What is a day in the life of Bill Gates like?

The world's richest man, Bill Gates, takes a look at what a day in his office looks like.

There are three 21-inch NEC LCDs on the desk, connected to DELL hosts, running WinXP, and holding Table PC in hand. Outlook is obviously open on one of the monitors. The main communication within the company comes from email, and there are very few phone calls/paper/meetings.

The following is part of the interview with Bill Gates:

When you walk into my office, you will find that there are no paper documents here. On my desk, I have three monitors lined up: the screen on the left shows my email list, the screen in the middle is usually where I’m reading or responding to emails, and the screen on the right is used for browsing the web. In this way, I can check whether there are any new emails at any time while working. After receiving a new email, I can also open the link in the email and browse related web pages while reading it.

Today, writing a letter has become a rare thing, and people can’t help but worry: Will emails one day become like this? To this, my answer is "No!" Because you always have some information that you want to target a specific group of people, and you also want them to know that you are guaranteeing your reputation that there will be no problems with accessing this information. So, email will always be a method of communication.

For 15 years, email has been my main way of working. With only two emails (work and personal), I can handle everything. Eventually, those phone numbers will be thrown into the trash and everything will revolve around email usernames. But it's hard for me to get used to instant messaging. If so, how many people will bother me? What would they think if I rejected them?

I receive about 100 emails every day, and I use the whitelist and blacklist functions of the Exchange product to manage my emails. My whitelist is for Microsoft insiders and people I frequently contact, and my blacklist is for people who regularly send me spam. At the same time, the assistant also provides me with a list of other emails so that I can always know what people are saying about Microsoft and their needs.

For each email, my mailbox will classify and label them one by one according to content and importance. That way, once I get to the office, I can focus on the important emails I've marked. If a new email is received, Outlook will also pop up a prompt box at the bottom of the screen on the right, but usually I ignore it unless it is a high-priority topic.

Nowadays, newspapers are no longer indispensable. 90% of the news I get comes from the Internet. When I go out to meetings, I take a laptop with me that is fully synced with my office computer, so I have all the files I need at my fingertips. In addition, I have a note-taking and management software called "OneNote" installed on my laptop, so all my notes are also in digital format.

The whiteboard is one of the rare low-tech gadgets in my office. I have pens in various colors that I use to jot down ideas when discussing with others or thinking alone. In some Microsoft offices, the content on the writing board can be converted into images and sent directly to the computer, which then acts like a giant tablet. My writing pad doesn't have this feature yet, but maybe it will next year. Now, if such a device were available, I would throw away my pen and notebook and jump into it without hesitation.

How to manage two Fortune 500 companies

Carlos Gauson (CEO of Renault and Nissan)

I travel from Paris every month Fly to Tokyo and stay there for 1 to 2 weeks. During this time, I was constantly attending Nissan meetings: executive committee meetings, product design meetings, product decision meetings, investment meetings, board meetings—all the important meetings happened during the week. There are still a lot of meetings waiting for me in Renault, so I am only responsible for making decisions and leaving the specific project implementation to others.

My every month is different. In March, I will stay in the United States for a week (while listening to a report on Nissan's operations in the North American market), then go to Japan for 7 days, and leave the last two weeks to France.

It was fixed, everyone knew I was in Paris the first week and Japan the third week.

In France, Japan and the United States, I have an assistant each who is proficient in two languages ??and is responsible for screening all emails and documents. They knew exactly which topics were of interest to me and which should be forwarded to other board members. This division of labor makes us work more efficiently. Similarly, I also have very strict requirements for non-daily meetings with only one topic: the time should not exceed one and a half hours, half of the time should be used for presentation and half for discussion.

Early morning is the best time to think. I always ask that no meetings be held before 8 o'clock. I usually get up at 6 o'clock, but when I need more time to think, I get up earlier. However, if I cannot ensure 6 hours of sleep, I will be listless at work.

Of course, there are risks in working two jobs at the same time. You might lose some details and have to sacrifice something. When I was at Nissan Japan, I would visit a dealer every month and a factory every two or three months. But now, I can only meet with one dealer every six months and only visit one factory a year.

At the same time, it is also very important to maintain a certain distance from the problem. I don’t take work home with me. On the weekends, I enjoy spending time with my family and playing with my four children. That way, when I go to work on Monday, I'll be able to look at the problem more deeply and maybe have some good ideas.

Eliminate distractions

Bill Gross (Chief Investment Officer of Pimco)

At 4:30 in the morning, I walked down to the basement of my house and opened Bloomberg and Telerate's data terminal to view changes in the 10-year Treasury bond, global bond markets, exchange rates of various currencies, and stock and bond indexes. Then, it’s a 12-minute drive to Newport Beach and onto PIMCO’s trading floor.

The first hour or two is to familiarize yourself with market conditions and various economic data reports. A large number of important macro data (such as GDP, unemployment and other employment statistics) are usually released around 5:30 in the morning. These factors can affect economic growth and rising inflation, which in turn affects bond prices. I must fully understand these situations to make accurate judgments.

