10 ms·

Bill Gates: He eats Big Macs for lunch and schedules every minute of his day

151 points by bilifuduo 10y ago

meira 10y ago
Who believes his prime objective is to erradicate diseases?!? Hahaha Edit: a lot of people believe
- singularity2001 10y ago
  love your edit ;)
- daodedickinson 10y ago
  He seems more genuinely interested in it than he was genuinely interested in playing Halo 3 at its product launch. Can't somebody get bored of making money as its own end?
  - meira 10y ago
    His interest is as genuine as Microsoft interest in free software.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >Who believes his prime objective is to eradicate diseases? Based upon all the human beings that you know, personally, in your life, do you think the odds are higher that he's just a guy who wants to do good in the world, or that he's part of some evil, grand conspiracy? The latter has some non-zero probability...but I'll go with the former. Put me down as a believer.
- qq66 10y ago
  What is his prime objective, then? If his prime objective is X, but he's spending all of his time and money working on eradicating disease, he's certainly not taking a very effective approach towards achieving his prime objective...
thematt 10y ago
I'm sure having a McDonald's Gold Card helps: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/17/free-big-macs-for-life-billionaire-rob-lowe-mcdonalds-gold-card https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/...
- billmalarky 10y ago
  Today I learned... The Warren Buffett piece your article links to is great! My favorite section: And, ah, here we have my McDonald's card which lets me eat free at any McDonald's in Omaha for the rest of my life. So that's why the Buffett family has Christmas dinner at McDonald's. It explains a lot of thing. (Laughs.) Becky: Does anyone else have one of those cards? Warren: There's just a few of them. Bill Gates has one. His is good throughout the world, I guess. Mine is only good in Omaha, but I never leave Omaha so mine is just as good as his. Becky: Who doesn't have one? Warren: Well, I think President Clinton wanted one very badly, but I don't think he has one. I think he has to go to McDonald's with me. http://www.cnbc.com/id/21528623 http://www.cnbc.com/id/21528623
  - hilop 10y ago
    I wonder how true that is and how much is part of Buffet's PR to make him a non-loathed billionaire. Being frugal is one thing, but feeding your family garbage on Christmas?
- nostromo 10y ago
  These free perks are technically income. It seems like a billionaire would prefer to just pay for the food out of pocket rather than worry about the accounting overhead of declaring gifts on their income tax.
  - thematt 10y ago
    Bill Gates doesn't give a single thought to accounting overhead or tracking things for income tax purposes. He has a team of people whose job it is to do that.
  - 10y ago
conception 10y ago
When every minute is probably like $10k+ in "cost", I can see why you'd schedule every minute.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  How much is a minute of your life worth to you?
  - mipmap04 10y ago
    If I get to decide how many minutes, $10k seems good. I would take a few days off my life if it gave me near unlimited flexibility with how I can live the rest of my life.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    Much less than that. What I do with a minute of my time will make virtually no difference to me or anyone else.
  - kahrkunne 10y ago
    Like 0.25$ or so, and that's overestimating.
- hilop 10y ago
  That makes no sense. Gates doesn't work to create income anymore.
willvarfar 10y ago
oh I wish this millionaire stood as an independent presidential candidate! He has demonstrated himself wise, kind, well meaning and uncorruptable. I well remember how Microsoft was evil and Gates was the devil and we all loved to hate this success. But applying himself to philanthropy he has demonstrated his intellectual integrity and genuine goodness.
- throwaway_exer 10y ago
  > He has demonstrated himself wise, kind, well meaning and uncorruptable. Not exactly. Charitable foundations in the USA are tax shelters where you still control the money. Also, I'm sure some of the grants either involve Microsoft products, or technology for the sake of technology, not for the benefit of the recipient.
- grenoire 10y ago
  Maybe he knows that what he's doing right now is and will be more beneficial to the world, than say what he could achieve as the POTUS.
  - tartuffe78 10y ago
    And more enjoyable by far than spending 1.5 years on the campaign trail.
    - hackermailman 10y ago
      Then spending the majority of his time as POTUS travelling to do fundraising dinners.
      - willvarfar 10y ago
        The article is all about how that is how his life already is... But he is the worlds richest man and doesn't need to "fund raise"; he cannot be brought.
      - mcintyre1994 10y ago
askafriend 10y ago
Yeah honestly if it came down to this kind of to-the-second-planned lifestyle, just kill me now and get it over with. You can keep the money. This is just me personally though. I'm sure Gates is used to it, and probably enjoys it. But it's certainly nothing that I would want to aspire to. I'm reminded of the sentiment: "You have your place, and it's not more exalted, relevant, profitable, or contributing to the general advancement of humankind than that of a pretty good salesman possibly selling a decent product. Or that of a pretty decent java developer, or a decent graphics designer." But I still admire parts of his approach to life and I think he's done some pretty cool stuff. The world is a beautiful place filled with many beautiful people, who are not heroes and can never be heroes...but can be wonderful human beings (which comes with all the faults of being human). Ok let me stop talking before I go off on 20 other tangents. I haven't had my morning coffee yet.
- hackermailman 10y ago
  Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-mason-currey-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-... Your productivity skyrockets and it becomes automatic after a few weeks. I started by just getting up early and scheduling my mornings to finish technical books like CS:APP and it worked so well I now schedule my work week as much as possible http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-recent-daily-plans/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-rece...
  - unicornporn 10y ago
    > Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days Successful at what exactly? Enjoying life, earning money or something else?
    - maggiedean 10y ago
      I assume success at whatever it is they are seeking to accomplish! Even "enjoying life" can benefit from some time management I should think. :)
Frogolocalypse 10y ago
Paywall for me.
stefap2 10y ago
I wonder if his schedule included 3 hours of YC news and random internet reading.
vit05 10y ago
I remember a similar interview, years ago when he was still at Microsoft. He had 3 monitors, one was exclusive to e-mails and meetings every hour.
awqrre 10y ago
Does he order his big macs some special way so that the buns don't slide?
Joof 10y ago
He does seem to have an effective charity organization. There is a big focus on high-impact problems that other organizations just don't have.
rdlecler1 10y ago
A few months ago some people from Bill's team contacted us about a demo day that they personally give Bill every 4-6 weeks. This particular topic was on Agtech. They said they spend about 400-500 hours researching each market and preparing a 2-hour closed door demo day for Bill and a few of his advisors. For a particular topic they said they research the market and narrow it down to six or seven companies. They ask each company for a bunch of information and then his team gives Bill a 5-10 minute demo of each company followed by a question period. This is probably just one of many examples how Bill is able to acquire information at such a higher rate than most of us. Quite literally he's probably spending over a million dollars a month on education. For the rest of us, we just have to read HackerNews :)
- shostack 10y ago
  Are there any affordable services that do something similar for the rest of us? I'd love learning from someone who could give me a bird's eye view of industries, key players, challenges, etc. with the data and demos to back it up.
  - hilop 10y ago
    Why would they be affordable? That is incredibly valuable information.
- Rudism 10y ago
  I wonder why they wouldn't record these demos and make them available to the general public. Seems like dissemination of this kind of knowledge could be very interesting and beneficial to people outside of just Gates and his advisors.
  - rdlecler1 10y ago
    You may be sharing a lot of sensitive information that you don't want to show your competitors. Albeit, maybe the team could put together a superstar demoday with those companies afterwards.

