Bill Gates Predicts Facebook and Netflix in 1994 Playboy Interview

Back in 1994, Bill Gates, founder and then-CEO of Microsoft, was riding high. His company’s operating system, Windows, was starting to gain traction in the home PC market, and he personally entered the Forbes list of richest people in the US. That same year, Gates took part in an interview with Playboy – a publication which, when it’s not showing skin, has a bizarrely rich journalistic history – in which he effectively envisioned the creation of online platforms Netflix and Facebook.

In the interview, when asked to essentially predict the future, Gates got it pretty much spot on, foreseeing a platform through which movie fans could watch films on demand – influenced by previous likes – and an ability to rate them after, a la Netflix:

“Say you want to watch a movie. To choose, you’ll want to know what movies others liked and, based on what you thought of other movies you’ve seen, if this is a movie you’d like. You’ll be able to browse that information. Then you select and get video on demand. Afterward, you can even share what you thought of the movie.”

Gates went on to predict the future invention of social networking, where people’s interactions with each other could extend beyond their own immediate surroundings. He told Playboy:

“Think about how you find people with common interests, how you pick a doctor, how you decide what book to read. Right now it’s hard to reach out to a broad range of people. You are tied into the physical community near you. But in the new environment, because of how information is stored and accessed, that community will expand. This tool will be empowering, the infrastructure will be built quickly and the impact will be broad.”

If only he’d thought to have actually built them.