36 years on, you can play Bill Gates’ crappy Donkey game on Apple Watch

Toxic behavior 101. One dude, who I am sure most people never heard of, spouted off about some demo code written decades ago by a guy that is the quintessential successful software engineer and that everyone knows about, probably even little kids in remote villages with no electricity. Now other dudes feel necessary to conform. Riling on about Bill's purported technical ineptitude doesn't put him down, or put you up anywhere near his level - it just makes you look like a donkey. This is intellectual dwarfism. Don't do it, because it's your own little glass ceiling (same goes for spreading the 640k rumor). It also looks lame and unprofessional, and we work in a pretty small industry, in terms of the kinds of people most of us would work around anyway.

And yeah, billg is the quintessential successful "startupper". Yes, he came from a priviledged background. Yes, he had some wonderful partners and colleagues, and yes he had the priviledge to have access to real computers at a tender age. All of this is really pretty typical of american enterpreneurship in a new hot market. And none of this takes away from Bill's own software engineering background and acumen. Remember: he developed and sold real products without finishing college. He started an extremely successful software company, successful in a large part because of Bill's extreme demands for technical and business excellence. He also knew when to move on to create a real difference elsewhere via the Gates Foundation, and doesn't live like the Kardashians or John McCaffee. He is a humble, very learned and hard working guy that all of us have plenty to learn from.