151 points by bilifuduo 10y ago

meira 10y ago

Who believes his prime objective is to erradicate diseases?!? Hahaha Edit: a lot of people believe

singularity2001 10y ago
love your edit ;)
daodedickinson 10y ago
He seems more genuinely interested in it than he was genuinely interested in playing Halo 3 at its product launch. Can't somebody get bored of making money as its own end?
- meira 10y ago
  His interest is as genuine as Microsoft interest in free software.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>Who believes his prime objective is to eradicate diseases? Based upon all the human beings that you know, personally, in your life, do you think the odds are higher that he's just a guy who wants to do good in the world, or that he's part of some evil, grand conspiracy? The latter has some non-zero probability...but I'll go with the former. Put me down as a believer.
qq66 10y ago
What is his prime objective, then? If his prime objective is X, but he's spending all of his time and money working on eradicating disease, he's certainly not taking a very effective approach towards achieving his prime objective...

thematt 10y ago

I'm sure having a McDonald's Gold Card helps: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/17/free-big-macs-for-life-billionaire-rob-lowe-mcdonalds-gold-card https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/nov/...

billmalarky 10y ago
Today I learned... The Warren Buffett piece your article links to is great! My favorite section: And, ah, here we have my McDonald's card which lets me eat free at any McDonald's in Omaha for the rest of my life. So that's why the Buffett family has Christmas dinner at McDonald's. It explains a lot of thing. (Laughs.) Becky: Does anyone else have one of those cards? Warren: There's just a few of them. Bill Gates has one. His is good throughout the world, I guess. Mine is only good in Omaha, but I never leave Omaha so mine is just as good as his. Becky: Who doesn't have one? Warren: Well, I think President Clinton wanted one very badly, but I don't think he has one. I think he has to go to McDonald's with me. http://www.cnbc.com/id/21528623 http://www.cnbc.com/id/21528623
- hilop 10y ago
  I wonder how true that is and how much is part of Buffet's PR to make him a non-loathed billionaire. Being frugal is one thing, but feeding your family garbage on Christmas?
nostromo 10y ago
These free perks are technically income. It seems like a billionaire would prefer to just pay for the food out of pocket rather than worry about the accounting overhead of declaring gifts on their income tax.
- thematt 10y ago
  Bill Gates doesn't give a single thought to accounting overhead or tracking things for income tax purposes. He has a team of people whose job it is to do that.
- 10y ago

conception 10y ago

When every minute is probably like $10k+ in "cost", I can see why you'd schedule every minute.

