Late Show with David Letterman

Around this recording

The recordings either side of it, in order.

All 114 recordings of Bill Gates →

1. 1994

   Fall Comdex 1994 keynote highlights (Computer Chronicles)

   Computer Chronicles’ Comdex special carries highlights of Gates’s opening keynote, in which he told the industry ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’, used the stage to promote the forthcoming Microsoft Network online service, and screened the ‘Information at Your Fingertips 2005’ vision film, with Windows 95 due ‘next year’ and OS/2 Warp, Pentium and PowerPC machines on the show floor.

2. 1995

   Triumph of the Nerds interview

   Gates is one of the on-camera interviewees in Cringely’s three-part history of the personal computer, discussing the Altair, IBM’s PC deal, the Macintosh and the rise of Windows. The programme was broadcast in 1996 but the interviews were filmed in 1995.

3. 1995

   MSN UK launch event

   A little-known three-hour recording of the Microsoft Network’s UK launch at ITV’s London Studios in late August 1995: Gates on a panel with British TV personalities (Angela Rippon, Jonathan Ross, Carol Vorderman and others), a press Q&A in which he is asked about Clifford Stoll’s ‘Silicon Snake Oil’, and a full presentation of MSN with UK content.

4. 1995

   Windows 95 launch

   The full August 24, 1995 launch show for Windows 95, emceed by Jay Leno, with Gates demonstrating the Start button, Office 95, Plug and Play, the Microsoft Network and Internet Explorer 1.0, and Brad Silverberg closing before the ‘Start Me Up’ commercial. The complete tape surfaced online only in April 2022.

5. 1995

   Gates inside Doom (Windows 95 games promo)

   A promotional video in which Gates, in a trench coat and carrying a shotgun, is composited into id Software’s Doom to pitch Windows 95 as a gaming platform. It was made for Microsoft’s Halloween 1995 ‘Judgment Day’ game-developer event promoting DirectX and the Windows 95 port of Doom.

6. 1995

   Comdex Fall 1995 keynote (excerpts)

   Excerpts of Gates’s Fall Comdex 1995 keynote survive inside the Computer Chronicles’ Comdex 1995 special, shot on location in Las Vegas three months after the Windows 95 launch.

7. 1995

   Late Show with David Letterman

   Gates’s much-replayed sit-down with David Letterman: asked ‘what about this internet thing?’, he describes home pages and watching a baseball game online, to which Letterman replies ‘does radio ring a bell?’ and then ‘do tape recorders ring a bell?’.

8. 1995

   Fresh Air with Terry Gross

   A 22-minute NPR interview in which Gates discusses ‘The Road Ahead’ and how networked computing might change education, politics and business, framing the book as a prompt for discussion rather than a set of predictions.

9. 1996

   Professional Developers Conference demo clip (OnLive! Traveler)

   Footage of Gates’s PDC keynote demonstrating OnLive! Technologies’ 3D voice-chat world ‘Traveler’, preserved by virtual-worlds pioneer Bruce Damer.

10. 1996

    Charlie Rose

    A full-hour conversation in which Gates, then Microsoft’s CEO, discusses the future of the personal computer, the internet and interactivity, a year after the company’s internet pivot.

11. 1997

    Macworld Expo Boston keynote (satellite appearance)

    Steve Jobs’s first Macworld keynote after returning to Apple, at which he announced a $150 million Microsoft investment, five years of Office for Mac and Internet Explorer as the Mac’s default browser, and brought Gates onto a giant screen by satellite, to boos from the crowd.

12. 1997

    Comdex Fall 1997 keynote (excerpts)

    Highlights of Gates’s Fall Comdex 1997 keynote, preserved within the Computer Chronicles’ end-of-show roundup. The keynote came a month after the Justice Department asked a federal court to hold Microsoft in contempt over Internet Explorer bundling.

13. 1998

    Pie in the face in Brussels

    News footage of Gates being hit with a cream pie by Belgian prankster Noël Godin’s group as he arrived for a meeting with about 400 Belgian educators, business leaders and officials.