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... and as a result poor Bill has lived in total poverty, only to die of scurvy in a slum. His business died with out trace and he never been heard of since. A

by alan_cx 14y ago

... and as a result poor Bill has lived in total poverty, only to die of scurvy in a slum. His business died with out trace and he never been heard of since. A tragic story. Yes, bad hobbyists. Point being, despite all the piracy, there is still some money to be made. The complaint is that such folk are not making enough money. See, Bill should be twice or 3 times as rich. Man, he's really losing out. Of course then we have to deal with the age old assumption that every person with a pirated copy would have paid for it. Which is, er, optimistic, at best. IMHO, the loss is negligible. All they the copyright owner gets in reality is the satisfaction that not so many people use their product, but those who do pay. I'm not that happy at hitting Bill with this as he is one of the filthy rich people who actually uses his accumulated wealth for good causes. Which is ideal really.

ghjm 14y ago
But he wasn't, or anything close to it, when he wrote this letter.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  He wasn't anything close to poverty either.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    He wasn't anything close to poverty either. OK, if you aren't poor, give me $10K then. According to me, you have enough!
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      That, in 1955 dollars, would be about 1% of the trust fund one of his grandparents established for him. Still, I think he would resist your offer. What would you do with US$10K?
- wglb 14y ago
  He came from a quite well off family. And used that to his advantage at the beginning of his business career.
zero_intp 14y ago
The great philanthropic era was a result of the robber barons. The idea that we might enter a new era of such figures is only a sign of the grossly disproportionate wealth scales that damage our societies. It is a despotic idea that society must endure the deprivations of these individuals or corporation only to be rewarded with narrow visions of a better future world through the myopic eyes of the DuPont's, Gates', or Carnegie's of the world. These "great" men robbed, captured, or monopolized vast tracts of our communal resources in their acquisition of said wealth (edit: I accidentally an 'r')
- carlob 14y ago
  Yes! Next time you visit the Frick collection in New York City (you really should) think about the bloody repression of the Homestead strike [0]. I really think that the likes of Gates, Frick, Carnegie, Rockefeller or the more recent Jim Simons. Should have been taxed at a much much steeper rate, just like Buffett proposed [1], instead of waiting for their kindness of heart. By replacing philanthropy with taxation we get the democratic process to choose what is the best way to spend this money, instead of their however enlightened agenda. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Steel_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Steel_Strike [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule
  - jacoblyles 14y ago
    So we should tax away Thiel's money so instead of Space X we get... more ethanol subsidies? Or we should tax away Cameron's money so instead of asteroid mining we get higher pensions for government union workers? What kind of world do you live in that allows you this kind of democratic idealism? As our population gets older, the priorities of our democracies will reflect that. More and more government spending will go towards risk-averse projects - mostly medical subsidy. The only truly radical innovation will come from eccentric billionaires.
    - carlob 14y ago
      Well first of all Thiel's venture is a company not philantropy… But hell yeah, more pensions, universal healthcare, maybe more spending on education (talking about public school not 40k$/year colleges) are definitely a better way to spend money than radical innovation of eccentric billionaires. Moreover what we're talking about here is not turning billionaires into mere millionaires, but taxing people who can afford to donate 95% of their fortune 30% instead of 15%. That still leaves ample room for eccentric innovation. Yours is a false dichotomy.
rmrfrmrf 14y ago
I find your disdain for the wealthy disturbing.
tokenadult 14y ago
Part of this subthread discusses how Bill Gates started out in life and how much he has prospered since he wrote the open letter. Just on that point, it might be of interest to check an online post "Why Bill Gates is Richer than You" (more than a decade old, before Gates got involved in philanthropy full time) about how he made his money. http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/bill-gates http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/bill-gates Note that I have not fact-checked this at all, so if anyone has any factual corrections or updates (which could come from one of the published biographical writings about Gates), I would be glad to hear them.
- edraferi 14y ago
  Interesting link, with some prescience: "What most users want, though, is a cheap simple device that lets them collaborate with others... Thus the market for computing may in the end boil down to simple stuff to be used by consumers and reliable stuff to be operated by professional IT staff. Windows is way too complex for most consumers and difficult to justify on the server side when you can run Linux for free." e.g. "someday we'll just build the cloud on LAMP"

by alan_cx 14y ago

ghjm 14y ago

But he wasn't, or anything close to it, when he wrote this letter.

rbanffy 14y ago
He wasn't anything close to poverty either.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  He wasn't anything close to poverty either. OK, if you aren't poor, give me $10K then. According to me, you have enough!
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    That, in 1955 dollars, would be about 1% of the trust fund one of his grandparents established for him. Still, I think he would resist your offer. What would you do with US$10K?
wglb 14y ago
He came from a quite well off family. And used that to his advantage at the beginning of his business career.

zero_intp 14y ago

The great philanthropic era was a result of the robber barons. The idea that we might enter a new era of such figures is only a sign of the grossly disproportionate wealth scales that damage our societies. It is a despotic idea that society must endure the deprivations of these individuals or corporation only to be rewarded with narrow visions of a better future world through the myopic eyes of the DuPont's, Gates', or Carnegie's of the world. These "great" men robbed, captured, or monopolized vast tracts of our communal resources in their acquisition of said wealth (edit: I accidentally an 'r')

carlob 14y ago
Yes! Next time you visit the Frick collection in New York City (you really should) think about the bloody repression of the Homestead strike [0]. I really think that the likes of Gates, Frick, Carnegie, Rockefeller or the more recent Jim Simons. Should have been taxed at a much much steeper rate, just like Buffett proposed [1], instead of waiting for their kindness of heart. By replacing philanthropy with taxation we get the democratic process to choose what is the best way to spend this money, instead of their however enlightened agenda. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Steel_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Steel_Strike [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  So we should tax away Thiel's money so instead of Space X we get... more ethanol subsidies? Or we should tax away Cameron's money so instead of asteroid mining we get higher pensions for government union workers? What kind of world do you live in that allows you this kind of democratic idealism? As our population gets older, the priorities of our democracies will reflect that. More and more government spending will go towards risk-averse projects - mostly medical subsidy. The only truly radical innovation will come from eccentric billionaires.
  - carlob 14y ago
    Well first of all Thiel's venture is a company not philantropy… But hell yeah, more pensions, universal healthcare, maybe more spending on education (talking about public school not 40k$/year colleges) are definitely a better way to spend money than radical innovation of eccentric billionaires. Moreover what we're talking about here is not turning billionaires into mere millionaires, but taxing people who can afford to donate 95% of their fortune 30% instead of 15%. That still leaves ample room for eccentric innovation. Yours is a false dichotomy.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

I find your disdain for the wealthy disturbing.

tokenadult 14y ago

Part of this subthread discusses how Bill Gates started out in life and how much he has prospered since he wrote the open letter. Just on that point, it might be of interest to check an online post "Why Bill Gates is Richer than You" (more than a decade old, before Gates got involved in philanthropy full time) about how he made his money. http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/bill-gates http://philip.greenspun.com/humor/bill-gates Note that I have not fact-checked this at all, so if anyone has any factual corrections or updates (which could come from one of the published biographical writings about Gates), I would be glad to hear them.

edraferi 14y ago
Interesting link, with some prescience: "What most users want, though, is a cheap simple device that lets them collaborate with others... Thus the market for computing may in the end boil down to simple stuff to be used by consumers and reliable stuff to be operated by professional IT staff. Windows is way too complex for most consumers and difficult to justify on the server side when you can run Linux for free." e.g. "someday we'll just build the cloud on LAMP"