[baby]

Definitely one of the most inspiring man when it comes to success.

For research I would say Stephen Hawking

For education I would say Neil deGrasse Tyson

( I would put Neil in the inspiring "anti-racism" category as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQLtPWPqsjA )

[ValG]

Don't forget Bill Gates. While many may (rightly) fault his business ethics and tactics, he is doing more for the bottom 20% of humanity than most others.

[seiji]

But, he set back all of computing 10 to 20 years (1995-2010 "dark ages" approximately) just for the sake of greed, dominance, and profit. Was it worth it?

[Joeri]

I used to think this myself, but reading up on computing history I've somewhat changed my mind. If Bill Gates hadn't been born and Microsoft hadn't existed, what might have happened instead?

IBM would have still made the PC, only using another CP/M clone as OS, and would have owned that market because the other vendor wouldn't have written as clever a deal as Gates did. Two possible outcomes of that: either IBM would have replaced microsoft as center stone of the PC market and been no better and probably worse than microsoft (they were considered pretty evil in their day), or more likely IBM would have failed to create the PC platform (because that was really Microsoft's doing), and the personal computing market would have remained deeply fragmented on both hardware and software levels, tools for gamers and tinkerers but not business computing. In either case, OS/2 wouldn't have happened in the way that it did (especially since microsoft was a key developer behind that). Linux would have had a significantly tougher time happening, either because of IBM's control of the PC market (including the hardware), or in the fragmentation scenario because the lack of a hardware standard would have made it more difficult to build a community of OS enthusiasts. Apple would have probably gone bankrupt during Jobs' wilderness years. Without ms office propping it up as the only desktop alternative to DOS/windows it wouldn't have stood a chance given how incompetent apple's management was at the time.

So, maybe microsoft slowed down the personal computing market, or maybe they sped it up, or maybe they didn't change the timeline at all. I reckon there's no way to tell unless you have a time machine.

I wonder if Gates feels guilty though. His current efforts are laudable, but it always seems like he's compensating for something.

[fragmede]

It's impossible to know as a whole, but you can still look at individual actions and say they were bad for the industry.

Probably one of the worst and most egregious is Microsoft's use of a "per processor" fee in the 90's which they only stopped when the government forced them to. If you were an OEM like Dell or HP, and sold Windows on any computers, you had to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows on all computers you sold, even ones without Windows.

This anti-competitive move meant alternative operating systems, like BeOS, or OS2/Warp, or even Linux weren't really an option. BeOS died, not on any technical merits, but because Microsoft forced it out via other means. Linux only survived because its openness made it hard to kill.

[hyperpallium]

I think it wouldn't have remained as fragmented, because early tech markets usually consolidate (e.g. there used to be 100's of auto makers).

[run4yourlives2]

I'm confused at how Gates set back computing by taking the PC from a geeky hobby item to perhaps the go to standard appliance in the modern home. Could you explain this a little better?

[seiji]

> taking the PC from a geeky hobby item

That was Apple. Microsoft mostly copied things after they got proven elsewhere first.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost to security issues in Windows? The design is fundamentally flawed and entrenched in our society for the foreseeable future (ATMs running 20 year old versions of Windows, etc).

How many other promising computer futures could we have had without abusive monopoly power? Plan9? Be?

How many millions of programmer hours have been lost to supporting broken Microsoft practices? IE, anybody? It didn't just "happen," it was their entire business model: destroy competition by abusing a position of power, become the only solution provider going forward, then stop developing the solution for highest ROI (just duplicate those bits for government contract money, baby. no need to maintain anything since we're the only game in town).

[run4yourlives2]

That was Apple. Microsoft mostly copied things after they got proven elsewhere first.

...and made it mainstream enough that every home could afford one. No, Apple did not do that.

how many millions of hours...

...that would never existed anyway because no other company had the vision and desire to penetrate the mass market like MS did. Pretty sure a hell of a lot of money was made maintaining MS software. It was hardly 'lost'.

I'm not sure if Gates slapped your mom or something, but you seem to be blaming MS for not being the best thing possible when the whole idea of mass market computing was nothing more than theory. Were you using the Internet when IE 5 came out? Because if you were you surely remember it was miles and miles ahead of Netscape. It was the best thing in the market. I can't fault them for the millions of dollars of development they invested simply because it hurt Netscape's non existent business case.

Do you reap the same scorn on google and Apple for their actions? Because they are doing exactly the same things as MS did, even worse, Google is just pumping what are often best in class products out to the masses for free!

Don't get me wrong, MS did a lot of shady stuff that hurt competition and served no other interest but their own, but they aren't unique in this regard at all; they just happened to be in a better position than most companies are.

[ArkyBeagle]

Greed is a lousy sobrquiet to use here. DOS on an 8086 is a lot like the AK47. It's simple, you can take it apart blindfolded and it always fired. DOS was the substrate; everything else ( even the really bad stuff ) was ultimately gravy.

This was a hugely populist technology.

Gates identified a principle - software is inherently property - that was lying around unused. He built a big company out of that. Computers became mainstream.

If anything, Wintel stuff probably accelerated the progress of other architectures by the sheer increase in the size of the market.

I, too mourn some of the casualties, but an Amiga was 8 months house payment whilst my first 286 was only 3 or 4.

[technomancy]

Compared to those stuck in poverty, computing can recover with relative ease from that kind of setback. Computing has boatloads of money and loads of momentum to overcome obstacles; people in poverty only have despair and oppression.

[DougMerritt]

True. But he has successfully edited his reputation by using philanthropy, so you got a downvote. Which I reversed because you're right (taking "all of computing" to be mild hyperbole).

[cdelsolar]

really?

[mburns]

Bill Gates is buying his legacy.