Bill Gates with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico. Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies. Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90 percent of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and by doing so the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for
Bill Gates gladly so... I've paid over $6 billion in taxes." He is a proponent of higher taxes, particularly for the rich. Gates' days are planned for him, similar to the US President's schedule, on a minute-by-minute basis. Gates has written two books: In 2013, Gates became a LinkedIn Influencer. Gates was the guest on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" on January 31, 2016, in which he talks about his relationships with his father and Steve Jobs, meeting Melinda Ann French, the start of Microsoft and some of his habits (for example reading The Economist "from cover to cover every week").