Photograph, Laguna Niguel, California, 1992.
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates discusses cheap content for the masses and debates with reporters about the long delayed “vaporware” upgrade to Windows at the Agenda ‘92 Conference. The conference was hosted by the irreverent pundit Stewart Alsop, who showed Gates no mercy. Later that year, at the influential TED Conference, Gates repeated his idea about the cost of photography, saying, “No one should ever pay more than fifty bucks for a photograph.” He was completing construction on a massive house in Seattle that would feature a screen that he wanted to display a continuously changing slide show. This led to the idea of forming a stock photography business that was originally called Continuum. After their first contract was excoriated in the photography trade press for its aggressive rights grab, the name changed to Corbis.
- 17” (43.18cm) Height
- 22” (55.88cm) Width
- Signed on verso by the artist