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It's a bunch of rich kids trying to get richer than their parents to prove a point. You had me until there. Why question their motives? Is it really so hard to

It's a bunch of rich kids trying to get richer than their parents to prove a point. You had me until there. Why question their motives? Is it really so hard to believe that Gates really loved computers? If he was just thinking in terms of outstripping his parents, there were lots of other more-credible avenues available to him. The very idea of a personal computer was scoffed at. Not just by non-techies, but people like DEC founder Ken Olsen.

Anechoic 11y ago
Why question their motives? Is it really so hard to believe that Gates really loved computers? Did Gates' love of computers motivate Microsoft's anticompetitive moves in the 1990s?
- drumdance 11y ago
  I don't see what one has to do with the other. Professional athletes get caught cheating all the time, but I don't doubt they still love their sports. One may as well doubt that Hitler actually liked being a vegetarian.
  - Retra 11y ago
    It's a funny way of showing love to a sport when you subvert the rules that make it fair. No doubt if everyone cheated all the time, practically nobody would love the sport. One may as well think that Hitler eating meat remains a vegetarian.
    - drumdance 11y ago
      It's a funny way of showing love to a sport when you subvert the rules that make it fair. Uber and AirBnB are subverting rules and breaking laws in hundreds of municipalities. Do you think they don't care about what they're building over there? Is it just money-money-money and no serious interest in technology? Does that mean, by proxy, that Paul Graham only cares about money? Is it really so hard to believe that people can have more than one thing that motivates them? Why did Ray Ozzie join such an evil beast? Surely he's just motivated by greed! Black and white thinking will be the death of us all.
      - Retra 11y ago
        I don't know where you got black and white thinking from. I wouldn't say Bill Gates doesn't love computers, just that he loves something else more. Something that may very well not be good for computing. Uber and AirBnB? Do they love the work they do? Maybe. But they love themselves more. They love the idea of being "disruptors" or "innovators" or "rich" more than they care about transportation, housing, or their customers. And those guys who love sports? Maybe they love winning more. It's easy to feign passion, after all. Especially when you're already committed to investors.
        drumdance 11y ago
        I like to accept what people say at face value until evidence suggests otherwise. People go on about Bill Gates and antitrust, but do they really think Steve Jobs or Scott McNealy or even Page & Brin would behave differently? Bill Gates' biggest fear was not losing the OS monopoly. His fear was of Microsoft turning into IBM -- always having to run everything you do by lawyers. MS-DOS wouldn't even exist if IBM hadn't had the justice department watching their every move.
        eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        And Microsoft wouldn't exist if the Bush Administration hadn't ordered their monopoly conviction pardoned.
  - Anechoic 11y ago
    Professional athletes get caught cheating all the time, but I don't doubt they still love their sports. I very much doubt that cheating athletes love the sport. They may love the fame and benefits that come with the sport, but if they loved the sport, they would work hard to become better at it rather than cheating. I love my job. I read up on research, volunteer at conferences, tinker/hack on my own time, and provide lots of free consulting. Heck, the only reason I don't provide more free consulting is, well, because I have bills to pay. I certainly can't imaging expressing my love for the field by engaging in unethical, immoral or illegal activities. I suppose if it was the money I loved foremost, it might be different.
e40 11y ago
It's pretty obvious that he didn't just like computers. Bill Gates was a consummate competitor. He loved competing. I agree, it doesn't matter what his motivation was, but he wasn't solely motivated by "computers".
- drumdance 11y ago
  Of course not. But if he was more motivated by money than technology, I doubt he would have spent four years building a company trying to sell a product that nobody wanted. (Microsoft basically had zero revenue for its first four years.) He would have been better off going into real estate, and I think he was smart enough to know that even at 19. I love computers, but I don't start companies just to say I start companies. I expect a financial return.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
The PC revolution owes its greatest debt not to Gates, but to Kildall, in terms of individual contribution. It may well be that Gates was driven to purposeful action from a love of computers. That he has had no notable productivity since Altair BASIC (other than third-party accounts of him doing code reviews early at Microsoft), nor any research, would nevertheless make his contributions to the field quite little.
- drumdance 11y ago
  "Code reviews" makes it sound like something he did for 15 minutes as part of a standup. He was known to be incredibly sharp, asking extremely detailed questions. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html "Bill Gates was amazingly technical. He understood Variants, and COM objects, and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date functions. He didn't meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldn't bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual, programmer." Edit: My point is, one can love computers and be very good at them without making significant contributions to the field. That describes me and probably most of the people on HN.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Of course you can. The fact remains that Bill Gates has not been associated with any directly technical work in decades, so his action in the distant past is of little relevance to his action in the less distant past and the present, and moreover is irrelevant to the GP's assertion of his familial wealth.

