Wealth & Money Quote by Dave Barry

Dave Barry’s punchline lands because it compresses a whole era of tech frustration into a single, petty-sounding word that turns out to be an economic law: versions. Not “innovation,” not “genius,” not even “monopoly” (though the joke flirts with it). “Versions” is the consumer-facing face of power: the endless parade of upgrades that make yesterday’s perfectly functional product feel obsolete, incompatible, or faintly shameful.

The intent is classic Barry: take something grand (Bill Gates’ wealth, the mythology of Silicon Valley) and pin it to an everyday irritation (the “update available” nag, the new file format, the software that suddenly needs more RAM). By treating the reason for Gates’ riches as almost comically banal, Barry punctures the heroic narrative of tech founders. The subtext isn’t that Gates didn’t earn it; it’s that the system of earning it relies on planned churn. “Versions” implies revenue not just from selling a thing, but from selling the same thing again, slightly rearranged, with just enough newness to justify the bill and just enough incompatibility to force compliance.

Context matters: Barry’s career peaks alongside the 1990s home-computer boom, when Microsoft was both ubiquitous and widely resented, a default you couldn’t escape. The joke catches that cultural mood: a mix of awe at computing’s promise and exhaustion with its fine print. It also anticipates today’s subscription economy. “Versions” has simply metastasized into “updates,” “tiers,” and “services,” the perpetual motion machine of modern tech profit.