So Bill Gates is preparing to retire as CEO of Microsoft. Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to make and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, an early computer that was sold to hobbyists. Gates dropped out of Harvard University in his third year to focus on Microsoft, and the rest, as they say, his history.  For an upcoming Forbes article, I was asked to consider lessons that can be learned from Gates’ amazing career, and here are a few I came up with:

• Gates had a vision of the future that he genuinely believed in (i.e. the potential of computers) and was prepared to take major personal and professional risks to pursue that vision.  He is a man who has never particularly cared what people thought, and so he was able to do things that went against the grain, such as dropping out of Harvard and alienating those who cried antitrust.   We can note, looking at Gates, that those who aren't overly concerned with society's expectations actually have a better shot of transforming that society for the better.

• Even though he was successful at a young age, Gates never sat back and reveled in it.  He continually strove for higher levels of achievement.  His management style was hands-on so that he could firmly control the direction of Microsoft and its products.  He is not a leader who has relied on others to make important decisions on product strategy and other facets of the business, which cuts both ways.  On the one hand, he can count himself personally responsible for Microsoft's many successes, but on the other, he likely suffered a great deal of burnout, which may be part of the reason he's retiring so early.  We should ultimately strive for a working life that allows for some measure of control while leveraging the contributions and talents their of team members.

• Gates was not afraid of failure.  He was never apposed to without trying various tactics to see what would work for Microsoft  – and what wouldn’t.  In his speeches and articles, he has been known to tell of the significant investment in time and dollars that went into failed projects like the Omega database and a joint operating system with IBM.  But if it weren’t for Omega, we wouldn’t have Microsoft Access, and if it weren’t for the discontinued IBM effort, Windows would not have progressed to its current super-product status.  We can learn from Gates that temporary setbacks do not equal total failure but are rather a means to an end. 

• Whether through a natural ability or one he honed over time, Gates knows himself and what's meaningful to him.  He let Ballmer take over in 2000 so that he could focus on the areas of the business that intrigued him most, and it's widely recognized how much time and money he devotes to his philanthropic endeavors of global health and education.  It's even said that he's an excellent father.  We should look at Gates as someone who has been successful as a total human being, not just as a businessman.  This is, admittedly, a new definition for success, but one that's becoming increasingly important as the boundaries between the personal and the professional continue to blur.