In the 1990s, Bill Gates flew to Austin to figure out why this founder's company was beating Microsoft for top talent. Gates reviewed every offer line by line. The founder won by promising ski trips and personal attention, arguing Gates couldn't do that at Microsoft's scale.
Microsoft would win 90% of college graduates back then, and we against them won 70%. Bill Gates literally flew down to Austin to figure out why we were getting the best graduates. Dinner, and he's literally going through every single person that we had made an offer to. You know, there's Fred here, and you're offering him back then $48,000. We think he's like a $38,000 guy. It was crazy, the level of detail he went through. What was your response to Bill Gates during that dinner? He's like, I'm gonna call every single candidate who has a Trilogy offer and a Microsoft offer. And I'm like, I need candidates more than you do, Bill. I'll bring them on a trip and we'll do a, a week ski trip and I'll ask them, how was the last time you'll ever talk to Bill Gates? Because he's never gonna have time to talk to you again because he's got tens of thousands of employees.
