In 1993, when only about 130 websites existed globally, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates spoke about the "Electronic Frontier"—a term that tried to capture the excitement and unknown potential of the digital revolution. Back then, the internet was barely a whisper in mainstream conversation. Yet Gates’ message was crystal clear: "This is the information age, and the computer is the tool of the information age. Software is what will determine how easily we can get at all of that information."
Fifty years after Gates and childhood friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft, this interview is a remarkable snapshot of a moment just before the internet changed everything. The computing giant had already reshaped business and technology by licensing its MS-DOS operating system to IBM and compatible PC makers, triggering a surge in personal computing. But the next frontier was much larger: bringing computers—and eventually, the internet—into every home.
While Gates was the analytical mind behind Microsoft’s ascent, Allen was its creative force. The duo met in Seattle as schoolboys with a shared obsession for coding. Though Allen left the company in 1983 after a cancer diagnosis, his legacy endured, both through his early role at Microsoft and his later ventures in sports, music, and culture. By the early 1990s, Gates was steering Microsoft toward multimedia, communication, and home computing.
The program raised a prescient question: “Do we need endless information, or do they just need to sell it to us?” At the time, the World Wide Web wasn’t even mentioned, and the idea of a home filled with on-demand digital content seemed almost science fiction. Yet Microsoft’s Nathan Myhrvold described a future eerily close to modern streaming services—where hundreds of TV channels would be sorted, recommended, and delivered by intelligent software.
Gates believed that home computing would take time, but ultimately prevail: “If you take a time frame like 15 years or certainly 20 years, I have no doubt that the vision of a computer in every home... will absolutely be achieved.” Looking back from 2025, it’s clear that he was not only right—but underestimated how profoundly the internet and computing would embed themselves into daily life.
