I speak here perhaps not only for myself but others: although Microsoft had been reviled, and still is, somehow Gates escaped that personally. I've never felt that I dislike Bill Gates.

There had been a smaller Microsoft before the rise of MS-DOS and Windows. Microsoft was a vendor of BASIC interpreters that were integrated into some 8 bit microcomputers, which I used. The Apple II's "Applesoft" basic was derived from Microsoft's work. Its name is a portmanteau of Apple and Microsoft, a kind of touchstone that highlights a complex history of cooperation and rivalry between the two.