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Why do ppl still look up to Bill Gates?


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2020 Apr 5, 3:18pm   4,618 views  75 comments

by Rin   ➕follow (8)   💰tip   ignore  

From this thread ( https://patrick.net/post/1331233?offset=0#comment-1659562 )

Seriously, I don't get all the adulation.

Certainly, Gates made a lot of money and sure, his first thousand Microsoft employees all became millionaires but that's being a shrewd businessman, making the starting 1K have a full stake in the outcome.

Regardless, I never saw people talk about John D Rockefeller as a genius, tech visionary, nor humanitarian.

In contrast, people are saying that Gates is one of the greatest men, for giving away his wealth for the betterment of humanity but I say, he's just an egotist who's using his foundation as both, a tax sheltered hedge fund (as his billions of dollars of equity then don't go through the probate system), as well as a platform for people to speak highly of him, giving himself a title of nobility of sorts.

The Czar of International Health Care (plus Vaccinations).

----

So what's the Real Politik of William Gates III?

The story of Microsoft is that his mother helped him broker the deal with IBM, which got MS-DOS onto every shipped PC. And MS-DOS, itself, was bought from some Seattle firm for $50K.

Let's contrast that to an actual software (not re-packaging) billionaire, one that I model myself after.

Larry Ellison, clearly a playboy/party animal (and not the stereotype of an engineering nerd), did more programming than Gates, on both the mainframe and minicomputers, during his IT career prior to starting Relational Software (changed to Oracle) and afterwards, up until version 2 where he transitioned into a CEO type, selling his vision while letting others do the work.

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1   Tenpoundbass   2020 Apr 5, 3:42pm  

I haven't looked up to him since he bailed on Microsoft as their CEO.

I thought he was wrongly attacked for his Windows with that Monopoly wrap. He built the better mouse trap. I thought that suit was a huge miscarriage of our judicial system. If he was from any other country, they would have erected a statue in his honor and named a holiday after him. But it was painfully obvious, he was given some choice options to play along with the NWO and open up his Operating system to Governments, Indian hackers and Boris the Bank Fraud experts. While he ran around the world playing a do gooder philanthropist that gives a shit on TV.

I would have followed him anywhere before 2000.
2   Rin   2020 Apr 5, 3:45pm  

Tenpoundbass says
I thought he was wrongly attacked for his Windows with that Monopoly wrap.


Think about it like this, a prior era anti-trust suit against IBM, is what opened the door for MS to ship DOS on IBM PCs.
3   Rin   2020 Apr 5, 3:45pm  

Tenpoundbass says
While he ran around the world playing a do gooder philanthropist that gives a shit on TV.


Wasn't his successor the great Steve Ballmer? LOL!
4   Onvacation   2020 Apr 5, 3:50pm  

"It's not finished until Lotus doesn't work".
Bill Gates talking about the latest version of DOS.

Microsoft was notorious for giving incomplete or downright wrong OS Call specifications to competitor software companies that had to use DOS.

Anyone ever install Lotus Notes back in the 90's?
5   Tenpoundbass   2020 Apr 5, 3:59pm  

I used to love his Howard Dean enthusiasm, as the lead Developer.

www.youtube.com/embed/Vhh_GeBPOhs
6   theoakman   2020 Apr 5, 5:23pm  

Rin says
From this thread ( https://patrick.net/post/1331233?offset=0#comment-1659562 )

Seriously, I don't get all the adulation.

Certainly, Gates made a lot of money and sure, his first thousand Microsoft employees all became millionaires but that's being a shrewd businessman, making the starting 1K have a full stake in the outcome.

Regardless, I never saw people talk about John D Rockefeller as a genius, tech visionary, nor humanitarian.

In contrast, people are saying that Gates is one of the greatest men, for giving away his wealth for the betterment of humanity but I say, he's just an egotist who's using his foundation as both, a tax sheltered hedge fund (as his billions of dollars of equity then don't go through the probate system), as well as a platform for people to speak highly of him, giving himself a title of nobility of sorts.

The Czar...


Rockefeller didn't try to play charity tzar himself. He just started a medical school and let them cure all kinds of diseases on their own. Gates is an egomaniac and wants to be hands on the whole time.
7   Rin   2020 Apr 5, 5:36pm  

theoakman says
He just started a medical school and let them cure all kinds of diseases on their own.


This is true and his son, Rocky II, managed the philanthropies, including Rockefeller Institute, after the patriarch retired from business life.

theoakman says
Gates is an egomaniac and wants to be hands on the whole time.


