Bill Gates is a badass

[jakeb]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... rence.html

At the prestigious TED conference, Bill Gates released a jar of malaria-infected mosquitoes into an auditorium. Well, they weren't really malaria-infected... but he did release some mosquitos and let people think they were infected for a minute or two.

He also made an interesting point that more money is spent looking for baldness cures than cures for malaria. I'm assuming that means that not very much money at all is being spent on malaria then.

Great stunt. Something only the richest man in the world could pull off without getting arrested.

 

[ali777]

Maybe he means Steve Ballmer spends too much of M$' money on snake oil cures for baldness :whistle:

'Now, baldness is a terrible thing and rich men are afflicted,' he joked. 'That is why that priority has been set.'

I think he's referring to his buddy Steve... It's not a nice thing to say.

I personally don't like the guy, I have my reasons but that's a different subject.

 

[s.a.f]

And Gates happens to have a full head of hair otherwise he would'nt have said that. :thumbdown2:

 

[HughJass]

nothing worse than a billionaire getting on his humanitarian high horse

 

[The Gardener]

nothing worse than a billionaire getting on his humanitarian high horse

Why would you say that?

Not sure if you know this, but Bill Gates is one of the greatest humanitarians of our time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_M ... Foundation

Do you or anyone else you know give over $93M annually in charity? Then what's with your cynical comment?... unless you are one of those way out there hard left Marxists who believe that people who achieve wealth in their lives should feel some sort of shame about it. :woot:

 

[barcafan]

Bill gates is awesome. I read somewhere that he doesnt even give his kids money (like allowance or buy them anything they want), they have to work for it.

 

[GeminiX]

nothing worse than a billionaire getting on his humanitarian high horse

While there are members of the "Filthy Rich" club that like to spend a few hours a year attending charity gigs for "good P.R.", Bill Gates is definately not in that group.

He does huge amounts of humanitarian work and donates $Millions to charity every year, most of which is unpublicized.

People may Love or loath MS, but Bill Gates is a genuinely good guy.

 

[patagonia]

if memory serves I read that Gates plans to donate ALL his money through his founation... he plans to leave each of his kids 10mill.(not completely sure of exact ammount) but something like that....

I read this in some Fortune magazine piece they did when Warren Buffett announced he was givin ALL his dough away through the gates foundation.....

according to Gates, Buffett is the one that influenced him on this issue.they have been really good friends for years.

Buffetts philosophy on what he calls " putting your kids on a type of welfare allowence for millionairse is very intersting..... in regards to rich people who set generations of their relatives by inheritence....

a very inetesting man Warren Buffett.

 

[s.a.f]

Do you or anyone else you know give over $93M annually in charity?

I think if I had $50bn in the bank I could manage to spare $93m.
I applaud the guy for his humanitarian work but lets be honest if you had an infinite amount of cash and had achieved as much as him, it would'nt really be such a sacrifice would it?

 

[GeminiX]

It's not just vast sums of money he donates, it's a huge chunk of his time. Time is worth far more than money to the individual.

Be honest, how many hours do you guys give to good causes each week?
( I "donate" one evening a week working in a charity call centre, I'm nice ).

 

[ali777]

I am one of those that doesn't buy into his generosity.

His unethical business practices are well documented, he made most of his money squashing smaller companies. Even the launch of his very first DOS was dodgy, and probably wouldn't be allowed today. He knew IBM were (was for Bryan) in the market for an OS, so he jumped onto it and bought an OS from someone for $50k and sold it on for much larger profit. For me that's "inside knowledge" and dodgy business practice.

I just don't like it when some rich git makes money unethically, and they plays God with his cash....

BBC went as far as claiming that he's using his dosh to "buy" a Noble Peace prize.

PS: I'm writing this message on Firefox browser running in Linux

 

[ali777]

It's not just vast sums of money he donates, it's a huge chunk of his time. Time is worth far more than money to the individual.

Be honest, how many hours do you guys give to good causes each week?
( I "donate" one evening a week working in a charity call centre, I'm nice ).

I'm not sure you know, but we are talking about a guy who used to bully his employees to make the deadline and make them work to the breaking point... He's a guy that claims to have gone into work every single day from 1975 to 2005.

Now imagine working for him, and then think if you would ever end up having free time...

If he's such a nice person, maybe he should have been nice from day one and not when he retires and doesn't know what to do with his cash and decides to play God...

Charity starts at home.

 

[GeminiX]

His unethical business practices are well documented, he made most of his money squashing smaller companies. Even the launch of his very first DOS was dodgy, and probably wouldn't be allowed today. He knew IBM were (was for Bryan) in the market for an OS, so he jumped onto it and bought an OS from someone for $50k and sold it on for much larger profit. For me that's "inside knowledge" and dodgy business practice.

That's not quite the whole story though is it, though it depends on the bias of the "spin" put on it by the author the version you read.

 

[GeminiX]

Now imagine working for him, and then think if you would ever end up having free time...

