Part of this subthread discusses how Bill Gates started out in life and how much he has prospered since he wrote the open letter. Just on that point, it might be of interest to check an online post "Why Bill Gates is Richer than You" (more than a decade old, before Gates got involved in philanthropy full time) about how he made his money.
Note that I have not fact-checked this at all, so if anyone has any factual corrections or updates (which could come from one of the published biographical writings about Gates), I would be glad to hear them.
"What most users want, though, is a cheap simple device that lets them collaborate with others... Thus the market for computing may in the end boil down to simple stuff to be used by consumers and reliable stuff to be operated by professional IT staff. Windows is way too complex for most consumers and difficult to justify on the server side when you can run Linux for free."
http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/bill-gates
Note that I have not fact-checked this at all, so if anyone has any factual corrections or updates (which could come from one of the published biographical writings about Gates), I would be glad to hear them.