Ep 153 | Bill Gates' Think Week

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about Bill Gates and Bill Gates' concept known as Think Week. Think Week. So many of you may have heard of Bill Gates and Think Week. I'm sure you've heard of Bill Gates. I hope you've heard of Bill Gates. Um, but, uh, you may have heard of Think Week, but many, many probably have not. And, and what is it? The first, first time I heard about this Think Week idea, I can't remember the name of the book, but it was a book that was assigned to me in a mastermind I was participating in. And it was about these, these innovative ideas. These crazy ideas that changed the course of a business forever. And when it went through Microsoft, it talked around Bill Gates' commitment to this process, this concept known as Think Week, as being, as being the game changer or a game changer in the trajectory of Microsoft. So, you know, it's important, you know, it's a big idea. Bill Gates' Think Week is this concept that's been part of his world for many years. I think he started doing it sometime in the 1980s when he was CEO of Microsoft, and he still continues to do it today, even though he retired from Microsoft quite some time ago. The idea here is that Gates goes away to a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere without phone, without internet, without real, really any connection. As a matter of fact, I think he has some sort of caregiver drop off his food. Like he has like no interaction, no connection. He goes away to this remote cabin in the woods and he takes a week of uninterrupted time to read, you know, books, to read papers, to read things that back in the Microsoft days, his, uh, his, his fellow executives and his engineers and his core people or his key people were giving to him. He would read, he would study, he would think deeply. And he would, you know, give a tremendous amount of effort into trying to uncover and understand the future of technology and what Microsoft's role was going to be in all of it. So here's how, here's how it would work, right? Gates would take off and he'd create the solitude. Like I said, he was at the secluded cabin somewhere, somewhere around the state of Washington where he resided. He was probably near water, minimal distractions, and he would unplug from the work routine. Like he was done with email. He was done with phone calls. He was done with other responsibilities. And during this time he'd read, he'd had a ton of documents and papers and books and reports. Uh, from what I understand, it was not just like dozens, but hundreds of these reports that he'd read. And he would literally read and study for 18 hours a day. There was no distraction from this. He would just focus on his reading. The materials covered all sorts of things, all different sorts of topics. Maybe it was, uh, scientific advancements. Maybe it was analysis of his competition. Maybe it was around new ideas submitted to him by his engineers or around trends. He was studying. He was learning. Once he would read, Once he'd gather intel, he would think, he would spend his days thinking deeply about what he was reading. He'd contemplate and he'd come up with new ideas and new insights. And some of these things probably made no sense whatsoever, but some of them made massive sense in that they changed the course of the company. He would take notes. He would take extensive notes. He'd write down ideas. He'd write down questions. I feel bad for all the people that work around him because I'm sure when he got home, he was firing off these notes and these ideas and these questions to all of his peers. But he would take these notes, he'd organize his thoughts. And then after feedback, like I said, he'd share his insights and his findings with, with, with his key people. So the results of Think Week had a massive impact on Microsoft's decisions and their product development. And not only, you know, did it, did it impact, say, you know, Gates's path with respect to Microsoft, even still today, 13, 14, 15 years post-Gates, the company still sends its executives off on, on their own version of Think Week so that they can think and contemplate and study and read and bring that in, bring that knowledge back and shape the company for years to come. Now, some of the ideas that came out of Gates' Think Week, uh, his internet strategy. He thought quite a bit, or I mean, if you think about the '80s and '90s, you know, pre-internet, he realized the significance of the internet and he realized the potential impact on the software industry. And he recognized this during his Think Week and this led to the refocusing of Microsoft strategy, which is where, you know, it ultimately created Internet Explorer, which has had a profound impact on the internet. He thought around tablet computing. He had a vision for tablet computing in the early days, well before most others, and he saw potential of this during his sessions. This is why Microsoft got into the tablet PC. He wrote a memo in 2002 on trustworthy computing. Which highlighted the importance of security in the software industry. It was a game changer for the industry at large. He also came up with, or shaped different ideas, like, like an online video game system, something that I think was submitted to him for consideration by a lower ranking engineer, but it made its way onto the docket for that week. And he read about this online gaming concept, and Microsoft went to work on it when he, when he returned home. So, so the lower-ranking, the key, the lower-ranking employees that were not necessarily as key people would fight to get their papers, their ideas in front of Gates, and they try to do it during that week. So Think Week is, is responsible for an awesome, an awesome amount, an incredible amount of successes. It's also impacted the broader culture at, at Microsoft. So I'm talking about Think Week today because this is a really, really big idea. This is a really big idea. And Gates did it twice a year. He took 14 days and this is, you know, one time the wealthiest person on the planet. His time is valuable. And, and Bill saw that these 14 days secluded in the woods where he could disconnect and read He saw that so valuable. He did it 14 days out of the year at his hourly wage. I'm not even going to try to compute that, but there's a guy saying, hey, some of the most valuable time I could spend is alone by myself thinking. It begs the question, why are we not doing the same? Right? I'd like to think Bill has a pretty good understanding as to what leads to success, right? Success in, in, in business, especially. And if Bill going away at his wage and his responsibilities for 14 days a year, uh, is, is, gives me an indication as to how he thinks about what, what the keys are to success, maybe, just maybe it's right for you and right for me. So I'm sharing this idea because I believe it to be profound. I believe that thinking time is critical. We've talked about that on many different episodes here at, at No Days Off. And I wanted to tell the Bill Gates story because that big idea changed the trajectory of Microsoft. And I'm wondering what ideas— I think the focusing question for you, what are your big ideas? You know, if you don't have any, which can you borrow? And, and of those ideas that you could borrow, maybe, just maybe consider this Think Week. What would it look like for you if you took off for a retreat? 3 days, 4 days, 7 days, whatever you could pull off. What would your think week entail? What would you read? What would you take notes on? What would you brainstorm? What would you hope to get out of it? Where would you go? What would you eat? I think it's a fun exercise. I'm going to challenge you today to consider what your think week could look like and maybe, just maybe, get one on the calendar. May not have to be 7 days, so it's not a full week, but maybe it's 2 or 3 and you start there and see what you come away with. That's all we have for you today, the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.