8 ms·

How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates (1999)

58 points by larrys 11y ago

ForHackernews 11y ago
> When Microsoft products were threatened by network computers and Web-based applications, they simply bought WebTV and Hotmail. Back when WebTV was considered a good idea?
- TheAnimus 11y ago
  For what it's worth I'm happily using the modern incantation of WebTV, my FireTV Stick. I have my 'TV' on demand, whenever I want it, I can run some web related apps, even hacked something together for controlling my lights. I don't think WebTV was a bad idea. I think it was just too early and lacked that critical video on demand concept. In the UK there was a gap for a long time that was filled by 'Smart' functions of Sky TV's digibox. This used a modem to upload content, and allowed for receiving of good quality video from sat, as a result you could watch the 'latest' films, for around £3 and only have to wait a few minutes before it would start. Automatically from the box interface, rather than via a call centre. But this was just the start, shopping was possible, you could order products and the like. Now we live in a world where Amazon Instant isn't even on my desktop web browser, instead needing an 'app' for a phone, and apparently mine isn't even supported. There are lots of people who want to consume 'web' functions from a device other than a computer.
  - codewithcheese 11y ago
    One brings the Web on the TV (Web TV) the other brings TV on the Web (Streaming, Netflix) which you end up watching on your TV. Turns out people like watching TV on their TV.
- jotm 11y ago
  One word: ROI. Radio. On. Internet. :-)
peteretep 11y ago
> If Donald Trump had taken the millions he inherited > from his father and put it all into mutual funds, you'd > never have had to suffer through one of his books. But > he'd be just about as rich today. I made a half-hearted attempt to run the figures on that a few months ago — I'd be very grateful if anyone was sufficiently more diligent than me and ran the figures.
- mbrock 11y ago
  http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-investing-than-donald-trump/ http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-inve... "Imagine Trump had retired in 1982, sold his real estate holdings and invested his $500 million in the S&P 500 — that is, 500 stocks representing the American stock market. "From 1982 through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index had an annualized return, including reinvested dividends, of 11.86 percent, according to MoneyChimp’s S&P 500 Compound Annual Growth Rate calculator. "Per this calculator, every dollar invested in January 1982 would have been worth $40 by December of 2014. That means Trump’s initial $500 million would have grown to $20 billion. That’s twice what Trump says he’s worth today."
  - auntienomen 11y ago
    If you subtract 15% capital gains taxes every year, this 'only' comes out to $12 billion. (Which is why billionaires hate taxes.)
    - arbuge 11y ago
      Those taxes only apply if you sell though. If not, you get the full $20B, less 15% at the end (i.e. $17B) if you decide to quit cold turkey and convert it all to cash on the final day.
    - kulkarnic 11y ago
      You only pay capital gains taxes when you realize gains, not every year. Trump would pay 15% of $20B = ~$3B, so his net worth would be $17B. And this is assuming that his stock investments don't pay qualified dividends that are reinvested. So, yeah, he'd have much more than $12B.
OJFord 11y ago
Will I be as rich as he was in '99, or as he is now? Screw it, doesn't matter.
OJFord 11y ago
> *Lesson 4. Let Other People Do The Programming* > ... > Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding.
- seunosewa 11y ago
  The same is true of Linux Torvalds, ironically.
  - OJFord 11y ago
    I mean, it hasn't always been true of either of them. But I posted it because I find the idea of sitting down for a code review with Bill Gates today (or, on Monday) pretty amusing!
    - ced 11y ago
      Oh man, you should read: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html It's a brilliant account of the process!
      - OJFord 11y ago
        Thanks!
eloff 11y ago
> Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding. That's just wrong: In 1983 Microsoft had revenues of $55 million and a headcount of 500. Bill was the CEO. And yet, according to Gates talking about the Tandy TRS-100, "part of my nostalgia about this machine is this was the last machine where I wrote a very high percentage of the code in the product. I did all the design and debugging along with Jey."[1]. Gates was CEO of a company of 500 with revenue of $55 million, and still producing large amounts of serious code. That's impressive (or misspent time, however you want to think about it.) [1] http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  The article is from 1999, not 1983.
  - eloff 11y ago
    What does that have to do with anything? I'm not suggesting Gates still wrote meaningful code in 1999, and the article was very dismissive of Gates coding abilities and the impact they had on his success. He did not restrict his criticism to 1999.
jeffdavis 11y ago
