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Things 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

Things 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 ago
It's always easy to forget how ordinary extraordinary people are, and likewise how extraordinary ordinary people are.
- onedev 13y ago
  This is so true. It's a shame really.
knowtheory 13y ago
It'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 ago
  I 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.
  - rodgerd 13y ago
    I loathe his business practises (albeit less evil than Apple's...), but the rest of his life seems admirable. He certainly stands well above such other tech billionaires as Jobs and Ellison.
    - gohrt 13y ago
      Steve Jobs (a) accumulated only about 25% of Bill Gates' wealth, and (b) died. I haven't heard news about where his money went, but I haven't heard they spent it paying people to self-flagellate or rape each other or overtake a nation by force. He just worked his whole life and bought a couple of nice houses and a nice car and traveled, and then willed away his money to his wife, who spends her time doing high-society philanthropic dabblings.
      - cma 13y ago
        I hold don't it against him, but you are mischaracterizing a bit to say he only bought some cars and a house: https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+yacht https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+yacht https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+plane https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+plane
      - scholia 13y ago
        When you say "bought a house", you mean "bought a historic mansion", then left it to rot while he lived somewhere else. It rotted to the point where it was eventually torn down. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Steve-Jobs-historic-Woodside-mansion-is-torn-down-2474921.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Steve-Jobs-historic-Wo...
        _mulder_ 13y ago
        Historic?? It was 86 years old, hardly worth worrying about. If you want to see a real 'historic mansion', come to Europe.
        13y ago
- melling 13y ago
  Not trying to defend the couple of illegal things that Microsoft did, but Microsoft was never the most agile company. There was plenty of opportunity for Lotus, Word Perfect, and Borland to get their acts together, for example. Apple always sold expensive computers so they were never a threat. Linux has been around 20 years and it comes in over 200 flavors. The reason we never had "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" isn't Microsoft's fault. Sun is gone because they tried to protect the past, and commodity hardware took them out. Google could probably do some serious damage with a Chrome/Android solution. At this point it looks like Microsoft is going to finally take a hit as mobile evolves into a real desktop replacement.
  - commandar 13y ago
    >Google could probably do some serious damage with a Chrome/Android solution. Frankly, the evolution of rich web apps that we've seen over the past few years is exactly what terrified Microsoft in the 1990s and lead to the Netscape and Java antitrust suits.
    - pmelendez 13y ago
      >"Netscape and Java antitrust suits." I never understood what was the big deal on that matter. Netscape was a horrible browser and the only thing that MS did was shipping a free alternative on its OS. If IE would be that inferior people would still turn into the best solution. Right now IE is still free and ships within the OS and I still use Chrome on a daily basis.
      - commandar 13y ago
        It was far more than just shipping IE. MS also did things like use their sales agreements with PC manufacturers to block Netscape from being preinstalled on new computers. Back in the days of dial up, this was a very big deal. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things Microsoft did to prevent Netscape from being able to compete. Do some reading on it. Microsoft absolutely engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior that was only possible due to their dominant market position. The way Microsoft tended to act with blatant impunity toward their competitors is a lot of why they were so hated in the 90s.
- meowface 13y ago
  Advertising for a charity is quite different from advertising for a for-profit corporation... Regardless of Microsoft's numerous past and current transgressions, I don't think Gates has any ulterior motives with his current work and philanthropy.
  - knowtheory 13y ago
    Let me disclaim this with the fact that i think Heifer International seems like it does good work, and the interviews i've heard with their people have left me with a good impression. Okay, that said: Why shouldn't we skeptically evaluate non-profits and charities the way we evaluate the ethics and responsibility of for-profits? There are piiiiiiles of truly awful charities who take money in the name of doing good only to enrich themselves and let their ersatz causes languish unattended (see: http://cironline.org/americasworstcharities http://cironline.org/americasworstcharities ). I think it's awesome that Bill Gates donated to Heifer International on this woman's behalf. But I think maybe it's better if people spent more time learning more about Heifer and donating on its merits, than just because Bill Gates donated to it. So, actually, i don't agree that advertising for charities and for-profits is that different :)
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      That's something Bill Gates has actually argued himself and I'd trust a charity more if he decided it was worth donating too.
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Even if we take an uncharitable view of Bill's time at Microsoft, the harm is fairly limited. Some companies went out of business, computers are slightly more expensive, things crashed quite a bit, IE6 is still mucking things up, and really old bugs in Microsoft Office occasionally make life miserable. You know, first world problems. On the flip side, thanks to Bill's philanthropy, there are now billions of dollars flowing towards vaccines, mosquito nets, life-saving research, and other undeniably Good Things. It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, but if you could quantify and compare the impact of old Bill and new Bill, I'd say he's a net positive.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
    Unfortunately it's not quite that simple. Gates, Allen, Myhrvold and others at MS in that era were some of the most powerful influences on intellectual property expansion, in particular software patents and business method patents. That's having a lasting impact. And many of the Gates Foundation's activities re-enforce the same boundaries in the area of drug patents. If you want to net it out into a number, the game is far from over. Edit: lest my comment seem one sided: Gates could just be all scrooge mcduck with his treasure and there's not much anyone else could do to stop him, so I do give him a great deal of credit. I don't put much attention into casting people as good guys or bad guys; but the world is complex, and consequences matter.
    - Crito 13y ago
      The relationship between Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures, and the relationship between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Intellectual Ventures has me slightly concerned.
