2 ms·
> 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 t
by wtbob 10y ago
> 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_book%29#Content_differences_between_hardback_and_trade_editions 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.
- adventured 10y agoThat's extremely unlikely. Microsoft had been using email since the late 1980s and Gates was famous for being deep on technical knowledge. Like most, he didn't expect the Web to take off as quickly as it did - that's a completely different matter from understanding how email works.