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AMA: Bill Gates

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Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#131

Post by soperj »

iambateman wrote: post #122

Hot take: Bill Gates is massively underrated today, compared to how he will be viewed by history. When the reckoning of history books happens, I could see him in the running for “most positive social influence of anyone 1800-2100”. His humanitarian work is second to none and we can expect 20+ more years of his direct influence on global policy. The world is a better place thanks to Mr and Mrs Gates.

Not really. You look at Andrew Carnegie who has a similar history, and even a hundred years out, no one cares. People like Einstein and Picasso are who lasts. No one really gives a shit about businessmen, regardless of their philanthropy.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#132

Post by criddell »

worble wrote: post #107
crumbshot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automatic updates are a good thing, otherwise far too many machines would be lagging behind on security fixes.

Can we stop this tired rhetoric? Yes ideally everyone would keep their system up to date 100% of the time, however it is not a good thing that users have that control stripped away from them, especially when these updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems cough randomly deleting files cough . I may disapprove of users not updating their systems, but I'll defend to the death their right to not do so…

I see it as an analog to public health issues. If you are going to use the public internet, then you need to have automatic updates on.

This feels a little like if you are going to attend a public school, you need to be vaccinated.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#133

Post by blueside »

MediumD wrote: post #124
iambateman wrote: post #122

Hot take: Bill Gates is massively underrated today, compared to how he will be viewed by history. When the reckoning of history books happens, I could see him in the running for “most positive social influence of anyone 1800-2100”. His humanitarian work is second to none and we can expect 20+ more years of his direct influence on global policy. The world is a better place thanks to Mr and Mrs Gates.

Completely agree with you, although I'm not sure how much of 'Hot take' that is.

Definitely not a "hot take" but there are certainly a lot of users on here who would argue otherwise. A lot of older programmers who were well into their careers during Microsoft in the 90's seem to have a different opinion of Bill and his business practices.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#134

Post by criddell »

devoply wrote: post #9
Causality1 wrote: post #7

I wonder, if Gates was still driving Windows development would Windows 10 still spy on users and restrict their ability to control updates like it does with Nadella at the helm?

Yes I remember Gates was a true Saint when he was running Microsoft.

History will forget all of that. His humanitarian efforts are going to have a much larger and longer lasting positive impact than anything he did at Microsoft.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#135

Post by basementcat »

soperj wrote: post #131
iambateman wrote: post #122

Hot take: Bill Gates is massively underrated today, compared to how he will be viewed by history. When the reckoning of history books happens, I could see him in the running for “most positive social influence of anyone 1800-2100”. His humanitarian work is second to none and we can expect 20+ more years of his direct influence on global policy. The world is a better place thanks to Mr and Mrs Gates.

Not really. You look at Andrew Carnegie who has a similar history, and even a hundred years out, no one cares. People like Einstein and Picasso are who lasts. No one really gives a shit about businessmen, regardless of their philanthropy.

Perhaps few will wonder why their university has an certain name or why a particular mountaintop is full of telescopes.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#136

Post by misterprime »

radiator wrote: post #101
trophycase wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how we complain that politicians are bought but the former richest man in the world apparently can't figure out how to use his massive fortune to influence policy.

Could it be that he never really was the richest, or far from it?

I have heard that people spend a lot of money keeping their wealth secret. The Panama Papers leak seemed to shed a lot of light on that.

"Worlds richest person" should actually be read "Worlds richest [publicly wealthy] person" I suppose.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#137

Post by jamesgeck0 »

worble wrote: post #107
crumbshot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automatic updates are a good thing, otherwise far too many machines would be lagging behind on security fixes.

Can we stop this tired rhetoric? Yes ideally everyone would keep their system up to date 100% of the time, however it is not a good thing that users have that control stripped away from them, especially when these updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems cough randomly deleting files cough . I may disapprove of users not updating their systems, but I'll defend to the death their right to not do so…

> updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems

While Microsoft's QA leaves much to be desired, there are plenty of instances where non-updated machines have had adverse effects on other people's systems.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#138

Post by saganus »

ggggtez wrote: post #116
worble wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop this tired rhetoric? Yes ideally everyone would keep their system up to date 100% of the time, however it is not a good thing that users have that control stripped away from them, especially when these updates can actually have _adverse_ effects on their systems cough randomly deleting files cough . I may disapprove of users not updating their systems, but I'll defend to the death their right to not do so…

You can already do that. Buy the business edition. Or use Linux and run windows in a VM. Or block the windows update system in one of a million ways including firewalling it. If you are really such a power user, you can do what you want already. For the millions of others people who don't know how to find facebook without putting it into google search... yeah the automatic updates are good for them, and I'm tired of…

Do you know where can I buy one license of the business edition?

I recently purchased a Pro license and couldn't find this "LTSB" (I believe it's called) version.

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#139

Post by [deleted] »

maximente wrote: post #54
x__x wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will come a time in history when Microsoft will be looked back on as an evil company who gave up all it's users personal data to big GOV. Bill doesn't want this to be his legacy. He wants to be remembered as a philanthropist, not as historys biggest sellout.

i think it's more accurate to say that bill gates amassed a fortune with very shady and illegal business practices and now uses those ill-begotten gains to do generally good works. unfortunately, it's him who is deciding what those good works are, not the people of the US, which is really unattractive to a lot of people, especially when issues like homelessness are really, really needing attention here at home.

[deleted]

Re: AMA: Bill Gates

#140

Post by porpoisely »

elektor wrote: post #2

Do people derive pleasure from these AMAs? Gates seems to reply with the same platitudes and non-answers to the point where its hard to tell if it’s him or the BMGF publicist.

AMAs, like everything on social media, used to be great years ago when it was raw and relatively uncensored.

Now it's just an ad platform for people and their PR team to push their products, ideas, etc.

It is no longer Ask Me "Anything". It really isn't even "Ask Me". I bet half the comments on these threads are by PR company staff.

AMAs went from being one of the great parts of reddit to one of the worst.

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