For an investment manager, it is particularly important to eliminate distractions. You have to keep the amount of information to a minimum, otherwise your day will be spent reading different viewpoints. I don’t read or reply to emails that I’m not interested in. Unlike those who follow new technologies, I don’t have a mobile phone or a PDA, so unless I take the initiative to contact the outside world, it will be difficult for others to find me. I only make three or four calls a day, except to my wife, and my motto is: I don’t want to be in contact with the outside world, I want to be isolated.

To me, the most important time of the day is not on the trading floor. Every morning at 8:30, I get up from my desk and go to the club across the street to work out. From 8:30 to 10:00, I spent about an hour and a half practicing yoga and fitness there. This hour and a half is the most precious time of my day. Only two or three times in the past 30 years has someone come across the street and told me to get back to the office. Some of my best ideas have actually come to me while doing yoga while standing on my head. I left the office, the noisy environment, and the big screen of Bloomberg News—and what’s more, handstands also increase blood flow to the brain. After about 45 minutes of cycling and 10 to 15 minutes of yoga, maybe a lightbulb will strike.

Take a break, even when working overtime

Lafley (Chairman and President of Procter & Gamble)

I have learned how to regulate my energy. In the past I only paid attention to how to manage my time. I get up between 5 and 5:30 in the morning. I exercise first, then go to the office between 6:30 and 7:00, and then work hard until 7:00 pm. When I get home from get off work, I get together with my wife for a while before getting back to work.

There are a lot of things waiting for me every day, so I pay great attention to adjusting my mental and physical state.

The first year I took this job, I worked every Saturday and Sunday morning. Now, I focus on working for an hour or an hour and a half. Then, I will take a break of 5 to 15 minutes, walk around and chat with everyone.

I learned this from a “Corporate Athletes” event held by Procter & Gamble for managers. During that two-day event, I also learned to change my eating habits. In the past, I almost skipped breakfast. Now I'm going to have a glass of juice and a cup of yogurt and eat half a bagel. And I eat five or six times a day to control my blood sugar levels. I don’t want my blood sugar levels to go up and down.

Another aspect of the Corporate Athlete program is mental, which is about achieving peace of mind. I am learning to meditate. I travel for work 60% of the time, and when I do, I find that five, 10, or 15 minutes of meditation in my hotel room at night can be just as effective as working out. Overall, I feel like I know myself better than I did before. This all helps me stay calm under intense pressure.

I like talking to people. This is the best way to understand other people's ideas and avoid arbitrary and stupid decisions. Because of this, my office, as well as the entire senior manager area, is open plan. Generally speaking, the CEO's office is not usually a warm and welcoming place, but to make people feel like they could come and talk to me, we had funny-looking pink and chartreuse chairs with cushions and backrests. It is soft and the frame is made of chromed metal. Facts have proved that this is very effective. A relaxed environment will not make people feel nervous and restrained, so that they can speak freely.

On Sunday evening, I will be speaking with Dick Anthony from Human Resources about our leadership development program. We began this effort not long after I became CEO because I knew the greatest contribution I could make to the company was to help the next generation of leaders be their best.

Phones are everywhere

Hank Paulson (Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs)

I have never used email, but I'm a big fan of voicemail. I deal with hundreds of voicemails a day, and I respond to every call immediately, whether the caller is a customer or an employee. Occasionally, when difficult people call, I refer them to my assistant, Julie. But Julie never screens my voicemails. People at Goldman Sachs have to be able to reach me at all times, and clients have to be able to reach me.

I've been spending a lot of time on the phone. Even in the 1980s, when cell phones were still a novelty, I started using them. At that time, in Chicago, I walked out of the train station and went straight to the office while holding a brick-like Motorola mobile phone to make a call. This Christmas, my wife Wendy, my daughter Amanda, and my son-in-law and I spent 10 days hiking in Chile. During this time, my daughter took many photos of me talking on my big satellite phone.

In the first week after returning to the office in January this year, my boss called 60 CEOs and wished them a happy New Year. I've never done this before, but it's awesome. I asked them about the growth of their company and their relationship with Goldman Sachs.

I spend one-third of my time developing Goldman Sachs’ people and corporate culture. I made time to go to business school and personally run recruiting. Last year we held a Chairman’s Forum with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of business judgment. I gave no less than 25 lectures, and all 1,200 Goldman Sachs general managers in Asia, Europe and the United States attended my lectures. This is building company culture, and the subtle influence is sometimes more powerful and lasting.

40% of the company's revenue comes from markets outside the United States, so I need to travel frequently. The body is the capital of revolution, so I never forget to exercise even when I am on a business trip. Every time I go to China (about 70 times in the past 16 years), I take a flight that arrives at 6 a.m., which is also the earliest time for the plane to land. As soon as I checked into the hotel, I went straight to the gym to ride a bicycle. Then, starting from 8 o'clock, I worked continuously until 9 o'clock in the evening. The next day everything was business as usual. I would make sure to leave in the evening so that I could be back at work in my office in New York early the next morning.