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Gates Gets Government Guards for Gala
Nick Irelan writes "The home of the world's richest man was a 'temporary security zone' when he held a party for members of the National Governors Association. Bill's guests included Newt Gingrich, Tommy Thompson, and Leon Panetta. Gates also put in $150,000 for the governors' meeting held the next day. News.com covered this story very well." If your invitation to Gates' place got "lost in the mail", you can read about a Microsoft intern who got to have dinner with the big cheese.
For all the Microsoft bashing that goes on (and I figure /. readers won't need to look far for examples), the note at the end of the MS intern's blog about Gates' daughter was a nice touch.
As much as people love to hate Bill and his company, he is just one guy after all. We seldom here about this side of him (albeit for security reasons in relation to his kids?). Perhaps a Bill Gates book in the vein of Linus' "Just For Fun" is due?
Gates that is. Remember, since he isn't CEO anymore the primary fsck-ups (SCO anyone?) are not something he agreed the company should have ever touched in the first place, when instead the new CEO said "yay! Lets GO DO THIS!".
The journal of the intern is not the only one I've seen where people who meet and spend time with Gates end up with a surprisingly pleasent experience. Geek + Dad + Down to Earth. Of course, people here will continue to flame Gates as if he is CEO, continue to say what a greeding person he is and ignore the intern's journal, or say that the intern is a Microsoft employee.
I hope people can eventually look beyond the company and see the man behind what started it. He's not half bad if you give him a chance.
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
It is a sad statement on human nature that when a person becomes so wealthy and powerful, they no longer get to enjoy the simpler things in peace. I suspect there are many days when he and his family wishes they could drive to Disneyland and go on the rides like everyone else. Most public places are probably off limits due to the complexity of managing security. Kidnapping is an endless concern.
I may not agree with all that Microsoft does as an entity, but I sometimes wish our world would let the man talk about his kids.
While this whole thing may reek of money politics, it sounds like this whole thing is at least coming down 'on the right side' of some issues, encouraging the extension of the moratorium on 'net sales taxes, and loose regulation of VoIP. Of course, there is still that minor 'monopoly' issue.
Politics can be pretty distateful, especially when it involves things like shutting down public roads so that rich people can talk to politicians in private.
Anyway, it sounds like Microsoft is lobbying the National Governors Association (NGA) to have more forward-thinking opinions on the things they have influence over: The 'Net sales tax moratorium, VoIP regulations, etc. While I doubt many people agree with MS's thoughts about their monopoly, it is nice to have someone 'legitimate' pushing the NGA in a more Libertarian direction, at least a little bit.
----------------------
Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"
OK, other than the class warfare angle that plays so well to anti-capitalist-types on Slashdot, exactly why is this news? Bill Gates threw a ball for a bunch of current and ex-government types. He paid for it with his own cash. If he got "government" guards, it's because government guests were present. Duh! The Slashdot "article" on this reads like a bit of Bill-Gates-is-rich-and-evil propaganda.
Look, I don't like the guy and I don't like Windows, but what he does with his own time and his own money is his business. You don't see a Slashdot article about "John Kerry and John Edwards host celebrity-laden post-convention gala with celebrity personal security" do you?
I mean, I know Slashdot is heavily biased, but you ought to go back to at least trying to hide it.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Seriously, I love good alliteration. Big kudos for a cool title.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
So, basically, Gates throws a party, invites a bunch of rather important people, and then the government _dares_ to protect them for the night? This hardly seems wasteful - for once, the government is doing their job, and protecting people who really need to be protected. Keep in mind that Bill and friends face a much larger security threat than does the average /.'er.
I mean, come on, guys. Save the outrage for the outrageous. Would you be happier if Bill hired a private army equipped with military weapons to do the protection?
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Sorry but I can't stand all this being nice to Bill stuff, This is /. for god's sake.
Microsoft has reached and held on to the current position it occupies by destroying competitors in the most appalling and brutal way possible. They did it to Lotus making sure that 123 couldn't work on each new release of Windows, they did it to handwriting pioneers Go, they did it to Netscape (trying to destroy the reputations of a number of genuine innovators like Tim Bray who was subject to a vicious, deeply personal extended attack by Microsoft in which they tried to destroy his career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because his wife worked there, all because he'd signed a consulting engagement with Netscape), they more or less did it to Apple and they're having a damn good go at Sun, and they will do it to Linux if they can work out how to. Now if Gates, as the starry-eyed intern suggests, actually believed passionately in software and computing (as I do) he wouldn't work for a company that sets out to kill anything interesting or innovative that he comes across. Perhaps its all Ballmer's fault, but I doubt it.
He's helping people via money he gets by maintaining a monopoly.
It's unimpressive....it's all about relative wealth and disposable income. The money he gives is a drop in a tiny tiny tiny bucket for him. While it is admirable that he is doing good things with extra money compared to others, it's not really out of his way.
What irks me is that he, and microsoft, have so much cash and such a profit margin that they could retool their whole image and whole process and become a benevolent company. Instead they choose not to, and continue doing things like pushing around smaller companies and bankrolling sco.
It just amazes me. It would be so easy for them to do a 180 and start becoming better in the publics eyes. And I'm not talking geeks. The majority of regular people are frustrated with the lackluster quality of the software even if they don't realize the monopoly or the practices.
