Given Gates' success with Think Weeks, the wonder is they
didn't continue after he left his day-to-day job at Microsoft in
2008. Or that other companies didn't try to imitate them. But
Gates isn't particularly surprised by either. "People have different styles," he said. "Being able to comment on 120 papers and take six days where you're just totally focused on that, that's more my style than others' style .... I just kind of like that, you know, pushing myself super-hard." He's also a realist, knowing that if he alternatively had saved various papers e-mailed to him and had said to himself he would get to them someday, he never would have. Most CEOs or other leaders, he suggested, would behave the same way.