Jeff Raikes
Jeff Raikes
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Raikeswas the chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Until early 2008, Raikes was the President of the Microsoft Business Division and oversaw the Information Worker, Server & Tools Business and Microsoft Business Solutions Groups. He joined Microsoft in 1981 as a product manager. He retired from Microsoft in September 2008, after a transitional period, to join the Gates Foundation. Raikes is credited with driving much of Microsoft’s early work in business applications. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth29 May 1958
CountryUnited States of America
IBM legitimized the notion of the PC -- that it would not be just a hobbyist computer.
The software business was dominated by hardware companies, and everybody thought they would just come in and wipe us out. People forget that Microsoft took a huge bet to think that an independent operating system and programming language would be successful.
There's a lot of good that's done for society in building businesses, but it's also great to be involved in those things where you can be connected to the community, to the world, and think about how you can use what you're creating, both in terms of your personal skills as well as your products or services to do good things for others.
Lawyers don't run sales forces.
I'm a person who enjoys the hands-on experience of anything I do. Get your hands dirty - that's the thing that drives and motivates me.
One of my great values that my father intuited, and indirectly taught me, is that you should always have a plan but be open to opportunity.
When families save, they can get through emergencies like a bad harvest or a medical emergency. But it's more than that. They can also plan for the future, gradually saving up for a small business or for their children's school tuition.
At Microsoft, the magic of software is used to take on very interesting challenges.
Even bad results teach you something, and you can learn your lessons and get better.
You know, being an entrepreneur is super hard work, and if you're not passionate about what you're doing, you're probably not going to succeed.
Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people to find, use and share critical business information quickly.
In business, the market gives you feedback in real time. Your sales figures tell you what's working, what isn't, and how you need to change. If you don't listen to the feedback, you go belly up. In philanthropy, there is no market.
In business, there's a constant focus on developing strategies, reviewing executive performance against those strategies each year, engaging with opposing or different points of view, and having intellectual dialogue.
In order to succeed... you have to put a stake in the ground.