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Bill Gates takes part in Reddit's Secret Santa
- talon88 13y agoI think this is really cool, though the cynical part of me thinks that so will the social media strategists of quite a few celebrities out there, looking to promote things around Christmas...
- d0m 13y agoMaybe.. but Bill Gates..? He doesn't have to use social media strategies, he won the game already!
- loceng 13y agoThere is a lot of unimportant noise out there, and a lot of education and awareness holding needed to keep moving the world towards the better.. everything counts.
- tnkd 13y agoIf throughout the unwrapping of the gifts, there was a Microsoft Surface, then I'd agree with you but for the most part I believe this reads as genuine.
- bdcravens 13y agoBill Gates has been aggressively giving for several years now, and he's quite consistent with his messaging regarding the need to give to and enable the quality of life in the third world. If anything, the strategy is to put a spotlight on those causes, rather than himself.
- commandar 13y agoThe fact that your parent poster is apparently unaware of the fact that the work done by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had a huge hand in eliminating polio in India would be a good example. The country just marked two years without a new reported case.
- talon88 13y agoNo, no — I think Bill Gates is absolutely genuine. I think those who may follow in his footsteps will be less so.
- meowface 13y agoI think you get somewhat of a free pass if what you're promoting is purely a charity.
- sethbannon 13y agoThings like this are neat because they remind folks that tech titans, billionaires, celebrities, and the like are, at the end of the day, people too -- not that dissimilar from everyone else. It's so easy to forget that.
- Laremere 13y agoIt's always easy to forget how ordinary extraordinary people are, and likewise how extraordinary ordinary people are.
- onedev 13y agoThis is so true. It's a shame really.
- knowtheory 13y agoIt's awesome that Bill Gates decided to participate in the gift exchange. This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International. So, yeah, he's a regular dude in a lot of ways. He's also still a ruthless billionaire who created a company that was known for crushing its competitors. People are complicated, and just because he can be nice doesn't mean that he's not other things too.
- commandar 13y agoI really can't think of another person that I've had to reevaluate my opinion of as drastically as Gates. In the 90s he was widely seen as the face of the evil empire of Microsoft by the technorati, completely cutthroat and unfairly crushing anyone that stood in his way. But over the past decade, he's arguably been one of the single greatest contributors to good in the world. He's been a staunch and consistent advocate for the overall betterment of humanity. He's put his wealth and influence to use in beneficial, high-impact ways. He's directed his ruthlessness away from business and toward hunger, poverty, and disease. And it's making a very real difference in the lives of people around the world. He's gone from somebody I viewed as a reviled caricature of a man to one I can't help but profoundly respect. Yeah, people are complicated. In the Mr. Gates' case, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
- kylelibra 13y agoHow celebrities behave on reddit seems to be a good indication of how they actually are in real life.
- matthudson 13y agoHow can you possibly know that without knowing one of the celebrities personally, and then extend that as a general rule?
- dsl 13y agoI know celebrities with have done AMAs, and I can say with the exception of proxy PR people coaching (usually when they have a movie coming out soon or something), you end up getting pretty honest and direct responses on reddit from them.
- vidarh 13y agoOf course you don't know how many of them have proxy PR people that are good enough to not get caught out.
- kreeben 13y agoExactly how many would he need to know to be able to safely make that statement?
- matthudson 13y agoAll of them, because it is ridiculous to assume that you know what every person in a particular group of people is like in real life based on the actions of a subset of that group on a message board. Some celebrities "get" reddit, and some don't. Some answer three questions and leave, and some stay for days. Some see it as a promotional tool, and some are actually part of the community. Some participate anonymously, some have AMA accounts, and some have both. Most of all, even if you did know a good portion of them on and offline, you can't possibly extrapolate what the rest of the group is actually like in real life. The idea that you can encapsulate an entire person into a couple dozen comments (on average) that they leave on a message board is absurd to me. Going on to extend that abstraction to an entire class of people is even more ridiculous.
