Leadership of Bill GatesA visionary leader: traits If we talk about creativity and ideas, Bill Gates is an unoriginal American. He is the head and co-founder of Microsoft, he is the richest man in the world, and his career conveys this message: it may be wiser to follow than to lead. Let the innovators go to the beaches and shoulder the losses; if you hold back and follow through, you can clean in peace and quiet. Gates is the Bing Crosby of American technology, if he is an unusually enterprising and successful businessman. A photo from 1968 shows Bill as an enraptured young teenager, watching his friend Paul Allen typing at a computer terminal. Allen became a co-founder of Microsoft. Baby Gates has neat hair and a longing, pleasant smile; every detail says "pat me on the head". He entered Harvard but dropped out to found Microsoft in 1975. Microsoft's first product was a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800, arguably the world's first personal computer. BASIC, invented by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1964, was someone else's idea. So was the Altair. Gates simply inserted one into the other, covered the waiting bagel in cream cheese, and pulled out a giant hit. The world reflected on Gates and thought he must be a great thinker. During World War II, cargo cults flourished in New Guinea and Melanesia: people who had never seen an airplane pondered incoming U.S. planes and assumed they must be divine. Technology is confusing and these were reasonable assumptions under the circumstances. In 1995 Gates published a book called "The Road Ahead". Peering far into the future, he glimpsed a technology-rich dream world where you'll be able to "watch Gone with the Wind," he wrote, "with your own face and voice in place of Vivien Leigh's or Clark Gable's." Apparently this is just what audiences were looking forward to, because "The Road Ahead" became a runaway best-seller, although it shines with sincere silliness, like a greasy haircut. And when we overlook Gates' basic decency, we find that he has been repeatedly offered a starring role in the circus freak show of American Celebrity, Julius Caesar is offered the Emperor's crown by sensational sycophants. He rejected it. He is not in the habit of going on television to pontificate, free-associate or express his feelings. His wife and child are largely invisible to the public, which represents a deliberate decision on Mr.