Gates was indeed a programming genius. He wrote the BASIC interpreter and most of the software in Microsoft's early days. He also managed to publish an algorith

Gates was indeed a programming genius. He wrote the BASIC interpreter and most of the software in Microsoft's early days. He also managed to publish an algorithm with Papadimitriou as an undergrad, while running Microsoft in parallel. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X79900682 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365X799... > Gates could not write the compiler tools himself You are both underestimating Gates and overestimating how hard building a compiler/tool is.