    - scholia 13y ago
      Microsoft had very few patents to start with, and the real drivers were IBM, AT&T and others who had tens of thousands. At the time, Microsoft had no real choice but to arm itself with patents, just as Google is doing now.
  - vidarh 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago
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- deleted 13y ago
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- yuhong 13y ago
  My favorite is actually the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco. Did you know that Win9x's dependence on DOS helped Caldera to continue suing MS?
- hershel 13y ago
  Is crushing your competitors something unique to bill gates ? Or any successful operating systems company would have done similar things ? So it's hard to tell how much of MS's monopolistic behavior should be assigned to gates.
  - sanoli 13y ago
    Good point. What happened to those official Apple hardware clone makers when their cheaper Macs started doing good?
- mathattack 13y ago
  This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International. Indeed he used his reputation for something that would go viral, and in the end helped that charity quite a bit. It also suggests to me that he's not above having a little bit of fun too. I'm sure the gift took some thought, and this was more than "I'll have my admin think about it."
- heed 13y ago
  I used to see him at Shaky's pizza in Bellevue, WA on occasion as a kid during the 90s. There I was playing on a Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinet and Gates is chomping on a slice of pepperoni 5 feet away.
- transitionality 13y ago
  He most certainly did not do this because he wanted to be nice. It was a carefully calculated PR stunt. Your reality check is much appreciated.
CurtMonash 13y ago
One long weekend in the mid-1980s, two of Bill's girlfriends spent several hours each venting to me about their relationship with him. It was a good wake-up call for me; I'd been pulling some of the same BS he had. I like to think I've treated my romantic partners better ever since.
- ximeng 13y ago
  More details?
  - elmodoll45fo 13y ago
    Tell us about his dong! edit: oh come on this is funny.
  - CurtMonash 13y ago
    It was pretty well known at the time that he was dating both of them. It turned out that their views of the relationship(s) were pretty similar, except that each was biased to thinking she was #1. I won't name them clearly. One should be obvious even so, even today, as she went on to a pretty big career -- bigger than mine -- and was open about the relationship. The other -- a lesser peer to me -- is more forgotten, except by industry old-timers. My epiphany was that one shouldn't string along women for long periods of time, even if in the literal sense one is not being deceptive. He wound up marrying neither of them, of course.
    - scalenemuscles 13y ago
      Is this really necessary here?
    - beachstartup 13y ago
      https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ann+winblad&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ann+win...
    - sanskritabelt 13y ago
      "a lesser peer to me" classy as fuck, pal
downandout 13y ago
During his tenure at Microsoft, I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. He crushed competitors into the ground and punished his enemies with reckless abandon. He now seems like a nice guy, in large part because he can afford to be. He has no competitors, and his only agenda is to give away his billions. If I had that much money and was retired, you would rarely find me in a bad mood either.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  > I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. I hear this a lot and I think it is grossly unfair. I lived through those times, and my company (Zortech) competed directly with Microsoft. Microsoft is one tough competitor, no doubt about it. But evil and maniacal is frankly ridiculous. MicroPro, Novell, Lotus, etc., all failed due to their own decisions. For in-depth information, see the book "In Search of Stupidity".
  - easytiger 13y ago
    Even back then I never saw gates as a mad tycoon like others seem to. When running a business at the end of the day the non software problem you are trying to solve is not necessarily to make the best thing in the world but to sell the most things and maintain future sales. It is just another problem to be solved along with getting your memory model right and ensuring customers aren't dissatisfied enough to abandon your platform. Of course it comes at the risk of having to allow hurt to other companies but that is the nature of survival.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      If all the did was compete fairly, it would not have been an issue, but they more than once were found to engage in unfair business practices. Such as financially punishing OEMs that opted to offer competing OS's.
      - aquadrop 13y ago
        What else can you name as "unfair business practices"? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.
pablovidal85 13y ago
True, but don't forget people can also act egoistically or produce harm to others completely on purpose too, just to say that this gift doesn't automatically makes Bill a good person in average, nor his bad actions from the past make this gift dishonest.
kro0ub 13y ago
If by "people" you merely mean "member of the homo sapiens species", then sure. But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed. If this comment doesn't earn a ban, there's something wrong with this community. Unbelievable.
  - kro0ub 13y ago
    Why do you have a problem with me espousing my political views?
jellicle 13y ago
Well, maybe it reminds you of that. As for myself, it reminds me that Bill Gates has a PR agency working for him that engages in stuff like this as a way to "relate to the community". As a different way of expressing the same thought: Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now. I'm sure he's a nice guy, likes puppies, Mom, and apple pie, but you need to be aware how public relations works if you're going to have any hope of mentally combating its power.
- chez17 13y ago
  You're argument is that it's literally impossible that Bill does something like this just for fun. Yes, PR is a real thing, but lighten up. You have no idea if what you just said was true.
- RexRollman 13y ago
  You are assuming a lot.
- jwcrux 13y ago
  >Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now. ...Did you even read the post? It had a picture of Bill standing and holding the gifts, one of which was a note mentioning his participation in the gift exchange.
- drzaiusapelord 13y ago
  >Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Come on, did you even see his AMA? Its pretty clear he's invested in reddit and online culture pretty deeply. While I'm certain he has some level of image consulting done, I find it hard to believe that he's on the level of Woody Harrelson and other stars who use places like reddit as a quick promotional stunt that they're forced to do by the studios. I'm glad I'm not as cynical as you. I'm not much of a Gates fan, but he's always been a manboy and nerd at heart. Now that he's semi-retired, I imagine he dicks around on the internet quite a bit. It would be crazy to be culture blind to places like reddit and still think you have your finger on the pulse of technology.

