Bill Gates is perfectly aware of the fact that a good part of Microsoft's employees started learning about computers on illegal copies of Windows, for example. And it couldn't have happen otherwise - at least for non OECD or 1st world countries.
Whole countries started to be Microsoft clients from having installed pirate Windows and Office on every PC.
At least two generations of coders were nurtured on that ("Developers! Developers! Developers!").
Also hordes of other professionals like designers and animators (Adobe, Autodesk etc).