Yes, and he doesn't have the know-how, as he's more or less, a college dropout who didn't really study the 'stuff' on his own but likes to think that he did.

I mean at least my former IT hero, Larry Ellison (also a dropout, like Gates but from another elite school, U of Chicago), actually spent time, learning about vector DNAs, even volunteering in biolabs (testing 'em out), before investing in the biotech sector.
8   clambo   2020 Apr 5, 6:17pm  

Microsoft was fortunate to get the contract to make the OS for IBM personal computers.

This was the ticket; since I was using them at my job in 1983, IBM was ubiquitous and they already employed an army of people to service office equipment like selectric typewriters.

When the Mac came out it was vastly superior but it seemed scary to corporate types; I suggested we get some and the boss said “OK but if it doesn’t work out, it’s your fault.”

As the saying goes, nobody got fired for buying IBM.
Strangely, computers at first came with limited software so you had to buy it. People bought Word to run on macs for example, and PowerPoint ran only on macs, excel was another software product.

Do people know what got computers into the workplace? They ran spreadsheets.
I recall doing a business plan spreadsheet manually in 1981 in Mexico and boy it is tedious without a computer.

Gates is a copycat and a robber baron, but he still attracts interest for some reason.

He’s giving away money because he knows the government will take it when he’s dead.
9   Rin   2020 Apr 5, 6:21pm  

Tim Aurora says
criticized by unaccomplished and ungrateful people.


Actually, I'd started, grew, and sold a hedge fund w/ a few other friends. And no, our parents didn't get us a "deal with IBM" nor did we purloin someone else's version of DOS and put it on the IBM hardware.

Our bid, which got us the 'big money' to grow was based upon our results.

It's not like we showed up, on a parent's cue, and then, made millions by piggybacking on IBM's sales force.

In contrast, when Ellison's Oracle was the DEC VAX's main RDBMS (outside of the in-house RDB), ppl saw that they could run their corporate data centers w/o getting a huge bill from IBM & its DB2 team. And after that, Oracle was available on Solaris, HP, and everywhere else. So Oracle made itself into a near virtual back office monopoly, without having to start out as one on a particular type of desktop. And today, Ellison is also pledging to give his money away. Do you see me complaining?

Tim Aurora says
No one here has criticized Rockefeller either.


What's there to criticize? Everyone knew he was an oil robber baron, who later, with his son's help, transitioned his family name into education and philanthropy. That's what sons are for.
10   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Apr 5, 7:58pm  

clambo says
Do people know what got computers into the workplace? They ran spreadsheets.


We would have never heard of Apple if Visicalc's creator could have gotten his hands on a Commodore PET, which had a 3 month backlog due to unbelievable demand. He travelled to dozens of stores before giving up and buying Steve's inferior machine. Unfortunately for Commodore, Visicalc was the Killer App of the day.

The PET, VIC-20, and C-64 were each the best selling computers of their day, that introduced most to computers. Apple IIs were wayyyy too expensive for the ordinary household, only educational institutions and some businesses could buy them. The Amiga was vastly superior not only to the first Macs, but any IBM product. Unfortunately it's marketing was botched.

Only a few twists of fate is the reason we aren't accessing this site on an Amiga OS, or checking it with our CommodorePhone.
11   mell   2020 Apr 5, 8:15pm  

NoCoupForYou says
The Amiga was vastly superior not only to the first Macs, but any IBM product. Unfortunately it's marketing was botched.


This! I loved the C64 it will always be the king of oldtimers and what the assembly game programmers got out of that box with extreme tight memory is nothing short of genius. They had smooth autoscrolling back then (!), the trick was to do everything within the vertical banking interrupt. But the Amiga was the king of custom computers, it's blitter and copper (coprocessor) were the finest and you had direct access to each piece of hardware just by knowing its address (you could program the floppy motor to make music lol) and it's CISC assembly was a breeze to program in. E.g. Movem (A0-A7), (sp)+ let you store all registers onto the stack and you were ready for your subroutine. Risc back then you had to do one by one, i. e. 7 commands. Those were the golden days of programming, when programmers weren't nerds but the cool kids, software pirates, skaters, musicians etc. Always good for a trip down memory lane. I mostly stopped programming in assembly when the PC started taking over. Not nearly as much fun.
12   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Apr 5, 8:21pm  

Right on man. I remember the school being like "WOW, look at these Apple IIe's, kids" around 1990. With my C64 running on an old 13" Color TV, I was like "Where's the color? Where's the sound?" How can I get this thing to play "Animal" by Def Leppard? Despite being 500% more expensive, the damned thing could only go "Beep" or "Chirp".

