[mattmaroon]

Another way to look at it is that Gates used his very generous gifts to give 100s of thousands of people jobs, make PCs affordable for small businesses and common people, then went on to give away enough to charity to become the greatest philanthropist in history.

Meanwhile the people who vilify him worship Steve Jobs, who has broken plenty of laws himself (backdating is fraud), done most of the things that have inspired such loathing when Microsoft did them (and only didn't do the rest because he didn't have the necessary market share) and by all accounts hoards his money along with black mock turtlenecks. It's rather hypocritical to type about how evil Microsoft is on your Macbook Pro.

You see what you want to see I suppose.

[rbanffy]

> give 100s of thousands of people jobs

Would have jobs with or without Gates

> make PCs affordable for small businesses and common people

Like I said before, Jobs and Wozniak did that, Jack Tramiel did that (even better than J&W).

> then went on to give away enough to charity to become the greatest philanthropist in history

He is the richest man in history.

> the people who vilify him worship Steve Jobs

False dichotomy alert! Not the case here. Jobs is flawed too.

> done most of the things that have inspired such loathing when Microsoft did them

Until now Apple is not guilty of monopoly abuse. Nothing even close to what Comes vs. Microsoft shows.

> how evil Microsoft is on your Macbook Pro

I use a Dell running Linux. At home I use an Acer. Running Linux too.

[gnaritas]

> He is the richest man in history.

Small nitpick, adjusted for inflation, no he isn't, not even close. Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt were all much richer. Also, it needs to be said that these were the richest Americans, not necessarily richest ever worldwide.

[rbanffy]

Nitpick accepted. Thanks.

[mkramlich]

> then went on to give away enough to charity to become the greatest philanthropist in history He is the richest man in history.

Exactly. If you're a multi-billionaire it's very easy to be a philanthropist. Now instead be somebody making say $30k a year with a net worth of say $10k, and if that person is a philanthropist, I'm much more impressed by that person's character.