Laremere 13y ago

It's always easy to forget how ordinary extraordinary people are, and likewise how extraordinary ordinary people are.

onedev 13y ago
This is so true. It's a shame really.

knowtheory 13y ago

It'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 ago
I 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.
- rodgerd 13y ago
  I loathe his business practises (albeit less evil than Apple's...), but the rest of his life seems admirable. He certainly stands well above such other tech billionaires as Jobs and Ellison.
  - gohrt 13y ago
    Steve Jobs (a) accumulated only about 25% of Bill Gates' wealth, and (b) died. I haven't heard news about where his money went, but I haven't heard they spent it paying people to self-flagellate or rape each other or overtake a nation by force. He just worked his whole life and bought a couple of nice houses and a nice car and traveled, and then willed away his money to his wife, who spends her time doing high-society philanthropic dabblings.
    - cma 13y ago
      I hold don't it against him, but you are mischaracterizing a bit to say he only bought some cars and a house: https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+yacht https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+yacht https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+plane https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+jobs+plane
    - scholia 13y ago
      When you say "bought a house", you mean "bought a historic mansion", then left it to rot while he lived somewhere else. It rotted to the point where it was eventually torn down. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Steve-Jobs-historic-Woodside-mansion-is-torn-down-2474921.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Steve-Jobs-historic-Wo...
      - _mulder_ 13y ago
        Historic?? It was 86 years old, hardly worth worrying about. If you want to see a real 'historic mansion', come to Europe.
        13y ago
melling 13y ago
Not trying to defend the couple of illegal things that Microsoft did, but Microsoft was never the most agile company. There was plenty of opportunity for Lotus, Word Perfect, and Borland to get their acts together, for example. Apple always sold expensive computers so they were never a threat. Linux has been around 20 years and it comes in over 200 flavors. The reason we never had "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" isn't Microsoft's fault. Sun is gone because they tried to protect the past, and commodity hardware took them out. Google could probably do some serious damage with a Chrome/Android solution. At this point it looks like Microsoft is going to finally take a hit as mobile evolves into a real desktop replacement.
- commandar 13y ago
  >Google could probably do some serious damage with a Chrome/Android solution. Frankly, the evolution of rich web apps that we've seen over the past few years is exactly what terrified Microsoft in the 1990s and lead to the Netscape and Java antitrust suits.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    >"Netscape and Java antitrust suits." I never understood what was the big deal on that matter. Netscape was a horrible browser and the only thing that MS did was shipping a free alternative on its OS. If IE would be that inferior people would still turn into the best solution. Right now IE is still free and ships within the OS and I still use Chrome on a daily basis.
    - commandar 13y ago
      It was far more than just shipping IE. MS also did things like use their sales agreements with PC manufacturers to block Netscape from being preinstalled on new computers. Back in the days of dial up, this was a very big deal. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things Microsoft did to prevent Netscape from being able to compete. Do some reading on it. Microsoft absolutely engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior that was only possible due to their dominant market position. The way Microsoft tended to act with blatant impunity toward their competitors is a lot of why they were so hated in the 90s.
meowface 13y ago
Advertising for a charity is quite different from advertising for a for-profit corporation... Regardless of Microsoft's numerous past and current transgressions, I don't think Gates has any ulterior motives with his current work and philanthropy.
- knowtheory 13y ago