Anechoic 11y ago

Why question their motives? Is it really so hard to believe that Gates really loved computers? Did Gates' love of computers motivate Microsoft's anticompetitive moves in the 1990s?

drumdance 11y ago
I don't see what one has to do with the other. Professional athletes get caught cheating all the time, but I don't doubt they still love their sports. One may as well doubt that Hitler actually liked being a vegetarian.
- Retra 11y ago
  It's a funny way of showing love to a sport when you subvert the rules that make it fair. No doubt if everyone cheated all the time, practically nobody would love the sport. One may as well think that Hitler eating meat remains a vegetarian.
  - drumdance 11y ago
    It's a funny way of showing love to a sport when you subvert the rules that make it fair. Uber and AirBnB are subverting rules and breaking laws in hundreds of municipalities. Do you think they don't care about what they're building over there? Is it just money-money-money and no serious interest in technology? Does that mean, by proxy, that Paul Graham only cares about money? Is it really so hard to believe that people can have more than one thing that motivates them? Why did Ray Ozzie join such an evil beast? Surely he's just motivated by greed! Black and white thinking will be the death of us all.
    - Retra 11y ago
      I don't know where you got black and white thinking from. I wouldn't say Bill Gates doesn't love computers, just that he loves something else more. Something that may very well not be good for computing. Uber and AirBnB? Do they love the work they do? Maybe. But they love themselves more. They love the idea of being "disruptors" or "innovators" or "rich" more than they care about transportation, housing, or their customers. And those guys who love sports? Maybe they love winning more. It's easy to feign passion, after all. Especially when you're already committed to investors.
      - drumdance 11y ago
        I like to accept what people say at face value until evidence suggests otherwise. People go on about Bill Gates and antitrust, but do they really think Steve Jobs or Scott McNealy or even Page & Brin would behave differently? Bill Gates' biggest fear was not losing the OS monopoly. His fear was of Microsoft turning into IBM -- always having to run everything you do by lawyers. MS-DOS wouldn't even exist if IBM hadn't had the justice department watching their every move.
        eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        And Microsoft wouldn't exist if the Bush Administration hadn't ordered their monopoly conviction pardoned.
- Anechoic 11y ago
  Professional athletes get caught cheating all the time, but I don't doubt they still love their sports. I very much doubt that cheating athletes love the sport. They may love the fame and benefits that come with the sport, but if they loved the sport, they would work hard to become better at it rather than cheating. I love my job. I read up on research, volunteer at conferences, tinker/hack on my own time, and provide lots of free consulting. Heck, the only reason I don't provide more free consulting is, well, because I have bills to pay. I certainly can't imaging expressing my love for the field by engaging in unethical, immoral or illegal activities. I suppose if it was the money I loved foremost, it might be different.

e40 11y ago

It's pretty obvious that he didn't just like computers. Bill Gates was a consummate competitor. He loved competing. I agree, it doesn't matter what his motivation was, but he wasn't solely motivated by "computers".

drumdance 11y ago
Of course not. But if he was more motivated by money than technology, I doubt he would have spent four years building a company trying to sell a product that nobody wanted. (Microsoft basically had zero revenue for its first four years.) He would have been better off going into real estate, and I think he was smart enough to know that even at 19. I love computers, but I don't start companies just to say I start companies. I expect a financial return.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

The PC revolution owes its greatest debt not to Gates, but to Kildall, in terms of individual contribution. It may well be that Gates was driven to purposeful action from a love of computers. That he has had no notable productivity since Altair BASIC (other than third-party accounts of him doing code reviews early at Microsoft), nor any research, would nevertheless make his contributions to the field quite little.

drumdance 11y ago
"Code reviews" makes it sound like something he did for 15 minutes as part of a standup. He was known to be incredibly sharp, asking extremely detailed questions. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html "Bill Gates was amazingly technical. He understood Variants, and COM objects, and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date functions. He didn't meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldn't bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual, programmer." Edit: My point is, one can love computers and be very good at them without making significant contributions to the field. That describes me and probably most of the people on HN.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Of course you can. The fact remains that Bill Gates has not been associated with any directly technical work in decades, so his action in the distant past is of little relevance to his action in the less distant past and the present, and moreover is irrelevant to the GP's assertion of his familial wealth.