4 ms·

I have different view on that. The charity Bill Gates is doing now is good, but what Bill Gates did as Microsoft founder was much better and way more important

• berntb 13y ago
  >>Lots of people are still using Microsoft products [which are really good/important]. And lots of people are using Kalashnikovs e.g. the LRA, so they must be good? Please don't just write simple opinions like that on HN. Let me take a simple counter example: Microsoft had(/have?) a monopolist strategy. This meant they needed to have software/api/data formats hard to clone and be compatible with. this means they had to be over complex and varied in incompatible ways over time (then replaced regularly with new over complex implementations). That results in lower life quality for me and everyone else that had to use their stuff. The lack of better implementations, because of the monopoly, was a waste of money, blood pressure and time for at least tens of millions of people. I do agree about the charity, as a philantropist Gates has a serious attitude with setting goals and trying to reach them. Afaik, that made an incredible difference compared to e.g. the foreign aid of my country Sweden, set at 1% of GNP.
• aestra 13y ago
  >Lots of people are still using Microsoft products. Huuuuuh? What? What does that have to do with ANYTHING? Lots of people still use Bayer aspirin but that doesn't make their actions during WWII ok. They used slave labor and manufactured gas used in Nazi gas chambers and their executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison for his actions. They also invented heroin as a "non-addictive morphine substitute."