"Choose your parents carefully" has got to be one of the most pessimistic and cynical perspectives in existence. Instead, you could say "treat your children well", which is basically the same thing, except a lot less selfish.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  How exactly is describing reality selfish?
  - JakeTorrence 11y ago
    The difference in the views expressed is that one takes all of the blame for your circumstances and puts them on your parents, and the other is taking the responsibility of providing good circumstances for your children. In the end, the meaning is about the same, but the undertones are a bit different.
    - gnaritas 11y ago
      The meaning isn't close to the same; talking about your children's well being has nothing to do with talking about your own well being. And saying your parents matter isn't blaming them, it's simply an accurate description of reality. Having rich parents vs having poor parents has far more to do with how you turn out than your own effort does[1], that is the reality of this world, like it or not. [1] http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
    - tjradcliffe 11y ago
      The meaning is not the same because it's very difficult for poor and less educated parents to give their children what rich and more educated parents give them. My kids went to a high school that had a considerable socio-economic range and I was fairly involved in some stuff there, and it was clear there were plenty of poorer, less educated parents who were working really hard to give their kids everything they needed, but it was almost impossibly difficult for them. This is not an argument against treating your children well, but the reality is that having parents who are well-off and educated buffers you against all kinds of mistakes and issues that would sink other kids. Moderating (not eliminating, which is neither possible nor desirable) social inequality is important precisely because we can say with as much certainty as we can say anything that there are kids out there today as talented and driven as Bill Gates who don't have anything like the resilient support system that he had, and without it they are likely going to be a drag on society rather than contributors to it.
curiousjorge 11y ago
this excerpt I find striking: > If you're an intelligent curious person it can be painful to run a company of more than 50 people. You spend more time than you'd like repeating yourself, sitting in boring meetings, skimming over long legal documents in which you know there are errors but aren't sure how serious, etc. The temptation is to hand over the reins to the first "professional manager" who comes along. And that's what the standard venture capitalist formula dictates. But Bill Gates didn't do that. He hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 and gave him the CEO job 20 years later. Making money in the software products business requires domain expertise and a commitment to solving problems within that domain. Great tech companies are seldom built by non-technical management or professional managers who aren't committed to anything more than their paycheck. Adobe is another good example. The two founders were PhD computer science researchers from Xerox PARC who were passionate about solving problems in the publishing and graphics world. They are still guiding operations at Adobe.
tim333 11y ago
Some past appearances: 2 years ago 88 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325 6 years ago 31 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776
kulkarnic 11y ago
Articles like this are evidence that people are still surprised that capital grows faster than labour. At least in fair capitalist society the surest way to become wealthy (statistically speaking) is to understand: - The total wealth of the world is expected to keep increasing - Capital grows faster than labour - Taxes and disasters redistribute wealth This is why investing in index funds that don't pay dividends is such a good idea.
- eloff 11y ago
  OT: If an index fund doesn't pay dividends, what happens to the dividends? Presumably the fund owns shares in every stock in the index, so there should be dividends? Does it just go towards paying the fund overheads? What about for an ETF index fund?
  - kulkarnic 11y ago
    I misphrased above. The index fund will pay out a dividend if the underlying stocks do. Fortunately for investors, Companies are paying dividends less and less frequently, preferring to do stock buybacks (which improve the stock value) instead. Dividends are also "qualified" if you've held the stock long enough, so you pay the lower capgains rate.
    - garry 11y ago
      Dividends and stock buybacks are both ways companies enrich their stock holders. But I view them as largely the same thing. When a company doesn't have new markets, then it doesn't create new products or services, so it literally doesn't know what to do with the money, so it just plows it back to shareholders, and these are just two ways that happen.
      - klipt 11y ago
        Buybacks are much more tax efficient though. If you would have reinvested all dividends (after paying taxes on them), with a buyback you instead do nothing and pay no tax.

