I want to post an opinion i've held since i was a kid. I must have been saying for 15 years that i don't like Bill Gates on a personal level (and somes i may have used more colourful terms as well). This is because he has for my whole adult life been one of the richness men in the world yet does nothing worthy with his money or life. What i mean by that is at one point he was valued at $100 Billion and my point is that if you have that much money you could cure cancer and give with the change give cleaan water to everyone in the world who doesn't have it. Now loads of people have said to me over the years "yeah... but why should he ?" and my response has always been "Why wouldn't he ?",
In generations to come people won't remember the guy who cut and paste his way to a sucessful business empire (how many pictures have we seen depicting him as a evil Borg-like drone?) but they would remember a great benefactor who cured the worst diesee of our time.
I'm glad to say that today he and his wife seem to be devoting themselves to curing malaria which is a good idea as well and more ever he is evangulising for other super rich to do the same Far too many rich celelbrities limit their charity work to 'raising money' (from us poor citizens) rather than first opening their wallets and then asking us to help top it up. Also he is working with governements i think to get them to match his funding, his influence and the fact that he fronts his own cash and is now seen as a nice guy doing a nice thing means that he can amplify the money to good causes.
So fair play to you Mr G you finally got the message through the six degrees, you're time is far better spent doing this good work then continung to mopolise the PC and stifling innovation. However you have a long way to go before you match Cliff Richard, this is a guy who for decadesd has given 1 third of hsi income to charity and doesn't really publicise it. Still if cure Malaria Mr G all is forgiven, just don't forget the clean water though, there are some people that really need it.
you almost make it sound like its a recent thing, his foundation has been doing lots of different things for near 20 years. I like his approach of not just throwing cash directly at something. He could have carried on at MS but left to go full time with the foundation and has given billions of his own money to it. Him and Buffett should be remembered for what they do and they way they did it
ReplyDeletehttp://bigduck.co/2012/01/19/steve-jobs-vs-bill-gates/
This video alone makes Gates a total badass...best way to make people understand ever.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/bill_gates_unplugged.html
Great video, he clearly believes in what he is doing and he has the right role... to tbe one to co-orgindinates and amplifies the efforts. This is what i wanted him to do all along and more i suppose, more than just giving money.
DeleteHowever this level of work is new, his charity work in the past was not at this level. Remeber that the a million dollars is only 1/1000th of a Billion dollars and at one point he had $100B.
However on the Jobs vs Gates. Clearly Gates is charity work today makes him a better person but Jobs actually invented stuff and led a company that truly invovated, remember that Gates stole a lot of his ideas for Windows directly from Jobs. And MS spent many years stiffilng innonvation and competition. Sure you could accuse Apple of stifiling competition today but their competitors just want to do what MS did and steal their ideas.
I just wrote a really long reply about the timing of philanthropy to achieve a sustainable financial input, and then it all got wiped. Typed on an iPad = Apple fail.
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