Wednesday, March 13

On March 13, 1986, Microsoft, the company co-founded by college drop-out Bill Gates, had its IPO, or initial public offering.

Now, as San Francisco uneasily waits for a new slew of IPOs—Lyft, Slack, and Uber, to name a few—fearful of what all that new wealth will mean, it’s instructive to look back at a more innocent time, when an IPO for a Seattle company produced only three billionaires and some 10,000 millionaires.

If you had taken a chance on Microsoft 33 years ago, you, too, could be a millionaire.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.