58 points by larrys 11y ago

> When Microsoft products were threatened by network computers and Web-based applications, they simply bought WebTV and Hotmail. Back when WebTV was considered a good idea?

TheAnimus 11y ago
For what it's worth I'm happily using the modern incantation of WebTV, my FireTV Stick. I have my 'TV' on demand, whenever I want it, I can run some web related apps, even hacked something together for controlling my lights. I don't think WebTV was a bad idea. I think it was just too early and lacked that critical video on demand concept. In the UK there was a gap for a long time that was filled by 'Smart' functions of Sky TV's digibox. This used a modem to upload content, and allowed for receiving of good quality video from sat, as a result you could watch the 'latest' films, for around £3 and only have to wait a few minutes before it would start. Automatically from the box interface, rather than via a call centre. But this was just the start, shopping was possible, you could order products and the like. Now we live in a world where Amazon Instant isn't even on my desktop web browser, instead needing an 'app' for a phone, and apparently mine isn't even supported. There are lots of people who want to consume 'web' functions from a device other than a computer.
- codewithcheese 11y ago
  One brings the Web on the TV (Web TV) the other brings TV on the Web (Streaming, Netflix) which you end up watching on your TV. Turns out people like watching TV on their TV.
jotm 11y ago
One word: ROI. Radio. On. Internet. :-)

peteretep 11y ago

> If Donald Trump had taken the millions he inherited > from his father and put it all into mutual funds, you'd > never have had to suffer through one of his books. But > he'd be just about as rich today. I made a half-hearted attempt to run the figures on that a few months ago — I'd be very grateful if anyone was sufficiently more diligent than me and ran the figures.

mbrock 11y ago
http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-investing-than-donald-trump/ http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-inve... "Imagine Trump had retired in 1982, sold his real estate holdings and invested his $500 million in the S&P 500 — that is, 500 stocks representing the American stock market. "From 1982 through the end of 2014, the S&P 500 index had an annualized return, including reinvested dividends, of 11.86 percent, according to MoneyChimp’s S&P 500 Compound Annual Growth Rate calculator. "Per this calculator, every dollar invested in January 1982 would have been worth $40 by December of 2014. That means Trump’s initial $500 million would have grown to $20 billion. That’s twice what Trump says he’s worth today."
- auntienomen 11y ago
  If you subtract 15% capital gains taxes every year, this 'only' comes out to $12 billion. (Which is why billionaires hate taxes.)
  - arbuge 11y ago
    Those taxes only apply if you sell though. If not, you get the full $20B, less 15% at the end (i.e. $17B) if you decide to quit cold turkey and convert it all to cash on the final day.
  - kulkarnic 11y ago
    You only pay capital gains taxes when you realize gains, not every year. Trump would pay 15% of $20B = ~$3B, so his net worth would be $17B. And this is assuming that his stock investments don't pay qualified dividends that are reinvested. So, yeah, he'd have much more than $12B.

OJFord 11y ago

Will I be as rich as he was in '99, or as he is now? Screw it, doesn't matter.

OJFord 11y ago

> *Lesson 4. Let Other People Do The Programming* > ... > Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding.

seunosewa 11y ago
The same is true of Linux Torvalds, ironically.
- OJFord 11y ago
  I mean, it hasn't always been true of either of them. But I posted it because I find the idea of sitting down for a code review with Bill Gates today (or, on Monday) pretty amusing!
  - ced 11y ago
    Oh man, you should read: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html It's a brilliant account of the process!
    - OJFord 11y ago
      Thanks!

eloff 11y ago

> Bill Gates does code reviews, not coding. That's just wrong: In 1983 Microsoft had revenues of $55 million and a headcount of 500. Bill was the CEO. And yet, according to Gates talking about the Tandy TRS-100, "part of my nostalgia about this machine is this was the last machine where I wrote a very high percentage of the code in the product. I did all the design and debugging along with Jey."[1]. Gates was CEO of a company of 500 with revenue of $55 million, and still producing large amounts of serious code. That's impressive (or misspent time, however you want to think about it.) [1] http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/bill.htm

