#11 From wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall
Kildall was annoyed when the University of Washington asked him, as a distinguished graduate, to attend their computer science program anniversary in 1992, but gave the keynote speech to Gates, a dropout from Harvard. In response he started writing his memoir, Computer Connections.
[12] The memoir, which he distributed only to a few friends, expressed his frustration that people did not seem to value elegance in software,[15] and it said of Gates, “He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.”
In an appendix he called DOS “plain and simple theft” because its first 26 system calls worked the same as CP/M’s.[16] He accused IBM of contriving the price difference between PC DOS and CP/M-86 in order to marginalize CP/M.
And that is how Bill Gates became a billionaire.
Yup. But from that same link:
“IBM approached Digital Research in 1980, at Bill Gates’ suggestion, to negotiate the purchase of a forthcoming version of CP/M called CP/M-86 for the IBM PC. Gary had left negotiations to his wife, Dorothy, as he usually did, while he and colleague Tom Rolander used Gary’s private airplane to deliver software to manufacturer Bill Godbout. Before the IBM representatives would explain the purpose of their visit, they insisted that Dorothy sign a non-disclosure agreement. On the advice of DRI attorney Gerry Davis, Dorothy refused to sign the agreement without Gary’s approval. Gary returned in the afternoon and tried to move the discussion with IBM forward, but accounts disagree on whether he signed the non-disclosure agreement, as well as if he ever met with the IBM representatives.”
Since Gary was out and not reachable by any method, IBM moved on to Bill Gates and the rest was history. If Gary could have been called and given Dorothy the go-ahead, Bill Gates would likely have been an also-ran footnote.