Slashdot Mirror
The Microsoft Millionaires Come of Age
iseff writes "The NYTimes is running a story about the ways in which Microsoft millionaires are putting their money to use. According to the story, there is somewhere around 10,000 Microsoft made millionaires spending money on various pet projects. For example, former programmer Chris Peters bought the PBA (Professional Bowlers Association), while Stephanie DeVaan founded a political action committee and Rich Tong founded Ignition Partners, a VC firm."
Can't we talk about Google instead?
That is just obscenely absurd for one company.
http://www.google.com/search?q=bill+gates+53+milli on+house
And bill bought all these
fuvoo: watch something
The most admirable way Microsoft is giving back: allowing us all to us the digits 1 and 0 royalty-free: http://www.huumor.com/joke_1118
The front page is not healthful. Return to 20721 immediately.
but that just proves they charge too much for their software. But since these are all guys who own stock I guess that is unrelated to income.
What I don't get is why these people still work. Bill can never "cash out" so he is not really worth that much. If he sold it all the stock would drop big time.
Of course. If I had several million I would not work and live comfortably on some tropical beach for thr rest of my life. Ok I got 10 million, I am out of here, I could give a damn about my company politices or charities. Let me relax the rest of my life drinking in some south pacific beach.
Chris Peters bought the PBA (Professional Bowlers Association), while Stephanie DeVaan founded a political action committee and Rich Tong founded Ignition Partners, a VC firm
Those were the ones that I felt spent their money foolishly. Personally, I planned to make my money really make a difference, so I invested it in RAMBUS's RDRam, SCO's OpenLinux, and those great people at Maui eXtreem that brought us CherryOS, to just name a few. I also have some money in some really rather secret business, but I can tell you this much... apparently a prince somehow somewhere is being locked captive in a sewer ditch, twelve KM outside of Falusia, Iraq, but he managed to get to a terminal somehow, find me, and ask for some assistance. I stand to make millions by helping this individual simply move his money to a safe place. Now that is smart business.
Soon I will be on TV telling Donald Trump, "YOURE FIRED..... NIGGA!"
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
There is around?
It's time for some of the "special ones" responsible for posting the material to step aside. This is getting more than silly.
It's time to clean house and boot the idiots.
It's not fair to those who submit the stories, only to have some moron with special privileges " edit " (mangle) them to make them grammatically incorrect - mostly, because they don't know what they are doing. I have an authoring background worthy of doing this and I'm certain there are others as well.
It's time to put them out to pasture, but not to stud. We don't need those genes to continue.
how nobody spends their money in ways that could help others. Microsoft alone could solve the world's hunger problems. They could cure all the curable diseases. They could save the 33,000 kids that are dying every day because they're hungry.
Okay, okay, we all know MS doesn't give a flying piece of bird crap about people, no matter who they are. But still, it's really sick to see some of the things on which they spend their money...
If I were a millionaire, I'd probably do the same thing. So call me a hyprocrite. It just makes me feel sick.
For example, former programmer Chris Peters bought the PBA (Professional Bowlers Association)... If you can't beat them... just redefine the value of "splits".
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
"It has also drawn some well-known partners, most recently John Connors, who retired as Microsoft's chief financial officer in March."
It's happening!! *hides in basement and waits for Arnie*
Now I know what I want to be when I grow up. A Microsoft Millionaire!
Thats probably better (but less fun) than my alternative career goal
Starsucks
Being a millionaire isn't that special when you're in the Seattle area and you can get a run-down shack for about $1 million. On the other hand, you can buy a crapload of lattes.
Tried shopping for a house in New York City? Being a millionaire used to mean you were rich. Now it just means you are middle class with some savings.
2. People spend money.
3. Fascination!
I thought "and Rich Tong founded Ignition Partners" said Tong founded Ignorance Partners at first, that would have been interesting news.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
...but I was too young to even know what a computer is! I guess one must find himself at the right place at the right time...and in this case..."with the right knowledge." What is the next big thing? I am sure I am of age now.
