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It isn’t, obviously, because look at the example of Bill Gates: starting a business as a 20-year-old college dropout puts you at a big disadvantage compared to

It isn’t, obviously, because look at the example of Bill Gates: starting a business as a 20-year-old college dropout puts you at a big disadvantage compared to people with more life experience.

j-krieger 5y ago
The difference being that gates was never in any real danger. His credits didn't disappear. He lived in a paid for apartment. He did not have to worry about money, and if he chose, he could've gone back to college at any time. It only puts you at a 'disadvantage' in business circles, because there's a slight chance that people with more experience will not take you as seriously
rgifford 5y ago
Take a look at the faces on the Forbes list and get back to me. Just how white, male and western are they exactly? It's not that Gates wasn't smart or hardworking. It's just that it's easy to be hardworking and ambitious when you had books growing up, proper nutrition, when your parents stayed together, when you're in good health, when you got tutors and went to great schools, when you were engaged in extracurriculars, when you lived in an affluent society, when your parents were well connected, and on and on and on. Are his contributions to humanity worth 60B+? Scientific discovery springs up in a bunch of places simultaneously and organically. I have to assume his contribution to society would've too, maybe with a smaller amount of value extracted to his personal fortune? He's a philanthropist now, so that's good. I would be too the way social and political tides are turning. Funny how philanthropic the wealthy become. Even Epstein.
- CheezeIt 5y ago
  Having good health, proper nutrition, and extracurriculars in an affluent society, i.e. having two parents who don’t suck, is a regular American baseline that public school kids experience. Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school in his day, which countered the bad luck of not being born a few years earlier such that he’d encounter computing in college with the same lead time before the 8086. Of course he found some great luck in business, too, well after the company was established and had employees on the payroll.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    > Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school in his day That's a rather inaccurate description of his advantages.
    - CheezeIt 5y ago
      If that’s inaccurate, tell us what gives us more bits of information distinguishing him from the general population born in the same year he is. The smart part puts him in the 0.1%, 10 bits right there, and early access to computers adds another rare multiplier to that.
      - tolbish 5y ago
        What did his parents do?
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school You're forgetting something important[1] about Bill Gates' mom: > Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed her son's company with John Opel, a fellow committee member, and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer. More about this here[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates#Career [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influenced-the-success-of-microsoft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe...
  - musingsole 5y ago
    > having two parents who don’t suck, is a regular American baseline that public school kids experience Is it? Not from my experience, but I wish every community could boast such "baselines".
RC_ITR 5y ago
The Bill Gates Mythology in this essay is a bit odd though. No doubt a hard worker, but the claim >"Bill Gates, for example, was among the smartest people in business in his era, but he was also among the hardest working. "I never took a day off in my twenties," he said. "Not one." doesn't align with the facts that have recently emerged about him. [1] Maybe PG should examine selection bias and self-reporting bias a bit more before making the claim he does here. [1]https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/bill-gates-womanizer-held-nude-pool-parties-biographer/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/bill-gates-womanizer-held-nude...
- munificent 5y ago
  From the linked article: Another ex, Jill Bennett — described as his “first serious girlfriend” — said they split because of Gates’ fixation with working long hours. “In the end, it was difficult to sustain a relationship with someone who could boast a ‘seven-hour turnaround’ — meaning that from the time he left Microsoft to the time he returned in the morning was a mere seven hours,” she told Wallace. I don't see that being a "womanizer" is in any way incompatible with being a workaholic.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    Again. He claimed not a single day off, which is insanely unhealthy and almost certainly untrue if he had time for naked pool parties. I’m not claiming he was lazy, just asking “why take his provable lie at face value?”
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- conductr 5y ago
  I don’t see misalignment at all. I see complete irrelevance between that quote and the facts. Why can he not be a womanizing workaholic? They are not mutually exclusive and possibly actually correlated. Sex lives need to be private or at least not included as judgement of individual as they are not relevant at all to people’s accomplishments in politics, business, academics, or any other facet of an individual’s life.

