Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#71

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 10:16 PM UTC

um304 wrote: post #58

anonymouslives: "What is your best personal financial advice for people who make under $100,000 per year?", thisisbillgates: "Invest in your education.". Trying to digest this bit when dropping-off to do startups is in fashion.

Quote from Reddit: "I feel like he is probably one of the least qualified people to answer this question. When was the last time Bill Gates made less than $100,000 per year?"

Bill Gate's Response: "I never went for a big salary but your basic point is correct."

Indeed, this probably isn't the best question to ask Bill Gates.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#72

Post by gcb0 » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 10:24 PM UTC

Trufa wrote: post #57

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #24

What a strange format. I'm not a regular Reddit visitor so maybe I just don't "get it" but it seems like the top level questions for Gates are pretty intelligent, all questions I'd like to ask him (well, almost all--I don't get the condom one), and the responses to those questions are mostly snide, petty, and stupid.

I'm a frequent Redditor, and while I find the IAMA subreddits one of the most interesting ones, I'm pretty disappointed by how softball questions they were. Reddit is a great opportunity to be more direct and poignant (always in an educated and intelligent manner). For the people that don't know, the general "consensus" on reddit is that Bill Gates is awesome and Steve Jobs sucked, of course it's oversimplified but y…

yep. not asking softball question wont gather you the karma. hence why i laugh hard every time people suggest those (this?) sites are even a slight replacement for editorialized news sources.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#73

Post by rodgerd » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 10:36 PM UTC

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #52

sushirain wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the books I found there: * The Blue Death, http://www.amazon.com/The-Blue-Death-Disease-Disaster/dp/B00... * Principles of Neural Science (a canonical textbook) * Immunobiology * Genome

* Linus Pauling's General Chemistry * Richard Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale * Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science * Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos

_Ancestor's Tale_ is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#75

Post by debt » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

pmelendez wrote: post #16

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #9

Is this his library in the background? http://i.imgur.com/iqvPs7N.jpg edit: Apparently so, and here's his reading recommendations from 2013 (w/ same library in background): http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013 and more: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books <- lots of reviews here

Am I the only one who noticed the Weather for dummies? I wonder why he was interested on it.

Wow. Just the other day I was looking at the clouds and wondering how it all works up there and not some three-hundred word blogpost; seriously, why are there different clouds? The sky is such a big part of my everyday life, yet I know nothing about it. I searched around but couldn't find any good books on clouds.

This seems like a good start though. Mad respect for Bill.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#76

Post by joshschreuder » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 11:01 PM UTC

dmunoz wrote: post #45

Spittie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out http://topiama.com (It was posted here some time ago, I have no connection with that site), I find it has a very nice interface. Like r/tabled, his new iAmA it's not here, but to give the same example, here's his old one: http://www.topiama.com/r/911/im-bill-gates-cochair-of-the-bi...

Thanks for the reminder about topiama. I knew something like this existed, but forgot where. I was thinking recently about writing my own as a quick pet project. Still might, just for fun. It's actually a bit surprising to me that reddit themselves have not written an IAMA question-answer view. Celebrity AMAs have become a pretty big draw for reddit, but browsing them from the default view sucks. Perhaps they view it…

It makes a pretty good RSS feed, even if I do skip the majority of them.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#77

Post by kmfrk » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #44

You can tell it's him by the succinct and direct responses. It's a trait that's consistent across the most successful people I know.

One reason is that people have a vested interest in taking your words out of context and do a big non-story on your remarks.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#78

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 11:34 PM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #29

pmelendez wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who noticed the Weather for dummies? I wonder why he was interested on it.

He lives in Seattle so he has plenty of weather to be interested in. :-)

There are only two kinds of weather in Seattle: you get rain for 6 months and sun for 6 months. Its quite simple actually.

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#79

Post by 10feet » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 11:42 PM UTC

Trufa wrote: post #57

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #24

What a strange format. I'm not a regular Reddit visitor so maybe I just don't "get it" but it seems like the top level questions for Gates are pretty intelligent, all questions I'd like to ask him (well, almost all--I don't get the condom one), and the responses to those questions are mostly snide, petty, and stupid.

I'm a frequent Redditor, and while I find the IAMA subreddits one of the most interesting ones, I'm pretty disappointed by how softball questions they were. Reddit is a great opportunity to be more direct and poignant (always in an educated and intelligent manner). For the people that don't know, the general "consensus" on reddit is that Bill Gates is awesome and Steve Jobs sucked, of course it's oversimplified but y…

Your questions are awful questions. It is much more important to focus on what he is doing now, which is bigger than what he has done in the past. He is actually helping millions of people around the world now, and you want to focus on what he did in business 20-30 years ago.

Of course he was over aggressive in his running of Microsoft in the past. Does it matter if he says so? Or does it matter what he does today with his billions?

Re: Bill Gates: AMA on Reddit

#80

Post by richforrester » Mon, Feb 10, 2014, 11:43 PM UTC

skeletonjelly wrote: post #65

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #44

You can tell it's him by the succinct and direct responses. It's a trait that's consistent across the most successful people I know.

In my opinion it's the other way around. Because they're successful, they're busy, they're proven with the tongue, they have to be succinct and direct.

I'd rather think it's a personality trait. Even someone who's not busy, or successful, can come across as direct and succinct.