If you are the type of enterprising person who became rich after creating something, relaxing on a beach would be fun for a couple of months. After a while, you would start feeling restless and empty. I know some people in that situation. Eventually all of them went back to work because they felt the need for a psychological and emotional reward that cannot be bought with money. Sure, they don't need to work long hours, they can quit when they want and they can take long vacations. Under those conditions, work is not as bad as it is for the other 99% of the population.
Solution: Rent.
FTA:
As Mr. Sage put it, "It's like a little bit of Bill Gates came with us when we left."
*holds vomit in*
A current prices a million would buy you, well, about three lattes.
...buying themselves a new soul?
Cutler's Design Workbook for NT/OS2 made it into the Smithsonian.
When the issues are political...
For example, your not going to stop the hunger in N. Korea when Kim will explicitly reroute the imporation of the food to his army and away from the civilians. Same goes for regions of Africa as well.
Life is not for the lazy.
Those crooks should have their money taken away from them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The one's who chased crazy dreams only to be squashed by microsoft's monopoly power.
I know Peter Norton is pretty bitter, but he's still rich. Surely there must be some heart wrenching stories to fuel or hate of all things Microsoft?
NY Times Obit, A.D.P
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
The antivirus and spyware companies
Posted by Anonymous Coward on 05-29-05 05:23 PM from the that'll-never-work dept
Anonymous Coward writes "Google, everyone's favorite News, Webmail, and Portal site, is set to launch Google Search. This revolutionary service will allow users to enter "search terms" and find documents on the "World Wide Web." Will users be interested in "finding" things on the "Internet"? Time will tell...
Bill Gates has a hobby business on the side, by the way. It consists of buying up the rights to all the best pictures in the world.
MS is a very successful rent seeker. Money spent on rent is by definition, wasted.
No Google stories today.... hmmm... that's weird.
The African pipeline system. I think one of the ultimate feats of engineering and humanitarian events would be to supply fresh water to villiages in Africa. The proposed system would be simple: Create desalinzation plants on the coast and then pipe water inland. The cost of such a system would be astronomical, but when you calculate what you earned in human lives bettered and saved then you can see its one of the best buys ever.
God spoke to me.
Buying houses is overrated...
Have you watched "proper athletes" try and bowl; it's laughable. You might not like the sport, but you don't need to diss it. ESPN ran the "bowling night "tournament with such "professional athletes"
as Brandi Chastain and Terrell Owens and the scores were never higher than 180.
dont forget gabe newell, and mike harrington, who left m$ millionaires to create games. harrington later left to build his own boat and sail the world with his wife.
He gives away stock, and he can only sell a limited amount of MS stock without undermining investor confidence. Giving some away to charities doesn't have this effect.
He gets charitable tax deductions for this stock which he couldn't sell, offsetting his capital gains.
In reality, his "charity" makes him money.
And this is going to stop the centuries old conflicts between various tribal groups, genocide, and racial hatred how?
shucks one of 'em just blow it up
Read it. Its not news. It is a liberal "Ra! Ra!", lets all feel good about being liberal story...but news it is not.
Phredd - "I have found people tend to take you far less seriously once you start waving your genitals at them..."
" MS is a very successful rent seeker. Money spent on rent is by definition, wasted."
Not if you're the landlord.
---
"Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait -2 minutes between each semi-successful posting of a inflammitory comment to allow everyone a fair chance at sneering at your comment.
It's been 11 minutes since you last successfully dated Taco's sister"
I don't really like Bowling, but I don't hate it either. I'm actually pretty ambivalent on it.
But I have to ask, what exactly is your point? You know, Emeril can probably cook way better than most professional athletes. That makes him an athlete too right? I bet I can program better than professional athletes, does that make me a professional athlete? Conversely, do you suspect that bowlers can play a game of football and win against a seasoned team of footballers?
Or were you simply trying to suggest that since they can do something most other people can't do as well, it somehow innately makes them worthy of respect? In a very small, very limited way perhaps. It is not carte blanche. If they want to be egomaniacs and call themselves superheroes, then I would laugh at them regardless of whatever respect they deserve for doing what they do. The original poster apparently has a lower threshhold and laughs at them for calling themselves professional athletes. It has nothing to do with whether they're skilled or not, it's about whether they deserve to be called athletes.
Random and weird software I've written.