WalterSear 10y ago
How much is a minute of your life worth to you?
- mipmap04 10y ago
  If I get to decide how many minutes, $10k seems good. I would take a few days off my life if it gave me near unlimited flexibility with how I can live the rest of my life.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  Much less than that. What I do with a minute of my time will make virtually no difference to me or anyone else.
- kahrkunne 10y ago
  Like 0.25$ or so, and that's overestimating.
hilop 10y ago
That makes no sense. Gates doesn't work to create income anymore.

willvarfar 10y ago

oh I wish this millionaire stood as an independent presidential candidate! He has demonstrated himself wise, kind, well meaning and uncorruptable. I well remember how Microsoft was evil and Gates was the devil and we all loved to hate this success. But applying himself to philanthropy he has demonstrated his intellectual integrity and genuine goodness.

throwaway_exer 10y ago
> He has demonstrated himself wise, kind, well meaning and uncorruptable. Not exactly. Charitable foundations in the USA are tax shelters where you still control the money. Also, I'm sure some of the grants either involve Microsoft products, or technology for the sake of technology, not for the benefit of the recipient.
grenoire 10y ago
Maybe he knows that what he's doing right now is and will be more beneficial to the world, than say what he could achieve as the POTUS.
- tartuffe78 10y ago
  And more enjoyable by far than spending 1.5 years on the campaign trail.
  - hackermailman 10y ago
    Then spending the majority of his time as POTUS travelling to do fundraising dinners.
    - willvarfar 10y ago
      The article is all about how that is how his life already is... But he is the worlds richest man and doesn't need to "fund raise"; he cannot be brought.
    - mcintyre1994 10y ago

askafriend 10y ago

Yeah honestly if it came down to this kind of to-the-second-planned lifestyle, just kill me now and get it over with. You can keep the money. This is just me personally though. I'm sure Gates is used to it, and probably enjoys it. But it's certainly nothing that I would want to aspire to. I'm reminded of the sentiment: "You have your place, and it's not more exalted, relevant, profitable, or contributing to the general advancement of humankind than that of a pretty good salesman possibly selling a decent product. Or that of a pretty decent java developer, or a decent graphics designer." But I still admire parts of his approach to life and I think he's done some pretty cool stuff. The world is a beautiful place filled with many beautiful people, who are not heroes and can never be heroes...but can be wonderful human beings (which comes with all the faults of being human). Ok let me stop talking before I go off on 20 other tangents. I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

hackermailman 10y ago
Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-mason-currey-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-... Your productivity skyrockets and it becomes automatic after a few weeks. I started by just getting up early and scheduling my mornings to finish technical books like CS:APP and it worked so well I now schedule my work week as much as possible http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-recent-daily-plans/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-rece...
- unicornporn 10y ago
  > Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days Successful at what exactly? Enjoying life, earning money or something else?
  - maggiedean 10y ago
    I assume success at whatever it is they are seeking to accomplish! Even "enjoying life" can benefit from some time management I should think. :)

Frogolocalypse 10y ago

Paywall for me.

stefap2 10y ago

I wonder if his schedule included 3 hours of YC news and random internet reading.

vit05 10y ago

I remember a similar interview, years ago when he was still at Microsoft. He had 3 monitors, one was exclusive to e-mails and meetings every hour.

awqrre 10y ago

Does he order his big macs some special way so that the buns don't slide?

Joof 10y ago

He does seem to have an effective charity organization. There is a big focus on high-impact problems that other organizations just don't have.

rdlecler1 10y ago

A few months ago some people from Bill's team contacted us about a demo day that they personally give Bill every 4-6 weeks. This particular topic was on Agtech. They said they spend about 400-500 hours researching each market and preparing a 2-hour closed door demo day for Bill and a few of his advisors. For a particular topic they said they research the market and narrow it down to six or seven companies. They ask each company for a bunch of information and then his team gives Bill a 5-10 minute demo of each company followed by a question period. This is probably just one of many examples how Bill is able to acquire information at such a higher rate than most of us. Quite literally he's probably spending over a million dollars a month on education. For the rest of us, we just have to read HackerNews :)

shostack 10y ago
Are there any affordable services that do something similar for the rest of us? I'd love learning from someone who could give me a bird's eye view of industries, key players, challenges, etc. with the data and demos to back it up.
- hilop 10y ago
  Why would they be affordable? That is incredibly valuable information.
Rudism 10y ago
I wonder why they wouldn't record these demos and make them available to the general public. Seems like dissemination of this kind of knowledge could be very interesting and beneficial to people outside of just Gates and his advisors.
- rdlecler1 10y ago
  You may be sharing a lot of sensitive information that you don't want to show your competitors. Albeit, maybe the team could put together a superstar demoday with those companies afterwards.