当代最伟大的12位企业家

2. 比尔•盖茨

公司名称：微软

销售额: 699亿美元

市值：2,735亿美元

员工人数：90,000

建议：找到最聪明的人，组建小型团队

    比尔•盖茨是极少数能有机会在一生中两次改变世界的企业家：第一次，作为全球最具影响力的技术怪才，他帮助推动了个人电脑革命。如今，他作为全球最慷慨的慈善家，正在积极应对全球医疗卫生和公共教育这两大长期挑战。

    如果说盖茨过去领导微软（Microsoft）和如今作为联席主席领导比尔和梅琳达•盖茨基金会（Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation）有何相似之处，那就是都注重聘请最聪明的人，用小型团队来解决重大问题。“别无选择，”他说。“挑选编程员时，必须选高智商的人。”

    有一次被问到他最出色的商业决定是什么时，盖茨不假思索地回答，归根结底是选人。“选择和保罗•艾伦共同创业或许是最明智的决定，其次是聘请了朋友史蒂夫•鲍尔默（接替盖茨担任微软首席执行官一职）。拥有一些完全信赖的人非常重要，他们全力以赴，与你有共同的愿景，但具备的技能又略有不同，因此在某种程度上对你也是一种约束。”

    56岁的盖茨谈到鲍尔默时称：“你和他讲一些想法，他会说，‘嗨，等等。你想过这样或那样吗？’和一个这么聪明的人交谈，好处是它不仅会让生意变得更有意思，而且真地会带来巨大的成功。”

2. Bill Gates

Company: Microsoft

Sales: $69.9 billion

Market Value: $273.5 billion

Employees: 90,000

Advice: Find very smart people and create small teams.

    Bill Gates is one of the very few extraordinary entrepreneurs who have had the opportunity to change the world twice in one lifetime: First, as the world's most influential geek, he helped usher in the personal computer revolution. Now he is tackling the stubbornly difficult challenges of global health and public education as the world's most generous philanthropist.

    If there is a similarity between how he led Microsoft and how he is leading the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as its co-chair, it's a focus on hiring very smart people and putting them to work in small teams to solve big issues. "There is no way of getting around that," he has said. "In terms of IQ, you've got to be very elitist in picking the people who deserve to write software."

    Once asked what his best business decision was, Gates replied without hesitation that it came down to picking people. "Deciding to go into business with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list, and subsequently hiring a friend, Steve Ballmer [Gates' successor as CEO at Microsoft]. It's important to have someone who you totally trust, who is totally committed, who shares your vision, yet who has a little bit different set of skills and who also acts as something of a check on you."

    Says the 56-year-old Gates about Ballmer: "Some of the ideas you run by him, you know he's going to say, `Hey, wait a minute. Have you thought about this or that?' The benefit of speaking off somebody who's got that kind of brilliance is that it not only makes business more fun, but it really leads to a lot of success."