Bill Gates and his father, William Henry Gates, Sr., talked Twitter, Facebook, the iPad, and parenting with Larry King yesterday evening.
A few highlights from the interview (see video below):Bill Gates on Apple CEO Steve Jobs:
"Steve is brilliant, he's done very good work. The times we have gotten to work together--intensely on some Apple 2 work and Macintosh--we enjoyed sparring with each other."On the iPad:"We're all trying to get to something that you just love to take to a meeting and use and it [the iPad] is not quite there yet. You need to have input. You need to take notes and edit things. Microsoft and a bunch of other companies are working on getting that final, ultimate product. [...] It [the iPad] still isn't the device that I'd take to a meeting because it has no input.
What he's looking for: A device "where I can use the pen, where I can use voice. There are solutions in the labs that are starting to look very good."
On Facebook and Twitter:"I've got a fan page up there and I'm using the Twitter stuff all the time. Both of those are letting me stay in touch with people--what do they think the foundation should be doing, expose the work of the foundation. [...] It's really created a wonderful way for me to stay in touch."
On monitoring his kids on Facebook:"I certainly look at my kids' Facebook accounts, they're young enough that that's still appropriate. No one knows should your parents be allowed to be your friend or not. And we're finding our way. None of these new technologies come without some real issues that have to be thought through. How many hours do you want to let your kid use it? Are they just playing the games? What's that like? We go through some of that as parents." (transcript via The Atlantic)
William Henry Gates Sr. on Facebook and Twitter: "I'm really embarrassed to say I'm just not in to that. I get a lot of people posting notes to me on my email and I ignore all that. I really don't understand it, Larry, to be quite honest."