Really? What was your impression of him?
Another Freeper, his screen-name escapes me, was involved in a company doing a review of windows (before 3.11, IIRC) and his company recommended a rewrite in Ada... I wonder how different Windows would be if they had heeded that advice. (Windows wouldn't have buffer-overrun exploits, for one thing, unless they'd turned off the error-checking.)
“What was your impression of him?”
I suggest you read “Hard drive: Bill Gates and the making of the Microsoft empire” by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. It chronicles Bill’s early days and helps make sense of why Microsoft evolved the way it has since the book was written.
I remember when Gates appeared in Houston several times to make presentations at Houston Area League PC meetings. Since those DOS days, my perception and regard of Gates has evolved from admiration to loathing. Software are tools, so I use whatever is appropriate for a task; however, I use M$ products just as little as possible.
At the time, he was an agressive, nerdy type who knew what he was doing. DOS was really well done (sometimes wish I still had it). He had a sense of where he was headed and seemed to continually make the right decisions. Was a nice guy.
As MS grew, it became apparent that his visions were being taken over by those he hired - to the point that Windows morphed into a developers dream and possibly not where Bill would have like to see it go. However,snowballs rolling downhill seem to get bigger - sometimes to the point they cannot be stopped - and I believe this is what ultimately happened....