The year is 1995. Bill Gates explains to a skeptic David Letterman on his late-night show why the Internet is “the new big thing.” Yet that deliciously vintage clip actually shows Gates failing miserably at presenting the Internet as something more than a frivolous fad. You would have thought that for someone who had become the world’s wealthiest man by developing and peddling technology, this would be an easy sell – even if pitched against a clever talk show host intent on scoring a gag or two.