How about a trip down memory lane?

www.youtube.com/embed/o8YZKWKIPM4
13   mell   2020 Apr 5, 8:47pm  

I'll make sure I watch it. The Mac won cause it became a cult amongst academics (= money) and the PC won because it became the generics of computers. Sad ;)
15   BayArea   2020 Apr 6, 6:16am  

Who looks up to Bill Gates?
16   WookieMan   2020 Apr 6, 6:20am  

Tim Aurora says
Here we go again. The guy has earned billion and given billion to charity and just because he is not a right winger , he is getting criticized by unaccomplished and ungrateful people. No one here has criticized Rockefeller either.

Which charity has Gates given a billion to? I don't trust any of them in all honesty and I think most it has gone to his OWN charity.... He's also in a unique position to profit off charities by selling the something they all need.... computer equipment.

Don't trust a truly rich person. They're in it for themselves in whatever they do. My uncle is extremely wealthy (8 figures maybe 9) and super religious. He'd stab you in the back or con you without thinking about it. And he actually is a good guy. You have to understand business, and much of the time the profits are in the gray area of ethics.
17   mell   2020 Apr 6, 7:35am  

please edit this and post just one video at a time, thanks
18   mell   2020 Apr 6, 7:37am  

NoCoupForYou says
Right on man. I remember the school being like "WOW, look at these Apple IIe's, kids" around 1990. With my C64 running on an old 13" Color TV, I was like "Where's the color? Where's the sound?" How can I get this thing to play "Animal" by Def Leppard? Despite being 500% more expensive, the damned thing could only go "Beep" or "Chirp".

How about a trip down memory lane?


Just awesome - like this:

www.youtube.com/embed/HGxMDxGJXuo
19   HeadSet   2020 Apr 6, 2:02pm  

The Amiga was vastly superior not only to the first Macs, but any IBM product.

I still have a Video Toaster equipped Amiga 2000, and a Commodore SX-64. I remember back in the day a guy I know had an Amiga 3000, and he used to show it off by running 3 windows at the same time, one window with Microsoft Windows 3.0, One window with a MacOS, and one window with AmigaOS. Not bad for 1993 or so.
20   mell   2020 Apr 6, 3:09pm  

HeadSet says
The Amiga was vastly superior not only to the first Macs, but any IBM product.

I still have a Video Toaster equipped Amiga 2000, and a Commodore SX-64. I remember back in the day a guy I know had an Amiga 3000, and he used to show it off by running 3 windows at the same time, one window with Microsoft Windows 3.0, One window with a MacOS, and one window with AmigaOS. Not bad for 1993 or so.


AmigaOS was lightyears ahead of its time - true multi-tasking.
21   SunnyvaleCA   2020 Apr 6, 6:18pm  

My main problem with the super-rich and their "charities" is that they are tax-deductible vanity projects. How about if everyone has to pay basic income tax on all the money they give to "charity" and we lower everyone's tax rate by a percentage point with all the extra money the IRS takes in?
22   Patrick   2020 Apr 6, 6:23pm  

Tim Aurora says
Here we go again. The guy has earned billion and given billion to charity and just because he is not a right winger , he is getting criticized by unaccomplished and ungrateful people. No one here has criticized Rockefeller either.


No.

Bill Gates got that money by systematically eliminating market-based competition in tech, not by creating anything good.

IE killed Netscape, because Microsoft gave it away until Netscape died.
Word killed Wordstar, because Microsoft gave it away until Wordstar died.
Excel killed Visicalc, because Microsoft gave it away until Visicalc died.
and many more...

Nothing but extremely unethical business practices which set technology back decades at least. VC's wouldn't even fund tech which competed with Microsoft until the anti-trust trials against MS started.

Bill Gates is basically satan with a PR agent.
23   SunnyvaleCA   2020 Apr 6, 7:37pm  

Patrick says
IE killed Netscape, because Microsoft gave it away until Netscape died.
Microsoft also made sure that Netscape couldn't get Win95 specs from the beta program and that Win95 was incompatible with Netscape.

