Back when Gates was still at Harvard, he solved an open problem posed in Papadimitriou's class, and the two published a paper together. Of course, when the proofs came back, he had already left to start Microsoft. While he didn't directly make any significant contributions to CS, he certainly demonstrated to potential to do so.
Had Bill's ambitions been directed towards different interests, you'd probably see his name attached to some familiar academic work from the 80s and 90s.
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Had Bill's ambitions been directed towards different interests, you'd probably see his name attached to some familiar academic work from the 80s and 90s.