4 ms·

Bill Gates will never be the same

14 points by bongoman37 5y ago

cable2600 5y ago
Bill Gates doesn't have a good image with everyone: https://www.kmfms.com/ https://www.kmfms.com/ Microsoft was investigated by the DOJ for anti-trust, an abusive monopoly that bundled software with Windows to cut competitors out of business. Now Microsoft is embracing open source projects for Linux, chances are they will exit the OS business and port everything to Linux. I feel bad for Bill, because he has Asperger's Syndrome and it may be confused for being a jerk. He doesn't get social clues.
nicetryguy 5y ago
Endow. Extend. Extinguished.
Justin_K 5y ago
I like Bill. He's a successful guy who's done far more good than bad for humanity. He's made mistakes like the rest of us. Unfortunately the scale of his mistakes come off larger than the rest of us.
- ojosilva 5y ago
  Epstein associates recruited underage girls outside of high schools. These girls ended up in parties where men like Bill Gates were being flown into on private jets (dubbed "Lolita Express"), according to reports surfacing now. This should say a lot about Gates judgment, morals, motivations and the scale and frequency of his mistakes, which are NOT like the rest of us.
- supergirl 5y ago
  are you also defending Epstein? would have been easy for him to donate $1B to some charity (maybe he even did) and you could argue he helped more people than he hurt.
- piokoch 5y ago
  Hmm. Not so sure. In terms of the operating systems there were better alternatives on the table, yet IBM has chosen Bill Gates company that did not even have operating system - luckily for Microsoft, they managed to license CP/M clone called 86-DOS created by Tim Paterson and sell it to IBM (as if IBM could not do this by itself or take CP/M or some Unix variant). Bill's mom was higher-up in IBM and she managed to convince management to buy from Bill and if it were not for Paterson, Bill would not have anything to sell, as timeline was really slim. For all the years of MS-DOS existence it was way better to install DR DOS, as it was more stable than Microsoft thingy. Then we get "marvels" like Windows 98 and infamous Windows ME (Millennium Edition). The first usable version of windowed operation system from Microsoft was Windows NT. New Technology meant more or less "hire David Cutler and his 30 people from Digital, so they can rewrite VMS system so Microsoft can sell it". We are yet to see first innovative product from Microsoft, so far they were catching up with the rest, sometimes trying to use shady techniques to gain advantage (like effectively killing very good Borland C++, but some tricks with API changes, so BCC code was not working correctly, so they could force people to use MS products). At the end, let's not forget about Internet Explorer, the product that was a true cancer of the WWW, horrible crap, pushed only to kill Netscape. Hard to estimate how many hours people spent on fixing web pages to make them work on IE. When it comes to charity work by Bill, I don't know how all of this worked, what was its true value, but anytime I hear in the same sentence "charity", "foundation", "very rich person" my brain starts screaming one thing: tax avoidance.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
hindsightbias 5y ago
Not. Bill will just marry someone more woke than Melinda. 30 years ago, Bill was satan and SJ was jesus. He has all the money in the world to burnish his image after this settlement is done.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  SJ?
  - swivelmaster 5y ago
    Steve Jobs. Not sure why the abbreviation was necessary though.
Noumenon72 5y ago
What is the incentive to devote your life and fortune to curing malaria and fixing education when people will disregard all that as soon as you have one news cycle where someone says you had an affair?
- Daishiman 5y ago
  It wasn't about an affair, or at least, not _just_ about an affair.
- vr46 5y ago
  The suggestion is that the incentive was to launder the reality of his life, which appears to be rather worse than you claim. He - they - could have done plenty if not all of this work without the cult of personality at the centre of it; given their money quietly and without fanfare. Even if you do good for self-glorification and to remind everyone how awesome you are, reality still gets to bat last and puncture your conceit.
  - krustyburger 5y ago
    >>reality still gets to bat last This seems like a Manichaean way of looking at human nature. In truth, all people are flawed and the same human being always does both good and bad, triumphs but then also fails. There is no game in which “reality” goes to bat against any of us, Bill Gates included. But even to accept the implied metaphor for a moment, I would hesitate to give home field advantage to media takedowns or salacious allegations. The accused should get to bat last, not the prosecution, even if the prosecutors claim to represent “reality.” When it does get to be the ninth inning, given the sheer volume of good Mr. Gates has done the world through his philanthropy, I don’t see this one going to the bottom of the ninth anyway. Looks like a blowout from here.
    - vr46 5y ago
      The volume of “good” effects remain, as does the volume of the bad ones. It’s rightly debatable whether the philanthropy is actually good or not, but anyway. What Gates has been doing - for many years, and is widely reported upon - is pushing the “good” stuff in a PR campaign to make himself look better after the decades of looking like a villain. The “media” isn’t doing any kind of takedown here, it’s mainly reporting on events, and rightly so, because we’re talking about sexual harassment by someone with a lot of power. I don’t entirely know what the last two paragraphs meant but presuming that you mean that time will be the judge.
Raed667 5y ago
In Tunisia, when learning English in high-school,we were taught about the amazing Bill Gates when learning about biographies. I'm not sure how many other countries are indoctrinating their children to see him in a good light. PS: not saying he paid for it.
akomtu 5y ago
The article is garbage: some junior content writer was given a task to expand the "gates met epstein" and "gates had an affair 20 years ago" into 10 paragraphs of text.
yosito 5y ago
> Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism? Had a good laugh at the end that Vox is actually claiming that this is journalism.