And how did the inhabitants of inland Africa survive for the past centuries without special pipelines for water? I am thinking that the current problem the pipe lines try to address is caused by other, root factors.
as anyone noticed the lack of spelling that trolls exhibit these days?
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The fascination comes from the fact that no company or organization of any kind, I'd guess, in the history of man, has generated this much wealth, this quickly. Arguibly, Microsoft is one of the most successful companies in history.
"Whatever Bill Gates' flaws, and he has a lot, he has been very generous with his money."
Have you ever payed the Microsoft Tax even though you didn't want to? Part of "his" money is "your" money. Thanks for your charitable donation.
"According to the story, there is somewhere around 10,000
You can't fix the subject/predicate to agree on plurality?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
You are an idiot.
A blog like any other.
The sad truth is that the billion$ earned by microserfs are ours. We're the ones who own the mutual funds that invest in Microsoft. We're the ones who buy MSFT because we believe their Xbox 360 hype. And, until recently, we haven't seen anything in return (in the form of dividends, that is). It's incredible how we buy into the stock market shell game.
But these are people with a million in liquefiable assets. If you're a property millionaire (like me) you can only realise that money by refinancing your home (bad idea, interest rates are on the up) or selling (err, where would I live, the median price here is $1.2m ?) The M'soft employees can realise a million dollars in real money, that still makes them very wealthy by most standards.
People die each year because of inadequate access to clean water. The real tragedy is that the technology to make clean drinking water is really cheap and simple. All you really need are some settling pools. It's the incompetence of these people's governments that allows so many to die unnecessarily.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Joe Richguy gave a million dollars to Anonymous Charity! He's a good guy! Nevermind he sits on a pile of a hundred million, ninety percent of which he earned by underpaying his employees, or overcharging for his products, or polluting the river and giving everyone cancer (for which he was sued for another, say, $25 million), or having competitors liquidated by hook or by crook, or by paying off senators who then slashed social spending or cut foreign aid or voted for a war to prop up Richguy's failing business model...
Geez, calm down.
There's a big difference between agressive business tactics and polluting rivers. Has Microsoft ever given anyone cancer?
Besides, the GP was not claiming that Bill Gates' donations absolve him of "ethical lapses". He was merely pointing out that he has given a vast amount of money to charity, which is always a good thing, no matter who is doing it.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Your way to angry for your own good, you act like Gates/MS has bombed 3rd world countries claiming they have WMD...all he has done that people complain about is release an imperfect OS, nobody is forcing you to buy it you know. I think the amount of money that man has given to charities absolves him from anything he has done. None of his buisness practices really hurt anyone, true some companies go out of buisness but its just that...BUISNESS. When Gates starts murdering inocent people then your little argument will have some weight, until then just shut up and go use Linux.
Seconded.
WTF? 11% invested in SCO? Is this even up to date. I had a feeling Microsoft/Bill might be behind this company to be used as a proxy against OSS
Life is not for the lazy.
n/t
Remember the old bus mouse that Microsoft sold? It was their very first mouse, and it needed a hardware interface on an ISA card. I reverse-engineered that driver, and made my own hardware interface for the S-100 bus which could talk to that mouse. Along the way, I noticed a secret string in the driver that said "Chris Peters rules OK!". That was back in 1984 or thereabouts. I'm glad to see that Chris has done well for himself.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
..of all those copies of DOS and Windows I bought and threw in the trash because I ran Linux (been a Linux user since v.99.. I came to DOS/Windows from Unix and ran screaming in horror, then discovered Linux was a passable Unix substitute).
All that PC hardware that came bundled with useless Microsoft software.
I'm glad they've found a way to put my money to good use.
How many other software companies are spending R&D on something like this ?
Thank you. Jesus..my first post and it's this? Anyway - M.
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Wow. Jealous is ugly, obvious, and really ridiculous, all at the same time.
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Uh... Bill Gates has stated repeatedly that his intent is to give away his entire fortune when he dies. He has already donated a buttload of money and your bitching appears to be nothing but sour grapes about his business ethics. Who gives a damn if he foists his shiteware onto everyone's PCs. Don't like paying the MS "tax"? This fits firmly under the category "life ain't fair" and "live with it". Sooner or later the MS ship will sink but not before Bill unloads his vast wealth on some very worthy causes. Why piss and moan about something you can't do a damn thing about?
