By the early '90s, electronic mail and the Internet were big. Technologists forecast an Internet-centered view of computing called "mirror worlds." Technophiles enthused about the "information superhighway." The World Wide Web emerged in 1994, making browsers necessary, and Netscape was founded that same year. Sun Microsystems developed Java, the Internet programming language. Gates hung back. It wasn't until 1996 that Microsoft finally, according to Gates himself, "embraced the Internet wholeheartedly."

Why lead when you can follow? Microsoft's first browser, Internet Explorer 1.0, was licensed from a company called Spyglass. It was an afterthought, available off the shelf as part of a $45 CD-ROM crammed with random tidbits, software antipasto, odds and ends you could live without — one of which was Explorer. Today Microsoft is the world's most powerful supplier of Web browsers, and Gates really has it made. The U.S. Justice Department is suing Microsoft for throwing its weight around illegally, hitting companies like Netscape below the belt. The trial is under way. Whoever wins, Gates will still be the No. 1 man in the industry.

The world pondered Gates and assumed he must be a great thinker. During World War II, Cargo Cults flourished on New Guinea and Melanesia: people who had never seen an airplane pondered incoming U.S. aircraft and assumed they must be divine. Technology is confusing, and these were reasonable guesses under the circumstances. In 1995 Gates published a book (co-authored with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson) called "The Road Ahead." Peering far into the future, he glimpsed a technology-rich dreamworld where you will be able to "watch Gone With the Wind," he wrote, "with your own face and voice replacing Vivien Leigh's or Clark Gable's." Apparently this is just what the public had been dying to do, for "The Road Ahead" became a runaway best seller, though it is lustrous with earnest goofiness, like a greased-down haircut.

And yet we tend to overlook (in sizing him up) Gates' basic decency. He has repeatedly been offered a starring role in the circus freak show of American Celebrity, Julius Caesar being offered the Emperor's crown by clamorous sycophants. He has turned it down. He does not make a habit of going on TV to pontificate, free-associate or share his feelings. His wife and young child are largely invisible to the public, which represents a deliberate decision on the part of Mr. and Mrs.

If postwar America of the 1950s and '60s democratized middle-classness, Gates has democratized filthy-richness — or has at least started to. Get the right job offer from Microsoft, work hard, get rich; no miracle required. Key Microsoft employees pushed Gates in this direction, but he was willing to go, and the industry followed. The Gates Road to Wealth is still a one-laner, and traffic is limited. But the idea that a successful corporation should enrich not merely its executives and big stockholders but also a fair number of ordinary line employees is (although not unique to Microsoft) potentially revolutionary. Wealth is good. Gates has created lots and has been willing to share.

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