  Let me disclaim this with the fact that i think Heifer International seems like it does good work, and the interviews i've heard with their people have left me with a good impression. Okay, that said: Why shouldn't we skeptically evaluate non-profits and charities the way we evaluate the ethics and responsibility of for-profits? There are piiiiiiles of truly awful charities who take money in the name of doing good only to enrich themselves and let their ersatz causes languish unattended (see: http://cironline.org/americasworstcharities http://cironline.org/americasworstcharities ). I think it's awesome that Bill Gates donated to Heifer International on this woman's behalf. But I think maybe it's better if people spent more time learning more about Heifer and donating on its merits, than just because Bill Gates donated to it. So, actually, i don't agree that advertising for charities and for-profits is that different :)
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    That's something Bill Gates has actually argued himself and I'd trust a charity more if he decided it was worth donating too.
andrewfong 13y ago
Even if we take an uncharitable view of Bill's time at Microsoft, the harm is fairly limited. Some companies went out of business, computers are slightly more expensive, things crashed quite a bit, IE6 is still mucking things up, and really old bugs in Microsoft Office occasionally make life miserable. You know, first world problems. On the flip side, thanks to Bill's philanthropy, there are now billions of dollars flowing towards vaccines, mosquito nets, life-saving research, and other undeniably Good Things. It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, but if you could quantify and compare the impact of old Bill and new Bill, I'd say he's a net positive.
- jasonwatkinspdx 13y ago
  Unfortunately it's not quite that simple. Gates, Allen, Myhrvold and others at MS in that era were some of the most powerful influences on intellectual property expansion, in particular software patents and business method patents. That's having a lasting impact. And many of the Gates Foundation's activities re-enforce the same boundaries in the area of drug patents. If you want to net it out into a number, the game is far from over. Edit: lest my comment seem one sided: Gates could just be all scrooge mcduck with his treasure and there's not much anyone else could do to stop him, so I do give him a great deal of credit. I don't put much attention into casting people as good guys or bad guys; but the world is complex, and consequences matter.
  - Crito 13y ago
    The relationship between Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures, and the relationship between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Intellectual Ventures has me slightly concerned.
  - scholia 13y ago
    Microsoft had very few patents to start with, and the real drivers were IBM, AT&T and others who had tens of thousands. At the time, Microsoft had no real choice but to arm itself with patents, just as Google is doing now.
- vidarh 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
yuhong 13y ago
My favorite is actually the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco. Did you know that Win9x's dependence on DOS helped Caldera to continue suing MS?
hershel 13y ago
Is crushing your competitors something unique to bill gates ? Or any successful operating systems company would have done similar things ? So it's hard to tell how much of MS's monopolistic behavior should be assigned to gates.
- sanoli 13y ago
  Good point. What happened to those official Apple hardware clone makers when their cheaper Macs started doing good?
mathattack 13y ago
This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International. Indeed he used his reputation for something that would go viral, and in the end helped that charity quite a bit. It also suggests to me that he's not above having a little bit of fun too. I'm sure the gift took some thought, and this was more than "I'll have my admin think about it."
heed 13y ago
I used to see him at Shaky's pizza in Bellevue, WA on occasion as a kid during the 90s. There I was playing on a Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinet and Gates is chomping on a slice of pepperoni 5 feet away.
transitionality 13y ago
He most certainly did not do this because he wanted to be nice. It was a carefully calculated PR stunt. Your reality check is much appreciated.