It's all gone Rich Tong! Sorry.
$75,000 under $100,000 - 8,903,894 returns
, ,id=96981,00.html
$100,000 under $200,000 - 8,469,199
$200,000 under $500,000 - 2,018,372
$500,000 under $1,000,000 - 355,617
$1,000,000 under $1,500,000 - 85,479
$1,500,000 under $2,000,000 - 36,492
$2,000,000 under $5,000,000 - 52,157
$5,000,000 under $10,000,000 - 12,266
$10,000,000 or more - 6,836
21% of the tax returns pay roughly 55.9% of the Federal Income Tax, the 6836 at the top, pay 3% of the Federal Income Tax
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0
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I did a stint as a consultant at Microsoft for a while. I remember being in a meeting with Rich Tong. I was the second one to arrive, Rich was the first. I said hello, sat down. He was booting his laptop. We chatted for a minute. He looked so young, I literally thought he was an intern there to to take notes. The instant the meeting started, it was clear I was quite wrong. Someone later pointed out to me that he was a VP.
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Yeah, thats probably a better solution than a super expensive infrastructure. I really didn't put a lot of thought into the whole thing. As you say, I do understand the governments aren't doing all they could.
God spoke to me.
Did anyone read the piece of propaganda? Only the online NY Times site (not in my Sunday NY Times) has the following:
"Julie Bick is a former Microsoft employee and the author of "The Microsoft Edge." (Pocket Books, 1999). The people she interviewed for this article include some friends and former co-workers."
Yeesh. Talk about product placement and corporate tail wagging the dog...
A defense contractor in Antarctica is a bad idea. Get Raytheon OUT of Antarctica.
Sounds like it's just a matter of distribution to me.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
If you believe that Microsoft is a legitimate business earning a fair profit for its products, then his donations to charity are a wonderful example of philanthropy. OTOH if you believe that Microsoft gouges consumers by leveraging its monopoly OS position to stifle competition and keep software prices artificially inflated, then the $25 billion he's donated to charity probably would've done more good if left in the hands of the people who were overchargd. It'd be like a shop charging $5 per bottle of water for firefighters after 9/11, then donating the excess proceeds to charity. Yeah they donated a ton of money, but the firefighters were robbed of money that could've been put to other (better from a market standpoint) uses. A more accurate assessment would be that the firefighters were coerced into unwillingly making a donation to charity. Course we can argue forever about which view is correct; and in truth both views may be partially correct.
If it makes you feel any better..
http://www.geocities.com/angiemtg/
*holds vomit in*
Hey, the good news is that if you've got enough money to do the pipeline, you could probably just buy those African governments instead and have enough left over to build local infrastructures :)
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I don't understand why this is a problem. A "company" has goals. They figured out, as a company, how to achieve those goals. The people rewarded are the owners, and sometimes the employees. If the employees didn't get the cash, it'd have just gone to the owners. This should be perceived as a great thing!
The wealth of the company, and their employees is a testiment to the fine job they did, as measured by the votes of their customers, in the form of money spent.
Any comments that this is obscene is pure jealousy.
FTA:
As Mr. Sage put it, "It's like a little bit of Bill Gates came with us when we left."
So that's how they climbed up the corporate ladder. Good advice I suppose, if your boss is into that kind of thing.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
wow, great priorities
Sorry, all my money is tied up in real estate, I can't afford the fee for the Economist's premium content to read the entire article.
Microsoft Computer Expert quoted: "Yes, we have platinum year-round passes to all matches by the WWF until 2025, a life-time subscription to Weekly World News, and I send money to a guy in Vegas who's guaranteeing he can net me a 90% return on investment with his Martingale betting method."
When asked what, at a company like Microsoft, qualified him to be a "computer expert", he responded: "I'm the one who doesn't yell into the mouse."
I wonder where Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman will put their millions of dollars?
Oh wait!
Rather than Linus and Richard taking money out of your and my pockets to become millionaires, they instead worked hard, earned true respect, and gave back to the common community. And they did it all without forming a monopoly, engaging in illegal practices, and lobbying governments to enact repressive laws to bolster their ability to take money out of our pockets.