- adamnemecek 13y agoSomeone in the reddit thread asked a good question, what would you give to Bill Gates if you are his Secret Santa?
- endgame 13y agoI'd give him my framed MS-DOS 6.22 certificate of authenticity.
- jacalata 13y agoDon't you think he has one?
- jevinskie 13y agoA donation to his foundation.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y agoThis.
- stevenj 13y agoI'd give him a few of my favorite books, with the hope that there'd be at least one that he hadn't read yet. I'd also include a personal write-up as to why I enjoyed each, without giving away any important details.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fekberg 13y agoAn invitation to my wedding, he'd get to meet me and I'd get to meet him. It's a win - win!
- meowface 13y agoBooks probably. And maybe if I had some spare time, an MS-DOS screenshot with "echo Hi Bill!" on it, or something.
- vacri 13y agoGreat story with a fun typo - "Exactly just what kind of charity is Heifner International?"
- mynameishere 13y agoThat's a fun gift. I used to get solicitations from Heifer international years ago, and the sad thing is that they advertise themselves such that if you donate 50 dollars, a family will get a flock of chickens; if you donate 100 dollars, a family will get a baby goat. Etc, etc. But all the money goes into a common fund. I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it. On the other hand, I suppose Bill's underlings conduct proper due diligence.
- monksy 13y agoYou learned how the sausage is made.
- qq66 13y agoYour complaint is why Watsi (and Kiva before it) exist.
- MarkTee 13y agoKiva's no different.
- qq66 13y agooh? Well consider me effectively misled.
- citricsquid 13y agoKiva is sort-of iffy in some areas, for example pre-dispersal means that most loans are funded long before they're live on the website[1]: when you're loaning $25 to an individual, you're actually just sending money out to the field partner, who have already granted a loan to the individual. Another concern some people have is that because of the way field partners work they can be aggressive with gathering loan repayments as every delinquent loan reflects poorly on the field partner. Personally I find the amount of good that Kiva does far exceeds the negatives that some people put forward, and while they're far from perfect they are a very well managed charity[2] that I have a lot of confidence in. [1] They do include this information on each borrowers page though, it's transparent if you know to look for it, but a lot of people don't understand it. Loan disbursal can happen anywhere from 60 days before to 90 days after the loan is posted on the Kiva website. The disbursed date indicates the date that the borrower receives their loan funds from the Field Partner. Many of Kiva's Field Partners choose to disburse loan funds before the loan request is posted on Kiva. We allow pre-disbursal because it ensures that the funds reach the borrower as soon as they are needed. Loan funds from Kiva lenders then go to backfill that amount and as a lender you assume the risk of the loan. By doing this, our Field Partners assume the risk that, if the loan isn't funded by Kiva lenders, the Field Partner has to fund the loan without any funds from Kiva lenders." [2] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12978 http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...
- monksy 13y agoHes bill g, I call him money for short... he even does my tech support. [Something something white and nerdy]
- ByronT 13y agoWrong song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos
- elmodoll45fo 13y agoI was at ACE computer camp when this song came out.
- bambax 13y agoThe last line is so funny: > ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward.
- CurtMonash 13y agoBill gets it from his mother. I only met her once, yet she fell all over herself to be gracious, try to do me favors, etc.
- shdon 13y agoNot just his mother. It was his father who instilled in Bill the need to do something good for the world. Bill Gates Sr. was also in charge of the charitable giving when Bill Gates Jr. (fun little piece of trivia: nicknamed "Trey" in his family to avoid confusion) was still very much involved in the day to day running of Microsoft.
- CurtMonash 13y agoBut this is a story about pleasant personality and small gestures. As noted in http://www.softwarememories.com/2009/04/25/wsj-article-on-bill-gates-family-and-other-stories/ http://www.softwarememories.com/2009/04/25/wsj-article-on-bi..., I got that vibe from Bill's mother but not his father.
- Tossrock 13y agoreminds me of this... http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...