Excel was interesting on the Mac... it was one of the early programs from a time when the CPU used 24-bits for addresses. The upper 8 bits of each address were used as flags. Apple had 32-bit OS ready to go except just one single developer that was important could never seem to get around to re-compiling their programs for the true 32-bit addressing. It wasn't until a 3rd party (can't remember the name) hacked up the OS so that it could accommodate 24-bit and 32-bit applications simultaneously. Then all of a sudden we had a 32-bit version of Excel. Admittedly, though, the Mac had an entire missing decade corresponding exactly to when Steve Jobs was in exile.
24   Rin   2020 Apr 6, 7:39pm  

Patrick says
Bill Gates got that money by systematically eliminating market-based competition in tech,


Well, to some extent, Ellison and his firm, Oracle, did something similar with DEC's RDB, Informix, PeopleSoft, & Siebel. The truth is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and very few tech behemoths are above that aphorism.

The difference is that Ellison did push forward on ideas like media-on-demand, thin client tablets, etc, long before they'd become mainstream but by other companies aside from Oracle. Gates, on the other hand, did none of the above.
25   HeadSet   2020 Apr 7, 7:24am  

Bill Gates got that money by systematically eliminating market-based competition in tech, not by creating anything good.

We did all benefit from Microsoft, even if you hated Windows. After Windows 3.1 came out, the cost of Amigas and Macs quickly fell to 1/3 of their previous cost. Microsoft also ended the rein of the $70k Silicon Graphics computers in small video production houses. Of course, the Amiga with Video Toaster allowed a $10k computer to create titling and 3D graphics that formerly cost about $1,500 per second to make.
26   Tenpoundbass   2020 Apr 7, 7:40am  

Patrick says
IE killed Netscape, because Microsoft gave it away until Netscape died.
Word killed Wordstar, because Microsoft gave it away until Wordstart died.
Excel killed Visicalc, because Microsoft gave it away until Visicalc died.
and many more...

Nothing but extremely unethical business practices which set technology back decades at least. VC's wouldn't even fund tech which competed with Microsoft until the anti-trust trials against MS started.


Come on, this was during a time that "Freeware" was rampant. Jasc PaintShop Pro didn't kill off Adobe.

Microsoft was successful because they had standard, that no software company could use their "Made for Windows" logo unless they conformed.
We could use that standard today. All software designed for Windows was intuitive. If you knew Windows nomenclature, and did not intuitively know how to navigate around in a new software application you never used before. Then you were either an idiot or the software did not get the certification. Getting that certification was a bitch, and very time and cost consuming.

I can't believe the pure shit they put out today and get away with. You need to pay support or hire someone just to do the most rudimentary shit, if you haven't used it before. Even then it's clunky and a pile of shit. There's a Calc in Open Office and it sucks balls. MS Office before they introduced the ribbon and now the cloud shit, was the better mouse trap period. Someone should Clone Office 97 and they would corner the market, I guarantee that.
28   WookieMan   2020 Apr 16, 6:35am  

Booger says


Blind faith. I swear 80% of humans have some form of retardation. But hey, the guy that made computers that constantly get virus' says we should do x, y and z for a real life virus and people take it as gospel.
29   Rin   2020 Apr 16, 2:02pm  

Ok, let's be fair, Alexander Hamilton didn't finish his degree at Columbia because of the American revolution. He was still able to pass the bar exam, via self-study and the use of the apprenticeship system, to become a very successful attorney & Treasury secretary.

And we all know about Abe Lincoln, all self-study, no Ivy League pedigree at all.

Now, here's the difference ... Bill Gates doesn't learn from others. Instead, he builds an empire based upon having financial and market power and thus, gets buildings at places like Harvard built in his family's name, ala Maxwell-Dworkin (Gate's & Balmer's respective mothers' maiden names), and so on. He basically buys the prestige of being a doctor, an epidemiologist, a virologist, but without having to pay his dues and that's to learn the stuff and be challenged by other experts in the field who don't just kowtow to his billions.
30   Ceffer   2020 Apr 16, 2:25pm  

#ConstipatedRichFuckPsychopath
32   theoakman   2020 Apr 17, 6:32am  

Tenpoundbass says
Patrick says
IE killed Netscape, because Microsoft gave it away until Netscape died.
Word killed Wordstar, because Microsoft gave it away until Wordstart died.
Excel killed Visicalc, because Microsoft gave it away until Visicalc died.
and many more...

Nothing but extremely unethical business practices which set technology back decades at least. VC's wouldn't even fund tech which competed with Microsoft until the anti-trust trials against MS started.


Come on, this was during a time that "Freeware" was rampant. Jasc PaintShop Pro didn't kill off Adobe.

