American Public Media's Marketplace interviewed John Battelle among others about Bill Gates's management style and legacy. The days of in-house chefs and masseuses may be behind us, but the spirit is alive here at FM. We've recently instituted the very popular "Take 48" policy. We're bringing back the weekend!
Here's some of the transcript from John's interview. Listen to the piece here.
John Battelle co-founded Wired Magazine. He says Microsoft was the pioneer of the new-agey workplace, making work as comfortable, inspiring and fun as possible so workers would spend lots of time there.
John Battelle: And as a matter of fact, at Wired we adopted that stuff. We had a chef and a masseuse, all sorts of services, because we wanted our employees to stick around. I believe Microsoft gets a lot of credit for that.
Bill Gates didn't even finish college, but the office culture he created at Microsoft is now being taught at the country's top business schools.... And it's not just industry that's looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration. Journalist John Battelle says the Microsoft culture that fostered and rewarded innovation is now being applied in other areas.
Battelle: People are turning to this philosophy to try to solve some of the world's hairier problems like global warming, geopolitical conflict...