It isn’t, obviously, because look at the example of Bill Gates: starting a business as a 20-year-old college dropout puts you at a big disadvantage compared to people with more life experience.

j-krieger 5y ago

The difference being that gates was never in any real danger. His credits didn't disappear. He lived in a paid for apartment. He did not have to worry about money, and if he chose, he could've gone back to college at any time. It only puts you at a 'disadvantage' in business circles, because there's a slight chance that people with more experience will not take you as seriously

rgifford 5y ago

Take a look at the faces on the Forbes list and get back to me. Just how white, male and western are they exactly? It's not that Gates wasn't smart or hardworking. It's just that it's easy to be hardworking and ambitious when you had books growing up, proper nutrition, when your parents stayed together, when you're in good health, when you got tutors and went to great schools, when you were engaged in extracurriculars, when you lived in an affluent society, when your parents were well connected, and on and on and on. Are his contributions to humanity worth 60B+? Scientific discovery springs up in a bunch of places simultaneously and organically. I have to assume his contribution to society would've too, maybe with a smaller amount of value extracted to his personal fortune? He's a philanthropist now, so that's good. I would be too the way social and political tides are turning. Funny how philanthropic the wealthy become. Even Epstein.

CheezeIt 5y ago
Having good health, proper nutrition, and extracurriculars in an affluent society, i.e. having two parents who don’t suck, is a regular American baseline that public school kids experience. Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school in his day, which countered the bad luck of not being born a few years earlier such that he’d encounter computing in college with the same lead time before the 8086. Of course he found some great luck in business, too, well after the company was established and had employees on the payroll.
- tolbish 5y ago
  > Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school in his day That's a rather inaccurate description of his advantages.
  - CheezeIt 5y ago
    If that’s inaccurate, tell us what gives us more bits of information distinguishing him from the general population born in the same year he is. The smart part puts him in the 0.1%, 10 bits right there, and early access to computers adds another rare multiplier to that.
    - tolbish 5y ago
      What did his parents do?
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > Gates’s particular advantages were being smart and having access to computers in high school You're forgetting something important[1] about Bill Gates' mom: > Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed her son's company with John Opel, a fellow committee member, and the chairman of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other IBM executives. A few weeks later, IBM took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer. More about this here[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates#Career [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influenced-the-success-of-microsoft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe...
- musingsole 5y ago
  > having two parents who don’t suck, is a regular American baseline that public school kids experience Is it? Not from my experience, but I wish every community could boast such "baselines".

RC_ITR 5y ago

The Bill Gates Mythology in this essay is a bit odd though. No doubt a hard worker, but the claim >"Bill Gates, for example, was among the smartest people in business in his era, but he was also among the hardest working. "I never took a day off in my twenties," he said. "Not one." doesn't align with the facts that have recently emerged about him. [1] Maybe PG should examine selection bias and self-reporting bias a bit more before making the claim he does here. [1]https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/bill-gates-womanizer-held-nude-pool-parties-biographer/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/10/bill-gates-womanizer-held-nude...

munificent 5y ago
From the linked article: Another ex, Jill Bennett — described as his “first serious girlfriend” — said they split because of Gates’ fixation with working long hours. “In the end, it was difficult to sustain a relationship with someone who could boast a ‘seven-hour turnaround’ — meaning that from the time he left Microsoft to the time he returned in the morning was a mere seven hours,” she told Wallace. I don't see that being a "womanizer" is in any way incompatible with being a workaholic.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  Again. He claimed not a single day off, which is insanely unhealthy and almost certainly untrue if he had time for naked pool parties. I’m not claiming he was lazy, just asking “why take his provable lie at face value?”
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
conductr 5y ago
I don’t see misalignment at all. I see complete irrelevance between that quote and the facts. Why can he not be a womanizing workaholic? They are not mutually exclusive and possibly actually correlated. Sex lives need to be private or at least not included as judgement of individual as they are not relevant at all to people’s accomplishments in politics, business, academics, or any other facet of an individual’s life.