamp that says “Attorneys only”, document production stamps? Do you see those?<p>A: I see the stamps. I can’t characterize whether they’re document production stamps. To me they look more like you’d see on a prisoner’s uniform.<p>Q: You don’t have any knowledge about these stamps, it is your testimony? You don’t know what they are?<p>A: I’ve never seen a stamp like that. I’ve never used a stamp like that.<p>Q: Haven’t you seen stamps like that in every single one of the documents that you’ve been shown during this deposition?<p>A: (To counsel) Can you get me all the exhibits?

Depositions are unnatural, legally technical situations. For an amusing treatment, see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/opinion/verbatim-what-is-a-photocopier.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;28&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;verbatim-what-is-a...</a>

I&#x27;m not sure anyone here has watched the entire video. The lawyer catches on real quick to what Bill Gates is trying to say, and it appears like Bill Gates is being overly semantic to try and avoid answering the question.<p>Later on around the 30 minute mark is when Bill Gates begins to stutter and constantly avoids directly answering the correctly phrased questions.

Thank you for a great submission.<p>Can anyone clarify how this lawyer system works in regard to the involvement of fields they are not intimately familiar? I mean, I know certain lawyers specialises in tech or corporate matters, but it is entirely unrealistic for someone to both be knee-deep in matters of the law <i>and</i> technology (or any other matter they are not necessarily trained in). Do they consult with tech experts? Study up? Guess their way through?<p>I&#x27;m just reminded of what i see as totally botched lawmaking in fields where it seems a certain level of education in that field would be required to make sound decisions on it&#x27;s behalf. Might be of other reasons than education (i.e. privacy vs government power), but watching this I can&#x27;t help but feel there&#x27;s a correlation.<p>I assume the chasm is only getting greater the more layers of abstraction we add to our technology stack. We&#x27;re already seeing situations where the only one who can discuss a given case properly, is the accused himself.

Having been through a deposition myself, one of the most useful and crucial phrases to remember is &quot;I don&#x27;t remember&quot;. It is human nature in such situations to try and present yourself authoritatively, and to answer questions in a positive and detailed way. However, the absolute worst thing that can and often does happen is for the interviewer&#x2F;lawyer to get you to elaborate on something and say you remember x or y happening, then presenting evidence to the contrary. If you don&#x27;t know, or you aren&#x27;t sure, or prefer not to answer the question, just say &quot;I don&#x27;t know&quot; or &quot;I don&#x27;t remember&quot;.

It must be hard sitting there thinking to yourself &quot;these people here have no idea what the hell they are talking about&quot;, repeating the same answers over and over again.<p>Therefore, i think he is handling the situation rather well.

This is from part 6, priceless:<p>Q And first let me ask a general question, and that is: Did you believe that from Microsoft&#x27;s standpoint it was desirable to have as many pure Java applications as possible?<p>A We weren&#x27;t focused on that as a goal, no.<p>Q In fact, is it fair to say that you preferred fewer pure Java applications to more pure Java applications?<p>A We preferred more applications that took advantage of our APIs, and so we worked with ISVs to maximize the number that took advantage of our APIs.<p>Q And your APIs were not pure Java APIs; correct?<p>A No. Some were, and some weren&#x27;t.<p>Q Yes, sir, some were, and some weren&#x27;t. But the APIs that you wanted people to use were APIs that were not pure Java APIs; correct, sir?<p>A No. We were glad to have people use both.<p>Q Were you indifferent as to whether they used your pure Java APIs or your proprietary APIs?<p>MR. HEINER: Objection.<p>THE WITNESS (Bill Gates): You&#x27;ve introduced the word proprietary, and that completely changes the question. So help me out, what do you want to know?<p>Q BY MR. BOIES: Is the term &quot;proprietary API&quot; a term that you&#x27;re familiar with, sir?<p>A I don&#x27;t know what you mean by it.<p>Q Is it a term you&#x27;re familiar with in your business?<p>A I really don&#x27;t know what you mean. You mean an API that you have a patent on?

Can anyone explain why the lawyer is so keen on making Bill Gates to confirm that he thought that Java is a competitive threat?

I don&#x27;t get it. Is this the same deposition which was such disastrous that the judge laughed in court while the video tape was being played? <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/17/judgelaugh.ms.idg/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;TECH&#x2F;computing&#x2F;9811&#x2F;17&#x2F;judgelaugh.ms....</a><p>I talked it over with a law-school friend of mine and he agrees that the initial deposition was handled very badly by Gates, so much so that it is used as an example of &quot;what not to do in a deposition&quot; in law schools. I wonder what people here are praising Gates about. :)<p>Edit: Here&#x27;s another article: <a href="http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/12/07/252139/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.fortune.com&#x2F;magazines&#x2F;fortune&#x2F;fortune_archive...</a>

Handles it like a champ IMHO.

This article[1] is worth mentioning in this context as we talk about Microsoft&#x27;s anti-trust policies.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hanselman.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx</a>

You really see the pragmatic, poker playing mentality that Gates has been described as here.

23:48 - <a href="http://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;HhdDZk45HDI?t=23m48s</a><p>My attention perked as I expected to hear a familiar phrase from Pinky &amp; the Brain, and it would have fit the context.

This is pretty painful to watch - he seem very awkward - its pretty funny when he gets pissed off at the guy about 5 minutes it &quot;Give me a break!&quot;

Hmmm.. The Microsoft-Apple deal in 1997 wasn&#x27;t signed when Jobs made the announcement. He just went through it. Was that known? It&#x27;s @40:10

Incredibly diplomatic.

Trivia: The last MSJVM updates were actually the DST updates released in 2007 under the extended hotfix support for DST program (that costed $4,000 per year). Not for the US DST changes, but the ones in Australia and other countries.

I&#x27;m always surprised by how idiots who haven&#x27;t the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.

Bill Gates has some serious swag

Even though I generally dislike the man, I gotta say I admire how he handled that. Especially considering how much of a prick the other person was being.<p>If I had been in the same scenario, eventually I would have responded:<p>&quot;Are you trying to obtuse or are do you simply lack basic comprehension skills?&quot;