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Bill Gates's The Road Ahead, 15 Years Later

Posted by kdawson on from the answer-unclear-try-again dept.

smooth wombat writes "It's been 15 years since Bill Gates wrote his book The Road Ahead, in which he talks about how technology would shape the future. In the intervening years, technology has changed many aspects of our lives for better and worse. So how did Bill do on his predictions? The Atlantic takes a look at the hits and misses of some of his prognostications. Overall, it appears Bill let optimism guide his thoughts, except when it came to the Internet — his biggest miss of all."

9 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Pop69 · · Score: 4, Funny

    See, the problem is you're searching on Google.

    Try Bing, I'm sure it will be full of wonderful Microsoft innovations

  2. Still worked out better than my own predictions by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's easy to make fun of Bill for his predictions, but I'll admit my own haven't worked out so great either. Here from 1995:

    - By 2010, as many as 1 out of every 25 people will have an email account, causing massive slowdown of the FidoNet.
    - I'll never be that old guy who gets his video-game ass handed to him by 13 year olds.
    - Register sex.com? Nah, that'd be a waste of $100.
    - Being a programmer will be a totally safe field -- it's not like people in India will suddenly all get computers and start coding.

    Ouch.

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  3. Never Seen a Quote from Bill's Book by BoRegardless · · Score: 3, Funny

    The book is as irrelevant as Bill Gates and I suspect Bill understood and that is why he left for something he was fully qualified to do: give away money.

    1. Re: Never Seen a Quote from Bill's Book by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

      that is why he left for something he was fully qualified to do: give away money.

      I liked the Jon Stewart comment after the police raid over the lost iPhone:

      [in confused voice, after reminding us of the Apple "1984" commercial:] 'Apple is busting down doors in Palo Alto and Bill Gates is killing mosquitoes in Africa.'

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. still no progress in .... by u19925 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." (p.265)

  5. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Kilrah_il · · Score: 3, Funny

    MS Bob!

    --
    Whenever in an argument, remember this.
  6. Ballmer by sckirklan · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Steve Ballmer developer jam. Although not foretold in Gates' book.

  7. The real prediction by ch-chuck · · Score: 4, Funny

    He could easily have predicted, "In the future, I'll still be filthy rich" - not one to be careless with money.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  8. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by need4mospd · · Score: 5, Funny
    It looks like you're trying to write a snarky comment about Microsoft. Would you like to:

    - Make references to the instability of the operating system

    - Discuss alternate software or operating systems that may be more functional

    - Spell Microsoft with a dollar sign