Let’s get dangerous

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Bill Gates is known as a shrewd businessman, but he is also very smart. Larry Ellison writes in Softwar a story about Bill. Larry and Bill were on the phone in the morning discussing a technical issue. Bill didn’t agree with Larry, and after Larry explained his point, Bill said that he’d have to think about it and call Larry back. That afternoon, Bill called Larry back to tell Larry that he was right. Larry remarked in his book that this is what made Bill very, very dangerous. Bill “cared about what was right, not who was right”. To a lot of us in education, we feel the same way and won’t think that this is a big deal. But to CEOs of companies, this is a very big deal. They don’t like to admit they are wrong.