Bill Gates

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, all of that technically true. It is just not quite as meaningful as you think it is. So as with all of these things, it's not just like Bill Gates and Steven Sanofsky are having a think and the rest of Microsoft is sitting around waiting for the think to finish and then an edict comes down and then they go and do the work.

Yes, all of that technically true. It is just not quite as meaningful as you think it is. So as with all of these things, it's not just like Bill Gates and Steven Sanofsky are having a think and the rest of Microsoft is sitting around waiting for the think to finish and then an edict comes down and then they go and do the work.

There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas working on a lot of stuff in parallel. And that is why Microsoft's history is so delightfully messy is there's a zillion initiatives going on and it's never clear if your thing is going to become the next company strategy or not. So here is a slightly different version of this history with different players.

There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas working on a lot of stuff in parallel. And that is why Microsoft's history is so delightfully messy is there's a zillion initiatives going on and it's never clear if your thing is going to become the next company strategy or not. So here is a slightly different version of this history with different players.

And I want to underscore it for one big reason. It will come up later in antitrust.

And I want to underscore it for one big reason. It will come up later in antitrust.

So, some of the Windows 95 team in late 94, led by Thomas Reardon, is pulled off before it ships to start thinking about what should we do after Windows 95 ships? What would the next marquee investments be for what at the time they're calling Windows 97? Which, of course, there was never a Windows 97. So the group's opinion is all internet all the time.

So, some of the Windows 95 team in late 94, led by Thomas Reardon, is pulled off before it ships to start thinking about what should we do after Windows 95 ships? What would the next marquee investments be for what at the time they're calling Windows 97? Which, of course, there was never a Windows 97. So the group's opinion is all internet all the time.

You know, how could the next iteration of Windows be extremely internet native in a very embedded way? And there's tons of proposals in this little group. There's virtual meeting software, think Zoom type things. There's an email client specifically built for the internet rather than for your company's corporate network, which at the time was novel. Then there's, of course, a browser.

You know, how could the next iteration of Windows be extremely internet native in a very embedded way? And there's tons of proposals in this little group. There's virtual meeting software, think Zoom type things. There's an email client specifically built for the internet rather than for your company's corporate network, which at the time was novel. Then there's, of course, a browser.

But the big vision was, what if the whole Windows shell is a browser. Every visual thing that you interact with in Windows, what if that actually was like an HTML rendered server communicating online thing? And the team technically kind of looked at it this way.

But the big vision was, what if the whole Windows shell is a browser. Every visual thing that you interact with in Windows, what if that actually was like an HTML rendered server communicating online thing? And the team technically kind of looked at it this way.

We should build HTTP directly into the operating system since it was just another protocol on top of the TCP IP protocol that the internet is based on. we should provide reusable UI component to any application that wants to display HTML. That's a good engineering building block to build is this HTML renderer that any application can sort of frame in and use.

We should build HTTP directly into the operating system since it was just another protocol on top of the TCP IP protocol that the internet is based on. we should provide reusable UI component to any application that wants to display HTML. That's a good engineering building block to build is this HTML renderer that any application can sort of frame in and use.

So of course, Microsoft, the strategy here is we will develop a browser application that used the building block that others could also use to render HTML. So they actually go to Netscape and say, hey, we have this great HTTP stack, we have the HTML engine, we have these wrappers to go around it. Instead of rewriting all of it, just use our off-the-shelf code that we intend to ship with Windows.

So of course, Microsoft, the strategy here is we will develop a browser application that used the building block that others could also use to render HTML. So they actually go to Netscape and say, hey, we have this great HTTP stack, we have the HTML engine, we have these wrappers to go around it. Instead of rewriting all of it, just use our off-the-shelf code that we intend to ship with Windows.

Famously, Netscape did not do that. And so IE, Internet Explorer, actually ends up being kind of the only application that used all these Windows components And once they got going on the browser, they convinced the Windows leadership that actually we can do this fast. We should get this done as a part of Windows 95, not wait for the next big release.

Famously, Netscape did not do that. And so IE, Internet Explorer, actually ends up being kind of the only application that used all these Windows components And once they got going on the browser, they convinced the Windows leadership that actually we can do this fast. We should get this done as a part of Windows 95, not wait for the next big release.