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
University Scholars Program major in computer science and economics in 1986 and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987. The University Scholars Program at Duke was the first major philanthropic endeavor by the Gates' through the William H. Gates Foundation, prior to the establishment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The University Scholars Program is the first scholarship program of its kind in the United States. The program offers scholarship support to undergraduate, graduate and professional school students with a focus on interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge. The focus on interdisciplinarity derives in part from Melinda French Gates' own interdisciplinary