Bill Gates, CEO and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., sat at his desk with his face hidden in the palms of his hands. He was pressing tightly on his eyeballs, trying to think. Absolutely intense competition in the microcomputer software industry, a shortage of skilled programmers, and the ever-lurking, ever-judging federal government were likely to be factors sinking Gates’ beloved Microsoft. Add to this the threat posed by his ostensible ally, IBM Corp., and the nervous worries never ended.

There was no avoiding the ultimate truth. IBM had the edge, and was likely to win unless something dramatic was done in Seattle to postpone its victory. Microsoft was feverishly investing in Windows, while IBM labored under the delusion that they were working on OS/2 together, a deception that Gates was keen to inflate for the time being. His hope was for brilliant programming more than a lucky break. Gates knew that the executives at IBM were being gently prodded by their Board of Directors — a gigantic dinosaurs, ossified and greedy — which was scanning the new microcomputer market and salivating greedily. With computers difficult to use and relief nonexistent, it fell to Microsoft to make a user-friendly OS that would generate traction in the market.

Convenient alliances across corporate lines, the benefits of blue-chip capital, and the thousands of programmers IBM had on staff were poised in Gates’ mind like pieces on a gigantic, inner chess board. He was so paranoid that he had his security staff in Seattle on full alert for IBM interlopers. Gates could not create enough products in his office to satisfy the new microcomputer market, and bloviating IBM-ers increasingly came to embrace the strategy of using the little guys to do all the hard work while they reaped the vast profits. Gates hated them with a passion.

At Microsoft, unlike IBM, the emphasis was on efficient code more than technically large output. Bill Gates had heard a report from his accounting department — held in skeptical regard, but probably true — alleging that IBM was learning a new style of programming from the young whippersnappers at Microsoft.

Bill Gates, jostling his knee up and down in nervous excitement which disguised the deep thought going on, came to a sudden conclusion. He would get Steve Ballmer, his trusted lieutenant, to visit California and see what the boys at Xerox Parc were doing. Gates picked up a tray of small sausages and deliberated over which one looked most delicious, finally settling on the upper left hand corner one. When Gates was satiated, he licked his fingers and picked up the phone. Directly dialing Ballmer’s Microsoft extension, Gates, eyes closed and serious, sent a silent prayer up to the computer gods that Ballmer was there.

He was. Ballmer answered in a jocular, energetic voice. “Y’ello. Ballmer here.”

Gates adjusted his glasses on his nose, leaned forward into the phone, and whispered conspiratorially. “Steve. It’s Bill. We need to get some intel on CP/M. I’m asking you to fly out to California and do a recon of Xerox Parc. Can you handle it ASAP?”

Confidently, booming a laugh, Steve could just picture Ballmer nodding enthusiastically. “No prob, buddy! I’ll be on the first flight to fruitland in the morning. Send me an email of what you need. I’ll get it for you, promise.”

Gates hung up the phone with a gentle motion. In an aggressive move worthy of Hitler, he emailed Paul Allen, telling him to initiate a full-scale lawsuit against IBM. This day had long been coming. Not only was Microsoft sinking, becoming more vulnerable and exposed than ever before, but the source of that threat was also increasing.

In a display of sheer genius, Gates summoned up two competing memories in which a younger version of himself played to win. The competitive impulse had long been with him, ever since he was a boy, even though he didn’t know where it came from. Not only was his family berating, encouraging more competition and rivalry than the typical family, but the nature of this competition was also intensifying. There had been a solemn hint that IBM was going to play fair, but that might have been Gate’s imagining things.

IBM’s work ethic, its competitive nature, and its location on the East Coast were destined to combine in one explosive cocktail affecting Microsoft’s entire future. There was something he had forgotten, however. IBM used its intellectual property as a cudgel, while the rest of the industry quietly acquiesced, a state of affairs that benefited IBM’s stock price immensely. In a colossal gamble that shocked the business world — the Wall Street Journal called it “calculated, ambitious” — IBM’s Vice-President of New Ventures deployed over $1 billion of resources to exploiting the new Intel microchip.

There was a slight chance that IBM would run into technical difficulties, but that might have been hope speaking to Gates’s fevered brain. Not only was IBM soaring, making more brilliant and unprecedented advances than any other blue-chip S&P company, but the arc of this growth was also cascading into new, uncharted regions.

IBM had long been seen as invulnerable by the press. In a bid for world domination, IBM had collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War 2, earning major criticism from liberal quarters but costing it none of its significant profit from the venture. There had been vague suggestions that the feds would intervene, but that had come to nothing. The tech colossus had shrugged off the liabilities and dangers, while Nazi Germany reaped the benefits of American technology, a state of affairs concealing nothing from astute observers of the scene.

IBM could not invest enough money in microcomputers to guarantee a win, and aspiring programmers on the West Coast increasingly relied on the ancient method of copying technology and making minor tweaks. With IBM devoutly paranoid and its executives terrified, there was every chance that the tech giant would overreact, dooming it. Instead of copying the rest, Microsoft’s emphasis was on innovation more than stealing.

In the end, Microsoft won, and IBM lost.