Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…Exactly. Bill and Paul are sitting around waiting through 1974 and 1975 being like, hey, when are the 8080 computers going to come out? Where are they? It's just crickets. Paul is so convinced that the revolution is coming that he actually drops out of Washington State, moves to Boston to be close to Bill so that they can be ready when it happens. That summer, they both get summer jobs at Honeywell as programmers. Paul stays on into the next school year when Bill goes back to school. He's just waiting, waiting, waiting. In December 1974, Paul is walking across Harvard Square, and he sees in a newsstand the January issue of Popular Electronics, on whose cover is the Altair 8800, the world's first real honest-to-God commercially available for sale microcomputer. The legend has it that Paul grabs the magazine, runs over to Bill's dorm, throws open the door, throws the magazine on the desk, and is like, it's here. Bill's just says, oh, my God, it's happening without us. We need to get on this right now. It's so funny he thinks they're already behind because clearly they're not. History would show. I think Bill Gates even says, we might've actually started a year or two too early. The market actually hadn't materialized yet. The funniest thing is, the starting gun went off, Bill and Paul ran, and everyone else is still standing around. This is it. This is the moment. The revolution is here. Microsoft is about to be founded.…

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