To be fair, Gates was more business man than any sort of hacker. While Zuckerberg may have actually coded his first product, unlike Gates, making a web app, no matter how popular, is far cry from what Carmack and Wozniak have done.
Perhaps it's an illustration that it's often not fancy maths and algorithms that pay, but rather being in the right place at the right time with the right product. That said, there are instances like Google and Carmack where it really was the algorithms that made the difference.
"unlike Gates". Pardon? As Gates was co-author of Altair Basic, which was Microsoft's first product, I don't understand your comparison. Could you elaborate?
Re:The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress
by guillaume_a on Saturday July 23, 2011 @06:17PM
(#2797985)
Gates wrote, by himself, the best BAISC interpreter in the industry in a matter of months. At a time where there was no internet to check out the latest papers, StackOverflow to help you out, etc.
Way more impressive than sticking together a few perlscripts for a social networking website. Zuckerberg wasn't the main programmer behind Facebook, btw.
Gates wrote the interpreter along with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff... while he distinguished himself as a programmer, he's not quite that level of amazing. I get the impression that in a situation similar to (but not as lopsided as) Wozniak and Jobs' arrangement, Allen did a bit more of the technical heavy lifting and Gates planned and arranged the business side.
I'd recommend you read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
wherein Joel Spolsky was reviewed by Bill Gates. It is pretty clear the man had serious technical chops.
Carmack, Gates, Zuck and Woz are the real deal. Saying they aren't because others toil in obscurity is some hopeless romanticism about hacker culture. A heart warmer, maybe?, but not justified.
Just because financial outcomes are not matched to your hacker ideal doesn't invalidate either approach. The rich famous hackers were also good at business and publicity. Not everyone wants that or is good at all three, which is the case with Dwarf Fortress.
Money is not the scorecard. Read the article. That point is addressed.