That famous Gates letter is not inconsistent with the idea of large numbers of hobbyist programmers. He cared a lot about the piracy issue, but he was never trying to gate who was "allowed" to be a programmer.

Microsoft's first product was a BASIC interpreter. It was all about bringing programming to the masses. Saying "to the people" implies some kind of empowerment, and I don't think that was ever quite as much a part of Microsoft's identity (although it was there in some form). "To the masses" is a better way to describe it in my opinion.