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Bill Gates, Hero

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Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#161

Post by Evgeny »

mattmaroon wrote: post #65
edw519 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot see into alternate universes You don't have to see into alternate universes. You just have to be old enough to have already lived in one. The one before Microsoft. I suspect that alot of the Bill Gates/Microsoft love/hate splits along age lines. If you're under 40, you're not old enough to have experienced the glorious pre-Microsoft days. We worked on all kinds of cool stuff, IBM mainframes (the good and the…

That's funny, my friend (who was a very early MSFT employee) tells a different story. There were a bunch of different competing technologies. Writing a program for all of them meant writing it over and over, so nobody did this. The market was small and fragmented, and nobody really believed you could get huge as a software company. Bill's parents wanted him to finish his schooling instead of dropping out to start Mic…

This is the sort of discussions I love best on HN:

I read a thoughtful comment and have no choice but upvote it because it's very thought provoking and I'm nodding all the way through it. Then I read the opponent's comment ... and feel the same way!

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#162

Post by mattmaroon »

raganwald wrote: post #157
mattmaroon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a line for sure. If Microsoft has done anything like funding coups it's not in the standard litany of complaints. It's more like "they saw Netscape and ran it out of business by building their own browser" or "they ate all of Apple's market share". That's not evil, it's exercising fiduciary duty. Same with vendor lock-in. Unless I'm just not understanding the argument ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crit…

the standard litany of complaints That phrase is sufficient to earn an upmod all on its own. Reading your reply, I immediately thought of people huddled in a church listening to the Vicar preach against Microsoft's evil. But it isn't a passionate speech full of fire and brimstone, it's a standard reading that he has given so many times, his voice is now a monotone and the parishioners know every word by heart.

Ha, good visualization. I find much of what I read here to be like that. Especially when people or corporations (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook) are called evil. At that point it always feels like we've left the realm of enlightened conversation. There's never a recognized gray area. It saddens me and makes me giggle whenever I see the community patting itself on the back for the quality of its discussion.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#163

Post by pyre »

ohashi wrote: post #114
edw519 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot see into alternate universes You don't have to see into alternate universes. You just have to be old enough to have already lived in one. The one before Microsoft. I suspect that alot of the Bill Gates/Microsoft love/hate splits along age lines. If you're under 40, you're not old enough to have experienced the glorious pre-Microsoft days. We worked on all kinds of cool stuff, IBM mainframes (the good and the…

Reminds me of the comment about people not knowing what the real game being played is. They think the rules are a certain way when in fact reality has a very different set that they are incapable of operating within. They faced innovation outside the technical arena and got beat. Then they want to complain about the 'rules.'

Based on this logic, assassinations are 'fair game' so long as you don't get caught. Would I be an 'innovator' if I developed a way for corporate-directed assassinations to become a reality?

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#164

Post by qq66 »

kenjackson wrote: post #69
siglesias wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He sold his stock in protest over being fired--again, for principle, not money. With $46B cash and short term holdings in the bank, I'm sure shareholders wouldn't bat much of an eye if Jobs compensated himself with a little bit more than $1/year, as Ellison and many other tech execs do. Jobs doesn't take that cash. The last point I'm going to make is that it's probably immaterial to the argument the exact cause of th…

Selling your stock over being fired is not a principled stand. At least not in the conventional way of thinking about it. Plus he has on occassion been labelled the highest paying CEO in the world, due to his stock options. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/12/lead_07ceos_Steven-P-Job... And in any case, most CEOs don't make a HUGE salary. Jobs would probably get paid $750k. The fact that he doesn't make this money is…

He sold his stock because he thought that Apple stock without him was worthless. He was right.

Now, Apple is trying to convince the market that the new Apple can function without Steve Jobs. People want to believe, but it's far from certain.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#165

Post by megablast »

arohner wrote: post #151
potatolicious wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you're not talking to the same wealthy that I've been. What do you think will be the repsonse to, say, a 50% tax rate on the wealthy that they are able to distribute as they see fit (with strict controls such that it doesn't end up back in their own hands, or their family's)? Yeah, good luck with that. I see the "but government is inefficient" argument a lot - it would have some merit, if there's even the slig…

You're forgetting that people can have principled objections to the role of the federal government. I'm not rich, and I'm grumpy about what my 20% federal taxes are going to. The financial and GM bailouts, "homeland security", ag subsidies, congressional pork, federal taxes to pay for local schools, "war on terror", "war on drugs". If the gov't was efficient in the things it did, and did the things I believe it shoul…

With you there, except for "federal taxes to pay for local schools". What is your problem with education? This does not compare to anything else you were complaining about.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#166

Post by ericd »

rbanffy wrote: post #149
storm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a young(ish) hacker, and I'm proud not to engage in religious nonsense like this at all. Windows, Linux, OSX, who cares? Get on with the coding already.

A real craftsman cares for the tools he uses. And it's not a religious issue - it's just that the thing is taking up space on an NTFS partition. I can store better stuff in that space.

Sometimes a real craftsman needs one of those esoteric tools that they usually have no need for.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#167

Post by siglesias »

qq66 wrote: post #164
kenjackson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling your stock over being fired is not a principled stand. At least not in the conventional way of thinking about it. Plus he has on occassion been labelled the highest paying CEO in the world, due to his stock options. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/12/lead_07ceos_Steven-P-Job... And in any case, most CEOs don't make a HUGE salary. Jobs would probably get paid $750k. The fact that he doesn't make this money is…

He sold his stock because he thought that Apple stock without him was worthless. He was right. Now, Apple is trying to convince the market that the new Apple can function without Steve Jobs. People want to believe, but it's far from certain.

I agree with you in principle, that his leaving ultimately doomed the company, but the stock price did go up when he left, and stayed up for many years.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#168

Post by garrettgillas »

rbanffy wrote: post #81
garrettgillas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it better to be a bully in business and do great things with the wealth or to be graceful in business and squander a fortune? I really don't know but my initial reaction says the former.

False dichotomy alert! You can be a graceful businessman and still make a profit, further a healthy market and win on it through a superior product instead of doing so through shady backroom deals that border the criminal.

I wasn't implying there there exists a dichotomy and that all businesses are one or the other. You did that on your own. I'm just saying that no business is perfect and having to choose between the two...

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#169

Post by shortformblog »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrJBY2l1MQQ

For what it's worth, Gates has been getting a lot of crap in the political sphere for this statement he made a couple of months ago. Glenn Beck's site, The Blaze, has been ripping him for his stance seemingly favoring "death panels."

I lean on the side of the blog post, even if his company's quality (as has been noted in the comments) has been downright abhorrent.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#170

Post by adamtj »

jacobolus wrote: post #127
mattmaroon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comments its clear that you're zealously anti-capitalist and, as a result, anti-Microsoft, so you're simply not applying logic. Bill Gates did his legal duty. When you run a corporation you have a fiduciary responsibility to it. He would be doing something immoral if he didn't do what was best for Microsoft. The theory behind free market capitalism is that enough companies doing the same will average out to…

> The theory behind free market capitalism is that enough companies doing the same will average out to the best results. You left out the part about how this only works if (a) the market is actually “free” and “competitive” (what this means is a complicated topic beyond the scope of this text box), and (b) the interests of the company and the interests of the broader society are aligned. (Which is why we have all sor…

What does "free" even mean? Does it mean free from any outside interference? So, no laws and anything goes? Then is it still free if a company uses that freedom to restrict the actions of others with "uncompetitive" strategies? Or does it mean free to do anything that isn't "unfair" or "uncompetitive", where somebody other than the actor decides if the action is fair and prohibits it if not?
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