But, the reason Gate's got to where he is is his "never enough" mentality. While it may have made him one of the richest people in the world, and may have allowed him to do some good...the harm his company does by maintaining a monopoly and stifling innovation outweighs those benefits. It's called pulling a fast one people. Look, look I'm giving these people free cookies! Look! (Please don't look at the other people whom I'm beating down with my corporate moneystick.)
If you catch anyone in the right shade of light (so to speak) they can appear to be nice people, you can even be tricked into beleiving George Bush has a brain - but thats another story.
Yes applaud the fact that Bill Gates is a caring father (so are a lot of other males on the planet) and yes he has pursued the American (capitalist) dream to its greatest (clap clap clap) but the fact remains the company he founded and still has a strong controlling interest in has some very bad business practices. Software patents, anti-competitive practices and the list goes on.
Bill Gates as a dad - good for him.
Bill Gates founder of Microsoft - good for him.
Bill Gates a very rich man that can influence government policy - bad for us.
Well the intern made the single largest mistakes most newbie interns (I hope he's a newbie) make the first time they goto Bill's house. I think he'll learn though. :-)
Either way, I was a MS intern for 5 years, the first year I couldn't go but by my second party I had figured out that you don't talk to Bill for very long least for more than maybe 15 minutes. The reason? Because everyone else from MS, and then some is there, for example Tom Brokaw was at one of my parties because of MSNBC. I would ask you this question? When else in your life are you going to have a chance to talk one on one with a senior VP for MS for 4 hours, yes 4 hours. Or for that matter someone like David Cutler or Michael Kinsley (who was my choice as I am interested in politics) You can either do that or stand in the donut around Bill and ask two or three questions and get short one sentence answers.
I will admit that the house is quite impressive, when I was there I was informed by security that it's really two houses in one. The "conference center" part which is where you spend your time and a more intimate "living" part where the family actually spends thier time. I found the private little bungalow down by the beach with the adjacent boathouse the most interesting though, complete with lazy boys, a chess board and an interesting selection of books scattered around.
Ugghh... good point, but whattaya gonna do? I'd vote Nader if it wasn't the functional equivalent of a vote for Bush. Better my rich kid at the helm than theirs...
Choice? where is it? for years whenever I walked into any store selling computers they sold boxes with windows installed. For 99% of the people out there, there hasn't been any "choice" beyond this theoretical "if you maybe heard of another operating system and maybe could track it down and maybe get it installed then maybe you had a "choice"". People don't run windows because they comparison shopped, they run windows because that's what came on their computers. I know people who have never even *seen* a macintosh, let alone anything different on the x86 platform.
Don't confuse slashdot readership (that would also inlcude you and me) with the "market" in general. Microsoft got where they are via industry collusion, bribes, threats, kickbacks, etc in some very high places, not from normal consumer "choice" at the computer store. Heck, I've even got an older 1996 IBM computer here I bought severely discounted but still brand new in a sealed box, it didn't have os2 on it, it had NT on it when I bought it.
"Choice" is only relative when it actually exists in enough of a widespread manner that it is available to most consumers where they shop. It is only in the last two years that there has been any significant breakthrough in operating systems choice, and even now it is still mighty thin on the ground. I did a look in my area, there are 6 stores total that sell computers near me, none of them carry anything but XP boxes, nor are there even any alternative OSes on the shelf with the various software for sale. This is NOT "consumer choice selecting the best product".
It's unimpressive....it's all about relative wealth and disposable income. The money he gives is a drop in a tiny tiny tiny bucket for him. While it is admirable that he is doing good things with extra money compared to others, it's not really out of his way.
Call me when your net worth is tens of billions of dollars and you're giving away 95% of it. I really suspect the basis of this comment is a mistaken belief in your own decency, viz, "If I had billions of dollars, I'd give it all away except a couple of million to live on." Everyone SAYS that. I suspect it's much harder than it sounds. I might be way off the mark here, but if you are a working geek, chances are you have disposable income. What are you doing with it? It's a fair question because if it really is just about relative wealth and disposable income, some dirt farmer or kid going through the garbage in a third world country could justifiably look at you and say, "Wow! If I had that guy's cash, I'd be giving it away like mad!" And then he would wonder, unless I miss my guess, why you aren't.
While it may have made him one of the richest people in the world, and may have allowed him to do some good...the harm his company does by maintaining a monopoly and stifling innovation outweighs those benefits.
I could buy the argument that the ends don't justify the means. But to argue that the harm MS has done really outweighs the good Gates has done with his personal wealth is mindboggling. So some relatively affluent people have been put out of work (in a country where the government would take care of them, worse case scenario), and your favorite software isn't as popular as maybe it might otherwise be. A lot of the money he is shoveling out is going more or less directly to save people's lives. Do you really think the two compare?
It's not like anything is forcing him to be wealthy and powerful: if he gave all his money away, no one would bother kidnapping him.
It's like music and movie celebrities who complain about paparazzi: their salary is based on their worship by the masses, but they expect the masses to worship them without idols?
Again, being loud, passionate, whatever, is only a good thing if you're right. If you're not smart enough to be right, at least be quiet.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of engineers who are more than willing to passionately pitch their bad ideas. They will tell the boss to his face that they should bet the company on this bad idea. In general, the boss is either not smart enough or close enough to the technology to tell if the engineer is right or not. How is this a good thing?
I've seen this happen then seen the passionate engineer leave before his idea proved bogus. By that time, he's already at his next job where his new bosses think he's brilliant because he can passionately defend his ideas.