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list of finalists. But what really happened at the casting session is more like what you get when you send your kids out for a single gallon of ice cream and two want strawberry while the third demands triple-chocolate-fudge brownie. The network executives fought for Mr. X, their judgment being that Willis did not look like a serious lead. Glenn Caron, Moonlighting’s executive producer, argued for Willis. It is easy, looking back, to dismiss the network executives as ignorant buffoons. In my experience, television producers often do, especially when the executives are out of earshot. But before we make that choice, consider this: television viewers at first agreed with the executives’ mediocre assessment. Moonlighting debuted in March 1985 to low ratings and continued with a mediocre performance through the rest of its first season. Only in the second season did viewers change their minds and the show become a major hit. Willis’s appeal and his success were apparently unforeseeable until, of course, he suddenly became a star. One might at this point chalk up the story to crazy Hollywood, but Willis’s drunkard’s walk to success is not at all unusual. A path punctuated by random impacts and unintended consequences is the path of many successful people, not only in their careers but also in their loves, hobbies, and friendships. In fact, it is more the rule than the exception.

I was watching late-night television recently when another star, though not one from the entertainment world, appeared for an interview. His name is Bill Gates. Though the interviewer is known for his sarcastic approach, toward Gates he seemed unusually deferential. Even the audience seemed to ogle Gates. The reason, of course, is that for thirteen years straight Gates was named the richest man in the world by Forbes magazine. In fact, since founding Microsoft, Gates has earned more than $100 a second. And so when he was asked about his vision for interactive television, everyone waited with great anticipation to hear what he had to say. But his answer was ordinary, no more creative, ingenious, or insightful than anything I’ve heard from a dozen other computer professionals. Which brings us to this question: does Gates earn $100 per second because he is godlike, or is he godlike because he earns $100 per second?

In August 1980, when a group of IBM employees working on a secret project to build a personal computer flew to Seattle to meet with the young computer entrepreneur, Bill Gates was running a small company and IBM needed a program, called an operating system, for its planned “home computer.” Recollections of the ensuing events vary, but the gist goes like this:12 Gates said he couldn’t provide the operating system and referred the IBM people to a famed programmer named Gary Kildall at Digital Research Inc. The talks between IBM and Kildall did not go well. For one thing, when IBM showed up at DRI’s offices, Kildall’s then wife, the company’s business manager, refused to sign IBM’s nondisclosure agreement. The IBM emissaries called again, and that time Kildall did meet with them. No one knows exactly what transpired in that meeting, but if an informal deal was made, it didn’t stick. Around that time one of the IBM employees, Jack Sams, saw Gates again. They both knew of another operating system that was available, a system that was, depending on whom you ask, based on or inspired by Kildall’s. According to Sams, Gates said, “Do you want to get…[that operating system], or do you want me to?” Sams, apparently not appreciating the implications, said, “By all means, you get it.” Gates did, for $50,000 (or, by some accounts, a bit more), made a few changes, and renamed it DOS (disk operating system). IBM, apparently with little faith in the potential of its new idea, licensed DOS from Gates for a low per-copy royalty fee, letting Gates retain the rights. DOS was no better—and many, including most computer professionals, would claim far worse—than, say, Apple’s Macintosh operating system. But the growing base of IBM users encouraged software developers