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E-mail from Bill (1994)

newyorker.com

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Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#21

Post by wtbob »

tinco wrote: post #17

There's a lot of interesting story in this article, but this sentence caught my eye: " Our email is completely secure. . . ." Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they? Apparently PGP is from 1991, but they are using msmail (judging from the headers) so I don't reckon they were using that. The movie…

> Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they?

He had to rewrite his 1995 book The Road Ahead to cover the Internet better (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_%28Bill_Gates_b...), so it's entirely possible that he didn't actually know all that much about how email worked in 1994.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#22

Post by nocman »

dtjohnnymonkey wrote: post #20
phirschybar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't it "information SUPER-highway"? :)

When I was in 6th grade (~1993), someone's dad came to talk about our class about the "superhighway of information" or the "information highway". It always bugged me that he didn't say "information superhighway".

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does.

Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already!

Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#23

Post by omegaham »

nocman wrote: post #22
dtjohnnymonkey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in 6th grade (~1993), someone's dad came to talk about our class about the "superhighway of information" or the "information highway". It always bugged me that he didn't say "information superhighway".

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does. Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already! Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

It makes me think of watching Zoom on PBS as a little kid. Ask your parents before going online!

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#24

Post by soperj »

nocman wrote: post #22
dtjohnnymonkey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in 6th grade (~1993), someone's dad came to talk about our class about the "superhighway of information" or the "information highway". It always bugged me that he didn't say "information superhighway".

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does. Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already! Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

you mean the World Wide Web right? The internet is just the backbone.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#25

Post by aab0 »

gcek9 wrote: post #16

> "The pioneers of personal computers including Jobs, Kapor, Lampson, Roberts, Kaye, are all great people but I don’t think any of us will merit an entry in a history book." I don't think that will prove true for Mr. Gates or Mr. Jobs.

The list is interesting. Jobs or Gates, of course. Lampson, HNers will probably know from his important CS research such as on distributed systems - he'll be mentioned in those sort of history books, although not generalized ones. Kapor: I have to think for a while before I can finally pin him as 'Mitch Kapor, inventor of the spreadsheet'. Extremely important to business and economics and the modern world, almost as important as double-entry bookkeeping, but I don't think Luca Pacoli or double-entry books are mentioned in most history books so probably not. 'Kaye', I have no idea, unless it's a typo for '[Alan] Kay', in which case he could well be in the history books. Finally, 'Roberts'; I had no idea and had to ask Google, and apparently he's the Altair guy, Ed Roberts. The Altair doesn't seem all that important so I could see history books skipping over it and him. So of the 6 (including Gates himself), 3 probably would be, 2 will be in more specialized histories, and all would be featured in the most detailed histories or encyclopedias (indeed, all of them have Wikipedia entries).

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#26

Post by maroonblazer »

nocman wrote: post #22
dtjohnnymonkey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in 6th grade (~1993), someone's dad came to talk about our class about the "superhighway of information" or the "information highway". It always bugged me that he didn't say "information superhighway".

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does. Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already! Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

Does anyone still use "Information Superhighway" anymore? I think most people just say "internet".

However in the 90's that analogy helped many non-technical people understand how to think about the internet. Back then did you have a better analogy?

BTW, as a marketing guy, it always bugs me every time anyone uses the term "marketing" when they mean "advertising". I'm not referring to you/your post but rather a general trend on HN and elsewhere.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#27

Post by abecedarius »

aab0 wrote: post #25
gcek9 wrote: post #16

> "The pioneers of personal computers including Jobs, Kapor, Lampson, Roberts, Kaye, are all great people but I don’t think any of us will merit an entry in a history book." I don't think that will prove true for Mr. Gates or Mr. Jobs.

The list is interesting. Jobs or Gates, of course. Lampson, HNers will probably know from his important CS research such as on distributed systems - he'll be mentioned in those sort of history books, although not generalized ones. Kapor: I have to think for a while before I can finally pin him as 'Mitch Kapor, inventor of the spreadsheet'. Extremely important to business and economics and the modern world, almost as…

Kapor designed Lotus 1-2-3 (but didn't program it -- both parts were important for its success). Bricklin and Frankston created the spreadsheet with VisiCalc. There are claims of earlier spreadsheets on bigger computers, which I haven't really looked into.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#28

Post by mirimir »

nocman wrote: post #22
dtjohnnymonkey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in 6th grade (~1993), someone's dad came to talk about our class about the "superhighway of information" or the "information highway". It always bugged me that he didn't say "information superhighway".

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does. Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already! Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

Well, they were both designed with nukes in mind :)

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#29

Post by nstj »

a_small_island wrote: post #10

>"BILL GATES, aged thirty-eight, is one of the richest men in the country—the richest in 1992, and the second richest, after the investor Warren Buffett, in 1993, with a fortune of six billion one hundred and sixty million dollars, according to Forbes. " Very strange that only just 20-25 years ago, the richest people in the world were "only" worth <7,000,000,000

It would be more interesting to look at their wealth as a percentage of the world's wealth. We have greater output per capita (GDP) today than back then so while the nominal wealth amount may be considered low it's quite possible it was a higher percentage of the world's wealth back then than it is today.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#30

Post by salgernon »

Animats wrote: post #15

The amazing thing was that as late as 1994, Bill Gates had a public email address.

I'm not surprised; I'd be more surprised if it actually went to /dev/null at this point (as opposed to being screened and possibly forwarded for a response.)

As late as 2011, Steve Jobs kept the same public email address: sjobs@apple.com. (There's a collection at http://stevemail.tumblr.com) Some of the replies came within minutes of the originating message, so I wouldn't be surprised if he mostly dealt with the incoming mail himself, as opposed to having it pre-screened. None of those messages are near the length of the Bill Gates replies.

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