• TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    I’m not sure Gates ever had a “personality cult”. In the 90s during his heyday he was pretty much reviled even by Windows users. He built his empire by swallowing everyone else around him that was doing anything even a little bit innovative. He wasn’t really the “visionary artist/engineer” type like those others. Just a random rich nerd who won the technology monopoly game.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Like @Zak, I would like to point out that - as much as I despised Bill Gates back then - he was actually competent. And - despite me never liking Microsoft - they have a legitimate business model built on selling products, not user data (like all social media and google). So of all the evil dipshits out there, Microsoft and Apple are the lesser ones. (I am a Linux user since 2004 or so)

    • Zak@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Early accounts are that Bill Gates was absolutely a talented coder, at least in the 1970s. Of course that was’t what made him rich - a series of business decisions that were some combination of lucky and prescient were.