Microsoft was successful because they had standard, that no software company could use their "Made for Windows" logo unless they conformed.
We could use that standard today. All software designed for Windows was intuitive. If you knew Windows nomenclature, and did not intuitively know how to navigate around in a new softw...


I'm still using office 97 on my computers today. I also still play mp3s off of the original Winamp. There are no advantages to upgrading.
33   Rin   2020 Apr 17, 12:18pm  

To those ppl who've argued against me ... have you noticed that I didn't post any criticism towards Larry Ellison, another software billionaire worth some $58 billion?

So if you think this is about some 'socialism' redistribution of wealth then think again.

Larry, my former IT hero, spends his time racing the America's Cup, not in telling humanity what to do. And it looks like he parties a lot (in boats, planes, and mansions) and fucks women, though not hoes, which is what I'd do, to avoid having to pay for liabilities.

And he's also pledged to give away his wealth to charity upon death. So yeah, he's not planning on being the wealthiest patron in the cemetery.
34   Ceffer   2020 Apr 17, 12:28pm  

I can't count the times in California where vile people have been praised in all kinds of inappropriate ways because they have money. I don't upgrade vile rich people because they have money, I just mentally downgrade praisers for being shallow idiots.
35   Ceffer   2020 Apr 17, 6:07pm  

Bill Gates is the Soros of health care scares. He had contributed 80 million dollars to the British gorks who predicted 500,000 deaths in Britain, then scaled it back to 20,000 and took credit for the scare measures and claimed they were responsible for the smaller number.

This is Pandemic Munchausen by Proxy Politics. Create the non existent disease, establish draconian policy, and then claim credit for fixing the problem which was non-existent in the first place.
36   Rin   2020 Apr 24, 6:57pm  

Ceffer says
Create the non existent disease, establish draconian policy, and then claim credit for fixing the problem which was non-existent in the first place.


One more time and this is aimed at ppl who defend Gates ... why is it that I have no problems with Larry Ellison?

Is it because he's an honest rich guy? A man who's doing his thing ... crushing IT competitors (in Oracle's space) and enjoying his hobbies?

And he's not some forked tongue do-gooder who's really just pushing for more authoritarianism but against the general populace?
37   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Apr 27, 1:16pm  

Appearing on CNN, Gates gushed that “China did a lot of things right at the beginning,” but added that “Like any country where a virus first shows up, they can look back and see where they missed some things.”

I guess silencing whistleblowers and lying about transmissibility count as “right things” in billionaire Bill’s mind.

When CNN host Fareed Zakaria asked Gates what he thinks about China’s lies, the billionaire dismissed it as “a distraction.”

WATCH:

“How would you respond to the charge that the Chinese covered this up, they essentially deceived the rest of the world, and as a result, they should be held in someway responsible for this?” Zakaria asked Gates.

“Well, I don’t think that’s a timely thing because it doesn’t affect how we act today,” Gates responded.

Summit.news reports: In addition, Gates attacked the US government’s response to the outbreak, saying that “Some countries did respond very quickly and get their testing in place and they avoided the incredible economic pain, and its sad that even the US, that you would have expected to do this well, did it particularly poorly.”

Gates, who stands to profit in the billions, then urged that the only thing on everyone’s minds now should be “to take the great science we have, the fact that we’re in this together, fix testing and treatments and get that vaccine.”

It is obvious that Gates would take this position, given that he basically is the World Health Organisation.

The WHO has faced global shame for parroting the dangerous lies of a tyrannical regime, which is still claiming fewer than 5000 deaths in the whole of China from COVID-19.

Gates’ foundation is now the WHO’s biggest patron, since the US halted all funding to the organisation.

While most expressed disgust at Gates’ comments, China enjoyed the interview, and immediately used it as propaganda:

https://newspunch.com/bill-gates-defends-communist-china-they-did-lot-things-right-us-acted-poorly/
38   Ceffer   2020 Apr 27, 2:38pm  

Gates is a bubble boy corporate psychopath. Couldn't change his stripes if he wanted to.
39   Rin   2020 Apr 27, 3:24pm  

Ceffer says

Gates is a bubble boy corporate psychopath. Couldn't change his stripes if he wanted to


Yep, which is why it's imperative that now that he's no longer in his own Private Idaho (a.k.a Microsoft), that he's criticized left and right since he can't fire the general public.

One more time, Larry Ellison is a cool, corporate shark, billionaire. --- Defects socialism strawman attack

In contrast, Bill Gates is a dickwad.

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