Did Indian engineers build Microsoft? Watch what Bill Gates said in 2024, clip goes viral now

Amid US President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, previous comments of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates have surfaced that describe the role of Indian immigrants in the early growth of Microsoft.

In a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) in 2024, Gates said that about 15 people from India strengthened Microsoft’s early engineering capabilities and set the stage for the giant that it is today.

As of today, Microsoft is the world’s second-largest company with a market capitalisation of $3.85 trillion. Gates and Paul Allen co-founded it in 1975.

“In a sense, my first connection with India came because of the IITs. One of the great people who worked for me said that he would go over to India and hire about 15 people who’d been students at IIT and that would strengthen Microsoft’s engineering capabilities. At the time, we only had a few 100 people, but even so, it was so hard to find amazing engineers. I thought that was a good idea at the time,” said Gates.

In what appears like a parallel with present-day when Trump has cracked down on the H1-B visa, and his far-right allies have called for the expulsion of foreign workers, Gates said that even though the recruitment of Indian engineers back then was criticised, it turned out to be a “phenomenal thing”.

“The Indian press said this was a terrible thing because all these great people were leaving the country. The US press said this was a terrible thing as all these people coming from another country. But I think now, over 25 years later, we can say that was a phenomenal thing,” said Gates.

Even though the US tech industry has largely fell in line with Trump’s agenda, there has been some indirect criticism of his anti-immigrant agenda. Previous comments by well-known science and tech industry figures have surfaced on social. In one such video, scientist Michio Kaku warned that the US scientific establishment would collapse without the H1-visa programme.

Kaku said, “America has a secret weapon. That secret weapon is the H1B. Without the H1B, the scientific establishment of this country would collapse. Forget about Google, forget about Silicon Valley. There would be no Silicon Valley without the H1B. And you know what the H1B is? It’s the genius visa.”

Kaku went on to say that foreign-born scientists were not just the driving force behind the US innovation but create entire industries.

“You realise that in the United States, 50 per cent of all PhD candidates are foreign-born. At my system, one of the biggest in the United States, 100 per cent of the PhD candidates are foreign born. The United States is a magnet sucking up all the brains of the world. But now the brains are going back. They’re going back to China, they’re going back to India and people are saying, ‘Oh my God, there’s a Silicon Valley in India now. Oh my God, there’s a Silicon Valley in China.’ Duh! Where did it come from? It came from the United States. So, don’t tell me the science isn’t the engine of prosperity. You remove the H1B visa and you collapse the economy,” said Kaku.