Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC

I can't help commenting on this, particularly the title, from the LA Times:

Little Billy Gates Benefited From Not Having a PC: "We're raising a generation of computer and computer game addicts who are doomed to fail in school, not because the system is obsolete but simply because it's a lot more fun, and a lot easier, to hang out on the computer than it is to read 'A Tale of Two Cities.'

If Gates had been brought up in this kind of environment, what are the chances he'd have had the focus and creativity to build a company like Microsoft?"

My memory is that while Gates didn't have a PC, he did have access to his school' s minicomputer. There's a bit of truth in the article, Gates benefited by being on the borders when a new ecological niche was opened in the economy (like the land rush when Oklahoma was opened to settlement, or the oil rush when John D. Rockefeller set up his trust). To the extent that PC's and the Net are a more mature technology, there will be fewer opportunities in that field. But obsessive people will find ways to build things and access to the world's knowledge has got to help, not hurt, in finding what to build.