Why did Anand Mahindra hold a grudge against Bill Gates for over two decades?

Business tycoon Anand Mahindra had nursed a grudge against American magnate Bill Gates for more than two decades, it seems. Going by a recent exchange of tweets, Mahindra had a solid reason to feel so too.

Discussion on the topic began when a Twitter user Ramesh Babu shared a screengrab of a Gates documentary to enquire about the discussion going on between him and Mahindra, who can be seen seated by his side.

Sharing a still from Netflix documentary, ‘Inside Bill's mind: Decoding Bill Gates’, Ramesh tweeted:

Got to see while watching ‘Inside Bill’s Brain - Decoding @BillGates ‘ in @netflix. What was the intense discussion all about @anandmahindra ? When and where did this happen? Seems historic indeed. pic.twitter.com/mbFW6MVT41

— Ramesh Babu (@rameshbabua) December 21, 2019

He tagged both Mahindra and Gates in the tweet, hoping to elicit a response. And so it did, with Mahindra taking a walk down memory lane to share anecdotes on what went down that day.

In a series of tweets, he informed that the image is from Gates’ first trip to India, when a meeting was arranged between the two because Mahindra & Mahindra was one of the first companies to use WindowsNT. He also clarified that this meet had nothing to do with the fact that the two were classmates in Harvard College.

However, in case you’re wondering how any of this explains why Mahindra holds a grudge against Gates, they don’t. The reason behind the same was elucidated by the businessman in the following Twitter posts.

Haven’t seen the series..Didn’t know this pic was flashed in it. Thank you for sharing, because this meeting was in ‘97 during Bill’s first ever trip to India & I had no record of it since there were no cell cameras at the time..Just a photographer from Fortune(?) magazine (1/4) https://t.co/StLthh0Kcr

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 24, 2019

Bill started at Harvard College the same year I did (‘73) and famously dropped out to start Microsoft. But the Microsoft team didn’t request this meeting because we were classmates; they asked to meet us because M&M at that time was one of the 1st adopters of WindowsNT 4.0 (2/4) pic.twitter.com/a8n4dOgLA7

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 24, 2019

Funny story from that meeting: When Bill entered, he said “So I believe we were at Harvard at the same time?” I said ‘Yes, we never met, but I have a grudge against you.’ His team froze, thinking they had arranged a meeting with a wacko! (3/4) pic.twitter.com/LH3UBdelNp

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 24, 2019

Bill kept his cool & asked “Why the grudge?” I replied: ‘My daughter asked which of my college classmates were now famous & when I told her your name, she said:’What a loser you are Dad!’ So thanks to you, I’ll always be a loser to my kids!’ We had a big laugh at that..(4/4)r pic.twitter.com/6ahkLwNqUm

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 24, 2019