Why did Microsoft do it?

In the forum, if one says anything good about Microsoft, somebody will put them down, just the same. But the first 150 pages of "Idea Man" by Paul Allen, are interesting. They wrote a version BASIC for the Altair machine. Bill Gates and Paul Allen, they worked like dogs to do that, before anybody else did. There was a slight amount of risk in that. It could have been a lot of effort for nothing.

But I am not disagreeing with you. Writing a version of BASIC for the Altair, it wasn't any truly "original" idea. More just a competitive thing. Nothing original, just trying to win via extra effort.

I am tempted to say Gates took risk by not focusing on his studies at Harvard, but instead focusing on the software company he was trying to start with Paul Allen. But even there, he hedged his bets in the contract with Paul Allen. A special clause saying one of the partners could take off time to finish educational projects, if they wanted to. But he just never wanted to, because the company did well.