Standing atop Silicon Valley in the 1990s, Bill Gates still felt his perch to be precarious.
Objectively, he was set for life. The Microsoft founder had inordinate power in the tech world “attract[ing] admiration and fear in equal measure,” according to a 1995 article from the New York Times. Some thought of the young billionaire as “Thomas Edison of the information age; others see John D. Rockefeller,” noted the author. Gates himself claims to have not thought of himself as much at the time.
