I’ve recently got a new OLED TV and wanted to see something in 4K, so I started with Netflix and the first thing that popped out was this three part documentary about Bill Gates. It is interesting how it was divided in parts instead of making just one movie, sure there were three different stories, but I don’t think anyone would watch this documentary one by one in a span of couple of weeks. My guess you would either binge it or you would stop whenever.
The visual quality was indeed great, it looked very real on the big screen, although there was some historical footage, which was so blurry you couldn’t recognize faces (but it was very rare).
I’m not a movie critic and I don’t watch a lot of documentaries (unfortunately), but I’ve had a couple of thoughts while watching this I wanted to share.
Western Rich
Although I’m very interested in western culture and I’m much more knowledgeable about it than most of my friends and acquaintances it was still shocking to see two of the richest people in the world talking in the car with one of them driving. I know it is part of the acting, but still, they looked very natural and I don’t see Russian richest people behaving the same way.
The Reason Behind Windows 8
It’s not a secret that Windows 8 was one of the most hated operating systems in recent time, with all those tiles and all-screen interfaces. I didn’t hate it, but it was not loved by me either, but looking at the shots of Gates working I could see how all those decisions got made. Focused management work, you read one article at a time, you write in one document – I bet it worked perfectly for him and a lot of senior management in Microsoft.
Also, as a side note, it was interesting seeing Microsoft ecosystem there, with PCs, Microsoft Outlook, Office etc. As someone who is all-in with Apple, refreshing look.
Books
I was surprised to see Bill reading paper books, I even got a desire to read couple of physical books myself. For the longest time I’m reading either on my iPad or iPhone and lately added audiobooks.
Also the amount of reading is astonishing and those are not thin novels or bullshit leadership books. They are deep and focused on something very niche and to be able to read 14 books in the span of two weeks is just amazing.
Nuclear Power
I actually like the way it was portrayed in this TV show. Because of the two big disasters in the minds of the people of course it has a bad rap in minds, but looking forward it is the most realistic source of energy from what we have available right now.
It looks more like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ad and story about it and all the work it does than a story about Bill’s brain. It’s not a bad thing, they do interesting and important work, but I was hoping for something different considering the name of the documentary.
All this talk about reading and Gates says almost nothing about it during the documentary. You hear other people describing it, but it would be much more interesting to hear the process from Bill Gates himself.
You get a glimpse of how he manages his time (or someone is managing it for him), but a more deep dive would be appreciated.
Looking at the name of the documentary and my expectations I would love a more personal story about himself and not the foundation.