Bill Gatesone of the richest men in the world, had a curious addiction while he was at the helm of Microsoft.
It is a fairly simple game: minesweeperas the homonymous book tells it “minesweeper” the Kyle Orland.
In the book, Bruce Ryan, a former director of entertainment for Microsofttells how the game marked the life of Bill Gates.
Bill Gates he became obsessed with the game, particularly its Beginner level. Despite having uninstalled minesweeper from his computer to “detox”, later Gates boasted in an email how he managed to lower his personal record from 8 seconds to 5 seconds on the computer of Mike Hallman, a top executive at Microsoft.
Computers against Bill Gates
Bruce Ryan decided to cheat to discourage Bill Gatessharing “impossible” scores.
Ryan used an automation program that could launch millions of games and seek to win with a single click.
Four hours later, he achieved his goal: he achieved a second as the new record, which he boasted with Bill Gatesto whom he told that he was going to be “permanently overshadowed”.
Gates he reflected in a work email after announcing that “his critical skills were displaced by a computer”: “When machines can do things faster than people: can we retain our human dignity?”
Apparently, he wouldn’t give up anyway. She cautioned, “I guess now I’ll have to try the game at Intermediate level.”