- rschmitty 13y agoThe thing I was most impressed with is Bills ability to write a cursive capital G.
- mrmondo 13y agoCan anyone say... Publicity stunt?
- Dirlewanger 13y agoWhenever one finds themselves in the position of asking "Was money a motivating factor?" the answer is always yes.
- smackfu 13y agoPublicity stunt for charity? How dare he.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoYeah - it's not like he does much charity the rest of the year... Oh wait.
- DanielBMarkham 13y agoAfter a gushing review of how great Bill was and what a wonderful experience. "...ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward..." This was a great article, and a reminder that the internet allows us to make a difference in people's lives in ways we never could before.
- gadders 13y agoI wonder if there is a generational difference between people, say, 30+ and the under 30's of their view of Bill Gates? For people my age he was "evil" personified during the Netscape/IE/Anti-Trust era. I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist? As for me, if he keeps this up I'm going to have to start liking the guy :-)
- James_Duval 13y ago> I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist From personal experience, almost exclusively. The difference is more marked outside the tech sector, too. None of my acquaintances in the 19-30 age range outside the tech industry consider Gates evil, and many love him. Within the tech industry, I can think of one acquaintance within that age range who considers Gates evil -- and he is exactly 30. It's difficult for people of my generation to quite understand Microsoft's wrongdoing during that period, when now the company's not nearly so powerful. The 'evil' all seems quite abstract and far away, while the Gates foundation seems to have much more direct results. My results are skewed because I know an awful lot of people who work for charities and non-profits, who'll naturally have a better opinion of someone who works in the same (ish) sector.
- silverlake 13y agoI'm way over 30 and I've always had a positive view of Gates. That's largely because I don't view business competition as a gentlemen's duel. It really is cutthroat as hell. In my early 20s I found the strategy docs for my mega-tech corp on an insecure network drive. Spent the weekend learning about how companies really compete: backroom deals, legal maneuvers, strange contracts, and even political pressure. Very few companies can be the Ghandi of the Fortune 500. Everytime Gates is mentioned on HN we get the exact same 200 comments detailing his alleged crimes. Gates bought a cow? Sure, but he killed Netscape. Gates built an AIDS research center? Sure, but he added the Office ribbon. Can't we all calm the fuck down and just appreciate 1 rich dude trying to do some good his own way?
- gadders 13y ago
- csmuk 13y agoI love Reddit Secret Santa for the comedy value. So far I've seen this year people have been given: 1. A pig foetus preserved in alcohol. 2. A selection of root vegetables, petroleum jelly and gloves.
- ck2 13y agoWhat a great guy Bill Gates turned out to be and he didn't do it only on his deathbed like some billionaires.
- sifarat 13y agoBill Gates: when you reach your first billion dollar, you are back to cheese burger. Point. He is just being what everyone else us are here. a normal human being.
- frankydp 13y agoThe vitriol in this thread is astounding.
- socalnate1 13y agoHacker News is really good at finding something wrong with anything good. Reminds me of my grandmother...
- frankydp 13y agoI have been on the fence for a couple months. I am moving to a post only reader.
- joshaidan 13y agoNow, I wonder what Bill received. Bill should make a similar post about his gift, would be cool.
- mburst 13y agoReddit Secret Santa is definitely a very cool project. Kudos to Bill and all the others for participating. Though as other people have mentioned Heifer spends quite a bit of money on advertising, like most other charities I suppose. My roommate donated $10 about a year or 2 ago for a contest and every other week we receive letters, magazines, and photos asking for more money (way more than $10 worth of material). It would be sweet to see a charity spend their money on the actual cause rather than just promotional material.
- Julianhearn 13y agoggg
- gnator 13y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN0K58EfJSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN0K58EfJSg
- kimonos 13y agoTwo thumbs up! A great inspiration for everyone!
- davidgerard 13y agoThat's ridiculously heartwarming. GEEKS! When you're rich and famous, REMEMBER TO STILL DO COOL STUFF!