What a 1994 Bill Gates keynote tells us about the metaverse

In his keynote, many of the ideas Gates spoke about became a reality, such as smartphones, Google Maps and other tools. Yet, there are ways in which Gate's tech ideas failed.

• Gates was overly optimistic about when these innovations would happen. In many cases, it happened well after 2005.
• The products Microsoft envisioned and made, like the Pocket PCs, Tablet PCs, and Auto PCs, were not enduring hits. Other companies did a much better job.

Dismissing Gate's visions as fantasy would have been a bad idea. But it would also be bad to confuse Gates's confidence with the ability to predict the future.

If Zuckerberg’s metaverse pronouncements turn out to have been vaguely on target, it will be an accomplishment. But it doesn't guarantee that Meta will be a major player. It is possible that the metaverse will be defined and dominated by companies that don't exist yet.

When the world envisioned in Gate's keynote became real, no one was talking about "the information superhighway," or "the information highway." It was just called the internet.