[neumann_alfred]

Not only did he build the worlds largest technology company

With what tactics and strategies, though?

he's making a global philanthropic impact.

How would one measure the destruction Microsoft caused? The wasted time? The wasted money, the wasted lifes? I mean, if HNers can scream bloody murder about Shirley Hornstein "stealing jobs that would have gone to others" ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135436 ), surely that should enter into this as well. If someone takes with one hand and gives with the other, you can't just count the giving. Well you can, but I can't follow. Personally, I judge people solely by how they react to a pie to the face, and Bill Gates scored quite low on that.

[ivany]

How would one measure the destruction Microsoft caused? The wasted time? The wasted money, the wasted lifes?

Wat. I'm sure lots of work that gets done at Microsoft is misguided or redundant. Welcome to working at a big company. The pay is competitive and the environment, from what I hear, is some of the best in the software industry. It's not some sweatshop where you're forced to toil for pennies; I bet a lot of people here would enjoy and benefit from the experience of "wasting their lives" at MSFT for a few years.

[adaml_623]

I think he meant the time 'wasted' or perhaps just used working with Microsoft Windows. Rebooting, configuring/reinstalling every few months, etc.

Every reboot required during the install or upgrade of a Microsoft product multiplied by an install base of hundreds of millions of machines is a big number.

(Not that this is really relevant to Bill Gates's work today)

[neumann_alfred]

Wat. I'm sure lots of work that gets done at Microsoft is misguided or redundant. Welcome to working at a big company.

You misunderstood me, I don't really care about the fate of anyone working there. I am more thinking about the brain space wasted with deceptive marketing claims, the money extracted from people, not to mention schools, and the horrible waste of people investing in learning about the MS ecosystem and the proliferating it. Microsoft learned to eat chalk, and the hard and scary way it learned to open up a little, but Mr. Bill Gates was once perfectly looking forward to the internet being a flop and everybody using MSN, to name just one of dozens examples clearly mapping the ugly underbelly. And far from silentely trying to improve the world without caring about the credit too much, MS was always keen on talking about stuff they didn't come up with as if they did, without technically lying.

Microsoft isn't special in that regard, sure, but to me even the best achievements are seen on the background of corporate armbandism and become morally worthless at best.

I am perfectly fine with someone who owes their life to the Gates foundation loving the guy, and happy for every life saved. But when it comes to me thinking Bill Gates is "cool", it just doesn't work out that way. So when someone else implies I kinda have to agree that this is all super awesome, I resist. Yes it is, but it doesn't make up for the other stuff, not one iota. Apologizing for all the lies and FUD about Linux, now that would be something... because hey, if people save money that way, they can buy healthy food, or go to a doctor of their choosing, and that's good thing, right? right?

Why is it always that we first allow a bunch of clowns to run just about everything, and then are grateful for the breadcrumbs they let trickle down? I am sure there are many people in China singing the praises of some party members who helped them get surgery or whatever. Yes, and? Take a step back, see the individual parts and how they fit together. Suddenly it's much less impressive, and the real heroes turn out to be the ones giving their lives to help others who DID NOT first sell a bunch of drugs or whatever to get the means to do so.

[digitalengineer]

Agreed on the tactics. Of course we've seen incredibly rich people set up charity funds before. Like Alfred Nobel who invented the peace price after he became wealthy because of his invention of the detonator for dynamite and nitroglycerin.

[ceelee]

correction: dynamite was a significant stabilization of nitroglycerine by Nobel

[exodust]

>> "I judge people solely by how they react to a pie to the face, and Bill Gates scored quite low on that."

Please tell us how you'd react? Let me guess, you'd disarm the pie-throwers, crack a joke related to pies, smile into the camera as you're carried out on the shoulders of cheering onlookers?

[gsk]

>wasted lifes? You should learn more about Gates foundation. Here's a passionate speech he gave recently in London about eradicating polio http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=R-JRogtrwRk

[makomk]

You're forgetting one very important thing: Shirley Hornstein is female and Bill Gates isn't.