CurtMonash 13y ago

One long weekend in the mid-1980s, two of Bill's girlfriends spent several hours each venting to me about their relationship with him. It was a good wake-up call for me; I'd been pulling some of the same BS he had. I like to think I've treated my romantic partners better ever since.

ximeng 13y ago
More details?
- elmodoll45fo 13y ago
  Tell us about his dong! edit: oh come on this is funny.
- CurtMonash 13y ago
  It was pretty well known at the time that he was dating both of them. It turned out that their views of the relationship(s) were pretty similar, except that each was biased to thinking she was #1. I won't name them clearly. One should be obvious even so, even today, as she went on to a pretty big career -- bigger than mine -- and was open about the relationship. The other -- a lesser peer to me -- is more forgotten, except by industry old-timers. My epiphany was that one shouldn't string along women for long periods of time, even if in the literal sense one is not being deceptive. He wound up marrying neither of them, of course.
  - scalenemuscles 13y ago
    Is this really necessary here?
  - beachstartup 13y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ann+winblad&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ann+win...
  - sanskritabelt 13y ago
    "a lesser peer to me" classy as fuck, pal

downandout 13y ago

During his tenure at Microsoft, I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. He crushed competitors into the ground and punished his enemies with reckless abandon. He now seems like a nice guy, in large part because he can afford to be. He has no competitors, and his only agenda is to give away his billions. If I had that much money and was retired, you would rarely find me in a bad mood either.

WalterBright 13y ago
> I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. I hear this a lot and I think it is grossly unfair. I lived through those times, and my company (Zortech) competed directly with Microsoft. Microsoft is one tough competitor, no doubt about it. But evil and maniacal is frankly ridiculous. MicroPro, Novell, Lotus, etc., all failed due to their own decisions. For in-depth information, see the book "In Search of Stupidity".
- easytiger 13y ago
  Even back then I never saw gates as a mad tycoon like others seem to. When running a business at the end of the day the non software problem you are trying to solve is not necessarily to make the best thing in the world but to sell the most things and maintain future sales. It is just another problem to be solved along with getting your memory model right and ensuring customers aren't dissatisfied enough to abandon your platform. Of course it comes at the risk of having to allow hurt to other companies but that is the nature of survival.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    If all the did was compete fairly, it would not have been an issue, but they more than once were found to engage in unfair business practices. Such as financially punishing OEMs that opted to offer competing OS's.
    - aquadrop 13y ago
      What else can you name as "unfair business practices"? I'm genuinely interested in the answer.

pablovidal85 13y ago

True, but don't forget people can also act egoistically or produce harm to others completely on purpose too, just to say that this gift doesn't automatically makes Bill a good person in average, nor his bad actions from the past make this gift dishonest.

kro0ub 13y ago

If by "people" you merely mean "member of the homo sapiens species", then sure. But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed.

onebaddude 13y ago
>But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed. If this comment doesn't earn a ban, there's something wrong with this community. Unbelievable.
- kro0ub 13y ago
  Why do you have a problem with me espousing my political views?

jellicle 13y ago

Well, maybe it reminds you of that. As for myself, it reminds me that Bill Gates has a PR agency working for him that engages in stuff like this as a way to "relate to the community". As a different way of expressing the same thought: Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now. I'm sure he's a nice guy, likes puppies, Mom, and apple pie, but you need to be aware how public relations works if you're going to have any hope of mentally combating its power.

chez17 13y ago
You're argument is that it's literally impossible that Bill does something like this just for fun. Yes, PR is a real thing, but lighten up. You have no idea if what you just said was true.
RexRollman 13y ago
You are assuming a lot.
jwcrux 13y ago
>Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now. ...Did you even read the post? It had a picture of Bill standing and holding the gifts, one of which was a note mentioning his participation in the gift exchange.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
>Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Come on, did you even see his AMA? Its pretty clear he's invested in reddit and online culture pretty deeply. While I'm certain he has some level of image consulting done, I find it hard to believe that he's on the level of Woody Harrelson and other stars who use places like reddit as a quick promotional stunt that they're forced to do by the studios. I'm glad I'm not as cynical as you. I'm not much of a Gates fan, but he's always been a manboy and nerd at heart. Now that he's semi-retired, I imagine he dicks around on the internet quite a bit. It would be crazy to be culture blind to places like reddit and still think you have your finger on the pulse of technology.