14 points by bongoman37 5y ago

Bill Gates doesn't have a good image with everyone: https://www.kmfms.com/ https://www.kmfms.com/ Microsoft was investigated by the DOJ for anti-trust, an abusive monopoly that bundled software with Windows to cut competitors out of business. Now Microsoft is embracing open source projects for Linux, chances are they will exit the OS business and port everything to Linux. I feel bad for Bill, because he has Asperger's Syndrome and it may be confused for being a jerk. He doesn't get social clues.

nicetryguy 5y ago

Endow. Extend. Extinguished.

Justin_K 5y ago

I like Bill. He's a successful guy who's done far more good than bad for humanity. He's made mistakes like the rest of us. Unfortunately the scale of his mistakes come off larger than the rest of us.

ojosilva 5y ago
Epstein associates recruited underage girls outside of high schools. These girls ended up in parties where men like Bill Gates were being flown into on private jets (dubbed "Lolita Express"), according to reports surfacing now. This should say a lot about Gates judgment, morals, motivations and the scale and frequency of his mistakes, which are NOT like the rest of us.
supergirl 5y ago
are you also defending Epstein? would have been easy for him to donate $1B to some charity (maybe he even did) and you could argue he helped more people than he hurt.
piokoch 5y ago
Hmm. Not so sure. In terms of the operating systems there were better alternatives on the table, yet IBM has chosen Bill Gates company that did not even have operating system - luckily for Microsoft, they managed to license CP/M clone called 86-DOS created by Tim Paterson and sell it to IBM (as if IBM could not do this by itself or take CP/M or some Unix variant). Bill's mom was higher-up in IBM and she managed to convince management to buy from Bill and if it were not for Paterson, Bill would not have anything to sell, as timeline was really slim. For all the years of MS-DOS existence it was way better to install DR DOS, as it was more stable than Microsoft thingy. Then we get "marvels" like Windows 98 and infamous Windows ME (Millennium Edition). The first usable version of windowed operation system from Microsoft was Windows NT. New Technology meant more or less "hire David Cutler and his 30 people from Digital, so they can rewrite VMS system so Microsoft can sell it". We are yet to see first innovative product from Microsoft, so far they were catching up with the rest, sometimes trying to use shady techniques to gain advantage (like effectively killing very good Borland C++, but some tricks with API changes, so BCC code was not working correctly, so they could force people to use MS products). At the end, let's not forget about Internet Explorer, the product that was a true cancer of the WWW, horrible crap, pushed only to kill Netscape. Hard to estimate how many hours people spent on fixing web pages to make them work on IE. When it comes to charity work by Bill, I don't know how all of this worked, what was its true value, but anytime I hear in the same sentence "charity", "foundation", "very rich person" my brain starts screaming one thing: tax avoidance.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

hindsightbias 5y ago

Not. Bill will just marry someone more woke than Melinda. 30 years ago, Bill was satan and SJ was jesus. He has all the money in the world to burnish his image after this settlement is done.

moralestapia 5y ago
SJ?
- swivelmaster 5y ago
  Steve Jobs. Not sure why the abbreviation was necessary though.

Noumenon72 5y ago

What is the incentive to devote your life and fortune to curing malaria and fixing education when people will disregard all that as soon as you have one news cycle where someone says you had an affair?

Daishiman 5y ago
It wasn't about an affair, or at least, not _just_ about an affair.
vr46 5y ago
The suggestion is that the incentive was to launder the reality of his life, which appears to be rather worse than you claim. He - they - could have done plenty if not all of this work without the cult of personality at the centre of it; given their money quietly and without fanfare. Even if you do good for self-glorification and to remind everyone how awesome you are, reality still gets to bat last and puncture your conceit.
- krustyburger 5y ago
  >>reality still gets to bat last This seems like a Manichaean way of looking at human nature. In truth, all people are flawed and the same human being always does both good and bad, triumphs but then also fails. There is no game in which “reality” goes to bat against any of us, Bill Gates included. But even to accept the implied metaphor for a moment, I would hesitate to give home field advantage to media takedowns or salacious allegations. The accused should get to bat last, not the prosecution, even if the prosecutors claim to represent “reality.” When it does get to be the ninth inning, given the sheer volume of good Mr. Gates has done the world through his philanthropy, I don’t see this one going to the bottom of the ninth anyway. Looks like a blowout from here.
  - vr46 5y ago
    The volume of “good” effects remain, as does the volume of the bad ones. It’s rightly debatable whether the philanthropy is actually good or not, but anyway. What Gates has been doing - for many years, and is widely reported upon - is pushing the “good” stuff in a PR campaign to make himself look better after the decades of looking like a villain. The “media” isn’t doing any kind of takedown here, it’s mainly reporting on events, and rightly so, because we’re talking about sexual harassment by someone with a lot of power. I don’t entirely know what the last two paragraphs meant but presuming that you mean that time will be the judge.

Raed667 5y ago

In Tunisia, when learning English in high-school,we were taught about the amazing Bill Gates when learning about biographies. I'm not sure how many other countries are indoctrinating their children to see him in a good light. PS: not saying he paid for it.

akomtu 5y ago

The article is garbage: some junior content writer was given a task to expand the "gates met epstein" and "gates had an affair 20 years ago" into 10 paragraphs of text.

yosito 5y ago

> Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism? Had a good laugh at the end that Vox is actually claiming that this is journalism.