For those who were not born then, Gates penned a memo claiming the Internet would be a tidal wave impacting every aspect of Vole’s business.

Microsoft's current leader, Satya Nadella, said he believes the impact of artificial intelligence will be just as profound.

Nadella said on this week's episode of The Circuit With Emily Chang. "I think AI is as big." Central to the latest attempt to transform Microsoft is OpenAI, a startup whose generative AI technology has created so much buzz that it snagged a $13 billion commitment from the software giant.

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman told The Circuit. "These big, major partnerships between tech companies usually don't work. This is an example of it working really well. We're super grateful for it."

The alliance has plenty of critics. The loudest is Elon [look at me] Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and then walked away from the company before it became important.  When Microsoft invested in the outfit Musk first moaned about how dangerous AI was before he went on to form an AI company of his own. His stance at the moment is that OpenAI is now "effectively controlled by Microsoft."

In response to a question about Musk's critiques and the prospect that Microsoft could acquire OpenAI, Altman said, "Company is not for sale. I don't know how to be clearer than that."