Maybe it's down to work ethics then, I've not taken a day off from work due to sickness in the last decade at least, and I regularly work during my "holidays" too

I work in a highly competitive sector of the market (as is most work in IT), the job has to get done. I'm amazed that anyone who applies to work at Microsoft expects a free lunch, they were (and I think still are) responsible for making more millionaires out of their employees than any other corporation (10,000 or more I believe).

*edit* - note to self, watching a movie while writing on a forum is "teh bad grammars".

 

[Bryan]

His unethical business practices are well documented, he made most of his money squashing smaller companies. Even the launch of his very first DOS was dodgy, and probably wouldn't be allowed today. He knew IBM were (was for Bryan) in the market for an OS, so he jumped onto it and bought an OS from someone for $50k and sold it on for much larger profit. For me that's "inside knowledge" and dodgy business practice.

Is there something wrong with the general capitalist principle of "buy low, sell high"? If I buy a car from someone for a low price, is it "dodgy business practice" to sell it later for a much higher price, if I'm able to find another person willing to pay such a price?

 

[ali777]

Now imagine working for him, and then think if you would ever end up having free time...

Maybe it's down to work ethics then, I've not taken a day off from work due to sickness in the last decade at least, and I regularly work during my "holidays" too

I work in a highly competitive sector of the market (as is most work in IT), the job has to get done. I'm amazed that anyone who applies to work at Microsoft expects a free lunch, they were (and I think still are) responsible for making more millionaires out of their employees than any other corporation (10,000 or more I believe).

*edit* - note to self, watching a movie while writing on a forum is "teh bad grammars".

It's a shame it took 10,000 millionaires 30 years to come up with half decent OS, and then they went back to their old ways...

Frankly speaking, 10,000 millionaires is not that impressive number. At one point all the bright kids went into IT. Just like MDs, lawyers, etc those kids would have expected to be millionaires at one point in their lives. I personally believe I will be a dollar millionaire at one point in my life as well. My brother's future wife will beat me to it, she's on the track to become one.

 

[ali777]

His unethical business practices are well documented, he made most of his money squashing smaller companies. Even the launch of his very first DOS was dodgy, and probably wouldn't be allowed today. He knew IBM were (was for Bryan) in the market for an OS, so he jumped onto it and bought an OS from someone for $50k and sold it on for much larger profit. For me that's "inside knowledge" and dodgy business practice.

Is there something wrong with the general capitalist principle of "buy low, sell high"? If I buy a car from someone for a low price, is it "dodgy business practice" to sell it later for a much higher price, if I'm able to find another person willing to pay such a price?

Yes... it is wrong when you have inside knowledge... You will get roasted for doing inside trading today...

I have absolutely nothing against working hard and making money as long as it's ethical...

Besides, one of the first principles and requirements of capitalism is competition. Competition is something the likes of MS don't do.

 

[Bryan]

Is there something wrong with the general capitalist principle of "buy low, sell high"? If I buy a car from someone for a low price, is it "dodgy business practice" to sell it later for a much higher price, if I'm able to find another person willing to pay such a price?

Yes... it is wrong when you have inside knowledge... You will get roasted for doing inside trading today...

But I'm not talking about the much narrower concept of "insider trading" as defined by the rules set by the SEC. I'm talking about EXACTLY WHAT I SAID in my post above: buying something (like a car) at a low price, and selling it later for a higher price. I personally am more in favor of general socialistic principles than the great majority of my fellow Americans, but I'd like you to tell me where you would draw the line: is it really "insider trading" to make money by re-selling a car for a higher price?

 

[ali777]

Is there something wrong with the general capitalist principle of "buy low, sell high"? If I buy a car from someone for a low price, is it "dodgy business practice" to sell it later for a much higher price, if I'm able to find another person willing to pay such a price?

Yes... it is wrong when you have inside knowledge... You will get roasted for doing inside trading today...

But I'm not talking about the much narrower concept of "insider trading" as defined by the rules set by the SEC. I'm talking about EXACTLY WHAT I SAID in my post above: buying something (like a car) at a low price, and selling it later for a higher price. I personally am more in favor of general socialistic principles than the great majority of my fellow Americans, but I'd like you to tell me where you would draw the line: is it really "insider trading" to make money by re-selling a car for a higher price?

There is nothing wrong with your example. You can buy cars and sell cars if you are in the business of buying and selling cars. Garages provide a service and they make their money by buying low and selling high...

However, imagine that tomorrow I need 100 cars and you know about it. You go out, and buy all the cars that are available without telling the sellers that there is a guy who wants to buy 100 cars. Now, you are in a position where you are the only one that can provide me with 100 cars, and you charge me whatever you want. Now, I have a question to you, you think this business practice is legal?

 

[Bryan]

I take it you don't consider it to be legal, yourself. So where (and how) do you draw the line? How about buying only 75 cars? Is THAT legal? Or 50 cars? Or 30? Or 10? Where do you draw the line?