Sam Parr breaks down five tips for handling government antitrust scrutiny, drawn from Bill Gates’s 1998 deposition video. Using clips of Gates being grilled by lawyer David Boies, Sam identifies tactics like projecting calm, stalling through definitional games, strategic laughter, visible disdain, and asking for questions to be repeated — then advises the “four horsemen” of Big Tech to deploy them.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host)
Welcome to Hustle Hot Takes #3 [00:00:00]
Sam: Yo, people — we’re back. Hustle Hot Takes, episode three. You’ll notice proper audio this time, and we’ve got a new team member, Alex, who will be making these videos way better than when I, the total amateur, was editing them.
Okay. So this week on Hustle Hot Takes we’ll be talking about tech antitrust. It is of course all over the news — the U.S. government will be grilling the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. The four horsemen: Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Zuckmasterflex. The topic: antitrust.
I want to give these captains of industry some advice on how to handle this situation.
The Source Material: Bill Gates, 1998 [00:00:45]
Sam: To get that advice, I went all the way back to 1998 and found video footage of William Henry Gates — aka Bill Gates — getting grilled by David Boies, a famed lawyer who actually represented Al Gore during the Gore v. Bush presidential Supreme Court case.
There are over ten hours of deposition video on YouTube. It is incredible. I went through all of it, to the dismay of my family. But I found gold. Five tips on how to handle government antitrust scrutiny.
Tip #1: Project Calm [00:01:20]
Sam: The first thing you need to establish is that you’re a cool cat. You’re not going to let government pressure — and the threat of breaking up a hundred-billion-dollar company — scare you.
What you see here with William Henry Gates is that he’s got this pose going on. This is the “I’m one of the two or three richest people in the world” pose. I can tell you right now, just by doing this, I already feel richer. I feel the power surging through me.
Watch how calm and collected Bill Gates is. Tip number one: project calm.
Tip #2: Make Them Define Every Word [00:02:05]
Sam: Tip number two is stalling. You do not want them getting to the hard-hitting questions. One sure-fire way to prevent that: make them define every single word along the way.
You’ll see here that Mr. Gates asked David Boies — the lawyer — to define the word “definition.” This is textbook stalling, and frankly quite genius, perfectly executed.
[Bill Gates, from deposition clip]: “If you define ‘definition’ for this conversation, I’ll understand what you mean. Define ‘definition.’”
Sam: Genius.
Tip #3: Strategic Laughter [00:02:50]
Sam: Tip number three is related to tip number one. Body language is ninety percent of communication. You need to be calm, collected, and cool — and one way to do that is to stay laughing and lighthearted.
Watch here as Mr. Gates lets out a very good, kind of primal laugh. He’s setting the stage. He’s telling David Boies and the U.S. government: I’m cool. I’m cool. You cannot make me uncool. I’m going to laugh and have a good time.
Oh my gosh. He let it build up — watch this. He let it build up.
Tip #4: Show Complete Disdain [00:03:35]
Sam: Tip number four is the other side of the coin from laughing and smiling. Sometimes you just want to show complete disdain — that you don’t really care, that you’ve got better things to do.
Frankly, if I were the richest person in the world, I’d probably have better things to do than sit in this uncomfortable-looking chair getting roasted by David Boies, one of the greatest prosecutorial attorneys of the twentieth century. I’ve got better things to do.
How do you communicate that? Bill Gates does it with a rock.
Tip #5: Always Go Backwards [00:04:15]
Sam: The last tip goes back to the idea of stalling. What Bill Gates demonstrates here is that you never want the questions to move forward. It’s always about staying stuck in place — or going backwards.
Watch here as Mr. Gates tries to get David Boies to ask him the previous question again. Backwards. The key word here: backwards.
[Bill Gates, from deposition clip]: “It’s sort of different. Late night, then… let me ask the question so the record is clear… but sure, you don’t want to let me answer the last one first? If that’s okay.”
Closing Advice [00:04:55]
Sam: There you go, captains of industry. Mr. Cook, Mr. Bezos, Zuckmasterflex, Mr. Pichai — use these tools. They are at your disposal.
And if you the viewer learned anything or enjoyed that, please subscribe, leave some comments below, and drop a like. Thank you very much. Okay.