It's fun to go back and read an early edition of Gates' The Road Ahead, in which he just completely misses the value, growth potential and benefits of an open, neutral data network. Rather, he simply transposed "a PC in every house" to "an MSN connection in every house".

In fairness, Gates caught on pretty fast and didn't let his own prior prognostication get in the way of positioning Microsoft to extend his company's product lock-in to customers' internet access (see: IE).