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Is Bill Gates still programming nowadays? He seems to have completely abandoned it. Which seems a little sad, because if he really liked doing it you'd expect h

Is Bill Gates still programming nowadays? He seems to have completely abandoned it. Which seems a little sad, because if he really liked doing it you'd expect him to at least work on a utility app or something in his spare time.

rococode 5y ago
He said in a fairly recent AMA: > My code no longer goes into shipping products so I am rusty. I do like to try the new tools to understand how they help. I just did a review of the low-code tools where there is a lot of great innovation. https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/m8n4vt/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_and_melinda/gridl9c/?context=10000 https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/m8n4vt/im_bill_gates_...
groby_b 5y ago
Time is an extremely precious commodity. It seems somewhat arbitrary to assume that if you like something, you automatically do it in your spare time. It's fairly easy to like more things than you could possibly have time to pursue :)
- elliekelly 5y ago
  But when you’re a billionaire almost all of your time is spare time. Aside from basic bodily functions billionaires can spend their all of their time doing whatever their little hearts desire.
  - groby_b 5y ago
    Yes. But time is still finite. And a much lesser quantity than "what our hearts desire". To put into a very simplified example: I work 8 hours a day, sleep 8 hours a day, spend 4 on chores, and 4 on doing what I want. That's 4h/day. Bill Gates has almost immeasurably more money than I have, but he still, at best, gets 16h/day. He can do 4 times as much as I. And I can guarantee you that "things I'd love to do" is significantly more than even 24h/day. I'd assume the same holds for Gates. This is one of the reasons rich people usually have an entire staff running their lives - if you make billions, spending $100k to save 30 minutes a year is actually a reasonable investment. And so, even if he loves to code, he might well not be able to never get to it. (TBF: I'm not saying "poor Bill", I'm sure the other stuff he gets up to is reasonably fun :)
  - veidr 5y ago
    I think the point is that you might like so many things, you cannot do all of them. And then, how do you prioritize them an allocate time? Some of us might go for 'whatever is the most fun', others 'whatever delivers the most results (for society, or for some obscure personal goal like making a clock that lasts 10,000 years, or a speed metal guitar university for girls, or... anything). I really like coding, and plan to do it into old age. But I suspect if I suddenly found fifty billion dollars, I would have so many new options for how to spend my time I might well never write a line of code again.
- vidyesh 5y ago
  I remember reading somewhere, When you have no money, time is your friend when you have money, you buy back your time. So certainly, he has delegated tasks to prioritize and do things he really wants.

rococode 5y ago

He said in a fairly recent AMA: > My code no longer goes into shipping products so I am rusty. I do like to try the new tools to understand how they help. I just did a review of the low-code tools where there is a lot of great innovation. https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/m8n4vt/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_and_melinda/gridl9c/?context=10000 https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/m8n4vt/im_bill_gates_...

groby_b 5y ago

Time is an extremely precious commodity. It seems somewhat arbitrary to assume that if you like something, you automatically do it in your spare time. It's fairly easy to like more things than you could possibly have time to pursue :)

elliekelly 5y ago
But when you’re a billionaire almost all of your time is spare time. Aside from basic bodily functions billionaires can spend their all of their time doing whatever their little hearts desire.
- groby_b 5y ago
  Yes. But time is still finite. And a much lesser quantity than "what our hearts desire". To put into a very simplified example: I work 8 hours a day, sleep 8 hours a day, spend 4 on chores, and 4 on doing what I want. That's 4h/day. Bill Gates has almost immeasurably more money than I have, but he still, at best, gets 16h/day. He can do 4 times as much as I. And I can guarantee you that "things I'd love to do" is significantly more than even 24h/day. I'd assume the same holds for Gates. This is one of the reasons rich people usually have an entire staff running their lives - if you make billions, spending $100k to save 30 minutes a year is actually a reasonable investment. And so, even if he loves to code, he might well not be able to never get to it. (TBF: I'm not saying "poor Bill", I'm sure the other stuff he gets up to is reasonably fun :)
- veidr 5y ago
  I think the point is that you might like so many things, you cannot do all of them. And then, how do you prioritize them an allocate time? Some of us might go for 'whatever is the most fun', others 'whatever delivers the most results (for society, or for some obscure personal goal like making a clock that lasts 10,000 years, or a speed metal guitar university for girls, or... anything). I really like coding, and plan to do it into old age. But I suspect if I suddenly found fifty billion dollars, I would have so many new options for how to spend my time I might well never write a line of code again.
vidyesh 5y ago
I remember reading somewhere, When you have no money, time is your friend when you have money, you buy back your time. So certainly, he has delegated tasks to prioritize and do things he really wants.