Bill Gates steps down?

[jalsonmi]

|_emmiwinks said:

selnor said:
I think he's a good inspiration to americans. I hate the way people put M$ down all the time.(sometimes they deserve it). I think americans should be proud of what he has done.

 

Dude, before you start spouting that I suggest you watch Pirates of Silicon Valley. Or just read about the whole story about the creation of Apple and Microsoft and the split between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

He made it where he is because he was a ruthless, a-moral theif for all intents and purposes. Just because he now takes less then 10% of his monetary worth and gives it to his own charity doesnt make him anymore likeable.

Hell, I donate more then 15% of my income to charity, does that mean Americans should be proud of what I have done?

 

I don't disagree with any of the first part, but about the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation:

 

a) It's more like 25%. His net worth is $58 billion, the foundation has an endowment of $38 billion. Half of that endowment was endowed by Warren Buffett. (A quick word on how an endowment works: it's money that cannot be touched, and instead all donations are made off of interest and investments made with the endowment. Since a massive portion of this endowment is invested in Berkshire Hathaway stock, that's a lot of money constantly being made and thus donated)

b) The foundation donates billions and billions of dollars worldwide towards a multitude of causes, including fighting AIDS in Africa and promoting education all over the globe. The Gates family doesn't simply "donate to charity." Even if they did, yes, $19 billion donated is more to admire than 15% of whatever money you've donated to Greenpeace or whathaveyou. No offense to you--it's great to do such a thing, but obviously much more can be done with Gates' money than your. In addition, by starting such a foundation and shaping everything it does, he's taking an active part in the philanthropy, not simply passively donating it all to, say, the UN (as when Ted Turner donated $1 billion to the UN). Again, not that such a thing would be bad, just that what he's doing is massively more important, and more admirable.

Microsoft had/has terrible business practices. They're monopolistic and often try to copy competitors, most famously vis a vis Windows' suspiciously similar qualities to the Macintoch OS. However, unlike other companies, they never abused their employees (apparently he can be a demanding boss, but all employees get stock options), they employ primarily in the US and avoid international sweatshops, they are making strides to try to be a green company, and they don't partake is massive fraud. All of those qualities, found in many, many corporations, are worse than monopolistic practices. The worst thing about trusts in the early 20th century was that they used their monopoly to do some of the things I just listed. Microsoft does not do such things. This is not to say what Microsoft does is good (I'm typing all of this on a Mac Book Pro, browsing via Firefox), but the company hasn't seriosly harmed the world the way some companies have, and thus the massive good the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has done does indeed well compensate for Gates' wrongs at Microsoft. As I said before, it's the largest foundation of it's kind in the world. That's simply amazing.