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Bill Gates, Hero

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Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#31

Post by lionhearted »

edw519 wrote: post #13

Why do you think Silicon Valley has never quite come around on this guy? Because of the trail of dead bodies and lost opportunities left in his wake. Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman. Sure he wa…

> Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman.

The rest of your post is very insightful, but this part above strikes me as petty - I was low born myself, was given almost nothing except birth in the USA in the modern era, but I think good for people who are given things and achieve with them. The bad things stand on their own - you include the fact that he was given gifts as if it makes him worse - it doesn't - at least, not by my ethics. Other people can disagree. Let his bad deeds stand on their own, the rest of it comes across as sour grapes.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#32

Post by mtts »

siglesias wrote: post #16

The interesting fact that is often left out of these Gates-as-philanthropist v. Jobs-as-salesman arguments is that Jobs has 1/10 the wealth that Bill Gates has, if that, even though Apple is now worth more than Microsoft. So if this is a simple comparison of allocation of wealth we find that Jobs simply hasn't taken the money (look at his paycheck v. Apple's cash holdings for crying out loud). And socially how effect…

"And socially how effective is charity relative to giving it to the market? I'm not sure, but it's open to debate."

Generally speaking this is true, but if you look into the kind of charity work Bill Gates does, you'll find a lot of it is investing in setups that will be able to support themselves after a while and even pay back what was invested in them initially.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#33

Post by siglesias »

qq66 wrote: post #27
siglesias wrote: post #16

The interesting fact that is often left out of these Gates-as-philanthropist v. Jobs-as-salesman arguments is that Jobs has 1/10 the wealth that Bill Gates has, if that, even though Apple is now worth more than Microsoft. So if this is a simple comparison of allocation of wealth we find that Jobs simply hasn't taken the money (look at his paycheck v. Apple's cash holdings for crying out loud). And socially how effect…

Jobs' wealth is lower than Gates because Apple raised more money than Microsoft did early on, and because he sold all his stock when he left Apple and is now compensated in stock options rather than in founders' stock.

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 the disparity. The fact that people point at Jobs and accuse him of not being more philanthropic indicates that they are ignorant of his cash position.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#34

Post by jakarta »

edw519 wrote: post #13

Why do you think Silicon Valley has never quite come around on this guy? Because of the trail of dead bodies and lost opportunities left in his wake. Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman. Sure he wa…

"And what did he do with these fabulous once-in-a-lifetime gifts?"

He used those gifts to amass wealth which he is now in the process of mostly giving away.

It goes back to Warren Buffett who claimed that he won the ovarian lottery, being born at the right time with the right circumstances which enabled him to become extremely wealthy. As a result, Buffett advocates giving away 99% of his fortune in recognition of that.

That's contrary to other groups of the ultra-wealthy who vigorously fight against increased taxation because it robs them of money that they earned through "hard work" without recognizing the benefits of the society that they were born into.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#35

Post by mtts »

pedalpete wrote: post #10
DrJokepu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? I mean, could you elaborate that idea please? I don't see how Mr. Jobs being unpopular in some circles would imply that Mr. Gates became popular.

I agree with you Doc, this isn't a zero sum game. However, as Jobs is so closely tied to the recent success of Apple, and Gates is still seen as Microsoft even though he hasn't been an employee for many years.

He's still an employee, but he's no longer the CEO.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#36

Post by stackthat »

pohl wrote: post #28
stackthat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get over yourselves , have you used *nix systems in 90s as desktops? If you not you can't compare Windows's quality with something else. OSX wasn't even properly exist.

"NEXTSTEP is probably the most respected piece of software on the planet." -- Byte Magazine, October 1992 I used it during that decade on an x86 desktop, on a SPARC laptop made by Tadpole, and on an HP PA-RISC "gecko" workstation. It was awesome.

Sure, it was.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#37

Post by Gibbon »

jakarta wrote: post #34
edw519 wrote: post #13

Why do you think Silicon Valley has never quite come around on this guy? Because of the trail of dead bodies and lost opportunities left in his wake. Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman. Sure he wa…

"And what did he do with these fabulous once-in-a-lifetime gifts?" He used those gifts to amass wealth which he is now in the process of mostly giving away. It goes back to Warren Buffett who claimed that he won the ovarian lottery, being born at the right time with the right circumstances which enabled him to become extremely wealthy. As a result, Buffett advocates giving away 99% of his fortune in recognition of th…

Most of the wealthy I know are not against charity or giving away their wealth.. they are against an inefficient government deciding on how that should be accomplished.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#38

Post by gaius »

edw519 wrote: post #13

Why do you think Silicon Valley has never quite come around on this guy? Because of the trail of dead bodies and lost opportunities left in his wake. Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman. Sure he wa…

Oh please!

Michael Phelps was born with his flipper-like feet, does that make him any less of an Olympian? Genetic advantage, financial advantage, it's all the same.

Gates did what he set out to do, a computer on every desktop and in every home. The economies of scale he made possible are why you can buy a PC for what, $300 now? He took computing out of the hands of the "high priests" and gave it to the masses.

Would the state of computing be "better" without him? Define better... It certainly wouldn't be fully mainstream.

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#39

Post by gaius »

jakarta wrote: post #34
edw519 wrote: post #13

Why do you think Silicon Valley has never quite come around on this guy? Because of the trail of dead bodies and lost opportunities left in his wake. Let's not forget, Bill Gates was handed a 0th birthday gift of $1 million from his grandfather, the keys to his private middle school computer (the same one Stanford had), and a free ticket to do business with IBM because his mother already knew its chairman. Sure he wa…

"And what did he do with these fabulous once-in-a-lifetime gifts?" He used those gifts to amass wealth which he is now in the process of mostly giving away. It goes back to Warren Buffett who claimed that he won the ovarian lottery, being born at the right time with the right circumstances which enabled him to become extremely wealthy. As a result, Buffett advocates giving away 99% of his fortune in recognition of th…

Famously Warren Buffett's secretary pays more tax than he does...

Re: Bill Gates, Hero

#40

Post by lotharbot »

stackthat wrote: post #21
lotharbot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as this seems like snark, it's a fair observation. Bill Gates is often seen as a villain because of the late 1990s behavior of Microsoft and the quality of some of their flagship products (Windows and IE). It can be hard to separate perceptions of Bill Gates the man/philanthropist from Bill Gates the businessman. Perceptions of Bill Gates are colored by BSoD's, IE's non-compliance to standards, Frontpage crea…

Get over yourselves , have you used *nix systems in 90s as desktops? If you not you can't compare Windows's quality with something else. OSX wasn't even properly exist.

My 90s desktop experience included Windows, one of the pre-nix Mac OS's, and Red Hat. They were all terrible. Windows' propensity to crash was particularly bad, though.

I also used web browsers from Mosaic through the Netscape line, Opera, and IE. As late as 2001, IE was doing its own thing with regards to certain standards, and Frontpage was putting out broken HTML that only IE would render (leaving off /table tags, for example.)

There was plenty to criticize Microsoft for in that era. Seeing as the discussion is "why don't people give Bill Gates his due", I think it's perfectly valid to point out that some people still harbor some resentment from that era.

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