Hard Drive
In this episode of Internet Origins, we explore Hard Drive by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. A teenage coding prodigy drops out of Harvard, bets everything on software, and builds an empire through sheer obsession. This is the story of Bill Gates—the brilliant, ruthless visionary who turned Microsoft into the most powerful company in computing history.
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[00:00:00] Before the 1970s, computers were massive room-sized machines that cost millions of dollars. Only governments and large corporations could afford them, and they required specially trained technicians to operate. For ordinary people, computers seemed completely out of reach, but in the mind of a Harvard dropout, the computer was something else entirely.
[00:00:21] A personal tool that would be present on every desk and in every home. From hacking school systems to negotiating with the biggest names in technology, Gates's journey was defined by an ability to see value, where others saw nothing. When he licensed an operating system to IBM,
[00:00:38] rather than selling it outright, he didn't just make a business deal.