CamperBob2 11y ago
The article is from 1999, not 1983.
- eloff 11y ago
  What does that have to do with anything? I'm not suggesting Gates still wrote meaningful code in 1999, and the article was very dismissive of Gates coding abilities and the impact they had on his success. He did not restrict his criticism to 1999.

jeffdavis 11y ago

"Choose your parents carefully" has got to be one of the most pessimistic and cynical perspectives in existence. Instead, you could say "treat your children well", which is basically the same thing, except a lot less selfish.

gnaritas 11y ago
How exactly is describing reality selfish?
- JakeTorrence 11y ago
  The difference in the views expressed is that one takes all of the blame for your circumstances and puts them on your parents, and the other is taking the responsibility of providing good circumstances for your children. In the end, the meaning is about the same, but the undertones are a bit different.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    The meaning isn't close to the same; talking about your children's well being has nothing to do with talking about your own well being. And saying your parents matter isn't blaming them, it's simply an accurate description of reality. Having rich parents vs having poor parents has far more to do with how you turn out than your own effort does[1], that is the reality of this world, like it or not. [1] http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
  - tjradcliffe 11y ago
    The meaning is not the same because it's very difficult for poor and less educated parents to give their children what rich and more educated parents give them. My kids went to a high school that had a considerable socio-economic range and I was fairly involved in some stuff there, and it was clear there were plenty of poorer, less educated parents who were working really hard to give their kids everything they needed, but it was almost impossibly difficult for them. This is not an argument against treating your children well, but the reality is that having parents who are well-off and educated buffers you against all kinds of mistakes and issues that would sink other kids. Moderating (not eliminating, which is neither possible nor desirable) social inequality is important precisely because we can say with as much certainty as we can say anything that there are kids out there today as talented and driven as Bill Gates who don't have anything like the resilient support system that he had, and without it they are likely going to be a drag on society rather than contributors to it.

curiousjorge 11y ago

this excerpt I find striking: > If you're an intelligent curious person it can be painful to run a company of more than 50 people. You spend more time than you'd like repeating yourself, sitting in boring meetings, skimming over long legal documents in which you know there are errors but aren't sure how serious, etc. The temptation is to hand over the reins to the first "professional manager" who comes along. And that's what the standard venture capitalist formula dictates. But Bill Gates didn't do that. He hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 and gave him the CEO job 20 years later. Making money in the software products business requires domain expertise and a commitment to solving problems within that domain. Great tech companies are seldom built by non-technical management or professional managers who aren't committed to anything more than their paycheck. Adobe is another good example. The two founders were PhD computer science researchers from Xerox PARC who were passionate about solving problems in the publishing and graphics world. They are still guiding operations at Adobe.

tim333 11y ago

Some past appearances: 2 years ago 88 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6546325 6 years ago 31 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=553776

kulkarnic 11y ago

Articles like this are evidence that people are still surprised that capital grows faster than labour. At least in fair capitalist society the surest way to become wealthy (statistically speaking) is to understand: - The total wealth of the world is expected to keep increasing - Capital grows faster than labour - Taxes and disasters redistribute wealth This is why investing in index funds that don't pay dividends is such a good idea.

eloff 11y ago
OT: If an index fund doesn't pay dividends, what happens to the dividends? Presumably the fund owns shares in every stock in the index, so there should be dividends? Does it just go towards paying the fund overheads? What about for an ETF index fund?
- kulkarnic 11y ago
  I misphrased above. The index fund will pay out a dividend if the underlying stocks do. Fortunately for investors, Companies are paying dividends less and less frequently, preferring to do stock buybacks (which improve the stock value) instead. Dividends are also "qualified" if you've held the stock long enough, so you pay the lower capgains rate.
  - garry 11y ago
    Dividends and stock buybacks are both ways companies enrich their stock holders. But I view them as largely the same thing. When a company doesn't have new markets, then it doesn't create new products or services, so it literally doesn't know what to do with the money, so it just plows it back to shareholders, and these are just two ways that happen.
    - klipt 11y ago
      Buybacks are much more tax efficient though. If you would have reinvested all dividends (after paying taxes on them), with a buyback you instead do nothing and pay no tax.