It didn't end so well for Bill Gates personally (or Microsoft), though one could argue tech as a whole suffered since the spreading of the same paranoia is like

It didn't end so well for Bill Gates personally (or Microsoft), though one could argue tech as a whole suffered since the spreading of the same paranoia is likely bad. This article reminded me of an aside from Naggum ( http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum.no.html http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum.... ) though since the same behavior happens so often it's hard to say whether the instances inspire further instances or if it's just something about human nature (Dvorak mentioning youth). The Naggum quote: "but of course, Lisp isn't dying -- it's just that if you think in terms of the imminent end of the world, _everything_ is soon food for the great garbage collector in the sky and whoever is not scrambling in panic looks like they aren't moving and have been passed by or are dying. "the problem I see is not that Bill Gates has shaped the world of useless trinkets in software, but has also managed to spread his competitiveness and his personal fear of losing to imaginary competitors to businesses and homes everywhere, so now everybody is _afraid_ of losing some battle which isn't happening, instead of getting about their own lives. like, if you aren't using today's fad language in the very latest version of the IDE, you'll be left behind. aaaugh! but it's good that some people run like they are scared out of their wits. if they suddenly disappear over the edge of a cliff, a good number of people will notice in time and _not_ follow them. those are the ones that matter. "you can scare most people most of the time, but you can't scare all of the people all of the time -- some will always use Common Lisp."