It is easy to forget that many of the people who invent the future do so by crashing through barriers, crushing competitors, and dominating a new industry by force of will as well as intellect. Sometimes dirty tricks come into play. Thomas Edison and John D. Rockefeller, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, were all justifiably reviled at various points in their careers. When I began my work in computing, Microsoft was routinely referred to as “the Evil Empire.”
