Journal: News & Comment

Words from Gates, Jobs, Whitman, and Diller

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The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" meeting features interviews with tech luminaries in front of a live audience, some members of which are just as luminary. Journalists attending are supposed to keep the proceedings off the record, but bloggers are under no such constraint. So:

• Bill Gates (of Microsoft) - some relevant comments about XML and Web services.
• Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computer) - he, Whitman, and Gates all mention biotech as something they'd be interested in if they were 17 again.
• Meg Whitman and Barry Diller (currently of eBay and formerly of Universal/Fox, respectively) - 26% of eBay transactions are "buy it now"/fixed price, and 80% of users are still dialup.

There's nothing earth-shattering there, but it's nice to see these people give actual yes-or-no answers to some questions, and—especially in Jobs's case—honest appraisals of their companies' missteps. More coming at Bag and Baggage.

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