A satirical guide using Bill Gates' 1998 antitrust deposition with lawyer David Boies to show five tactics tech CEOs could use to deflect government scrutiny: project confidence through posture, stall by demanding definitions, stay calm with laughter, show disdain, and keep questioning stuck.
Yo people, we're back. Hustle Hot Takes episode 3. You see here, proper audio this time. And we got a new team member, Alex, who will be making these videos way better than when me, the total amateur, were editing them. Okay, so this week on Hustle Hot Takes, we'll be talking about tech antitrust. Of course, all over the news is that the US government will be grilling the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook, the Four Horsemen, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Zuckmaster Flex, and the topic will be antitrust, and I want to give these captains of industry some advice on how to handle this situation. Now, to get that advice, I went all the way back to 1998 and found video footage of William Henry Gates, AKA Bill Gates, getting grilled by David Boies, famed lawyer who actually represented Al Gore during the Gore v. Bush presidential Supreme Court case. There's over 10 hours of deposition video on YouTube. It is incredible, and I went through all of it to the dismay of my family. But with that, I found some gold and have 5 tips here on how to handle government antitrust.
So the first thing that you need to establish is that you're a cool cat. You're not gonna let government pressure and the threat of breaking up a $100 billion company scare you. So what you see here with William Henry Gates, aka Bill Gates, is that he's got this pose going on here. This is the I'm one of the 2 or 3 richest people in the world pose. Now, I can tell you right now, by doing this, I already feel richer. I feel the power surging through me. So as we watch this clip, watch how calm and collected Bill Gates is.
Increasing, um, IE share on Mac.
Genius.
It's tip number 1.
Now tip number 2 is you need to stall. You don't want them getting to the hard-hitting questions. And one way to do that, one surefire way, is you make them define every single word along the way of their prosecution, all the questions they have. Now you'll see here that Mr. Gates asked David Boies, the lawyer, to define the word definition. This is textbook stalling and frankly quite genius and perfectly executed.
Okay, so if you define definition for this conversation in a loose way, genius, then I'll understand what you mean.
Define definition. So tip number 3 is related to the first tip. You know, body language, 90% of communication. You need to be calm, collected, and cool.
And one way you do that, obviously, is just to be laughing and kind of lighthearted.
And watch here as Mr. Gates just lets out a very guttural and kind of primal laugh. He's setting the stage and he's telling the lawyer David Boies and the US government, "I'm cool, I'm cool, okay? You can't make me uncool. I'm gonna laugh and have a good time." So let's watch this.
Um, so I got a half—
Oh my gosh, did you— So he just like, he let it build up and we need to rewatch it. He let it build up.
Watch this.
So, I'm gonna ask you what you mean by—
Alright, so tip number 4, there's the other coin of the laughing and smiling. Sometimes, you know, you just want to show complete disdain and that you don't really care and you got better things to do. And quite frankly, if I was the richest person in the world, I'd probably have better things to do than be sitting in this uncomfortable looking chair getting roasted by David Boies, one of the greatest prosecution attorneys of the 20th century, right? I got better things to do. So how you do that? How do you communicate that idea?
Doug Yates does it with a rock.
Okay, so the last tip here Goes back to the idea of stalling. And what you want to do, and what Bill Gates demonstrates here, is that you never want the questions to move forward. It's always about staying stuck in place or going backwards. Now watch here as Mr. Gates tries to get David Boies to ask him the previous question backwards. Key here: backwards.
Yeah, it's sort of different in late life. Okay, then let me ask the question so that record is clear. What's your— what's your— you don't want to let me answer the last one? Oh, if that's what you're going to answer, let's read the question.
Okay, there you go, captains of industry. Mr. Cook, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuck Master Flex, Mr. Pichai, use these tools. They're at your disposal. And if you, the watcher, learned anything or enjoyed that, please subscribe, leave some comments below, and drop a like. Thank you very much.
Okay.