Who are the real people that are helping both themselves and humanity: the "Microsoft millionaires" or people like RMS and Linus?
But by 2002, she was itching to do more, so she put her wealth to work in support of abortion rights and helped to found a political action committee called Washington Women for Choice.
Although Republicans are usually pro-business, if it becomes common knowledge that Microsoft employees are dumping money into "abortion rights" groups, that could make the current administration's position on antitrust a lot less friendly towards Microsoft.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I hate to break it to you, but "real people" need "real money" to live "real lives." I'm sure the millions of dollars given to charity on behalf of the Microsoft Millionaires has improved the living conditions of many more than the useful, yet not so helpful or significant, contributions of the Open Source community.
Sure, you will counter that their innovations promote a knowledge-based culture. Yes, knowledge is beneficial to humanity. But money is more helpful to humans.
The problem is that all these millionaires made the vast majority of their money, not from free market forces, but from a government imposed monopoly on the distribution of infromation called copyrights.
This is not a natural form of profit, and when it comes to free markets, I suspect that many of them probably have no clue as how to make money any more than Miscosoft has a clue of how to make money outside of it's core office/os monopoly.
MS is literally burning most of their resources on trying to become an entertainment/media company right at a time in history when that part of the industry is predestined to become worthless as society enteres the information age. (Think of the people that were in the plantation business as the industrial revolution started to explode, yeah at first they became extremely rich as the cotton gin made their slaves 1000 times more productive, then they went to satanic hell)
The worst part is, very little of this money will likely go into successfull ventures, but when it hits the fan with the free software movement, a lot will likely go into dirty hardball. (Think SCO, MPAA BSA, RIAA rolled into one magnified by over 10000.)
I don't know what the dynamics are for accepting submissions. I've had many, many submissions rejected only to have someone else submit the exact same thing the next day and get it posted. I once even had an editor (Hemos) take one of my submissions, rewrite it, and post it as his own without crediting me at all.
I stupidly posted to the story a note saying what had happened and posted a copy of my orginal submission that was almost identical to what was posted by the editor.
And then I was blacklisted... I went from the occasional story submission being accepted to all of them being rejected. And I strarted to get a lot of Troll mods to my comments... and other tricks too... like when I had a comment modded up... a day or two after the sotyr was on the main page all of the comments would suddenly be modded as overrated.
That and other forms of retribution led me to stop posting to slashdot for months until it all blew over.
Many editors are good, but a couple have let the power go to their heads and the lose sight of the fact that story submissions generate this site's traffic and ad revenues... and for the most part those of us who would scour the web for stories to submit just did it for fun and for free. The editors need to be more respectful of the volunteer work they get from submitters.
You need to find something more worthy of your anger, like a social concern or something like that. Expending energy in hating corporations never got anyone anything.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Time will forget the rich far quicker then those who helped and nurture others.
Or we could educate people on why living in a desert is really not good.
look up "asburd" in the dictionary when you have a free minute.
yep seems like flamebait to me, people take MS success far to seriously, They are a bloody aggressive company that succeeded, no worse and no better than most others. There tactics are still common practise in most companies, only difference is MS were declared a monopoly otherwise what they were doing would still be legal for them.
Get over the evil bullshit, They are there to make money like any other company and it is far better that Bill gets it as at least he shares his wealth unlike many other CEO's.
a million bucks is not a lot of money anymore.
you hippies are so cute.
Couldn't help but notice the Google Ad infection.
So can't be too much different.
sure. keyhole.com kicks ass.
had i known that saddam was hiding $700 million in a zoo AND knew about keyhole, I would probably be either dead or $700 million richer.
Then I could build a town in SimCity and actually have it built if I liked it enough.
How in the hell is the stinking hippie RMS helping humanity? Envisioning an operating system he couldn't get off the ground and writing an overcomplicated text editor, then living off award money and telling other people that they don't deserve to earn in the software industry? And your definition of not helping is a guy that, in all likelihood, doubled the American economy? Interesting thinking.
I used to work at Microsoft, and I can't believe the press are running stories about this tired crap now. Everyone who joined MS since about mid 98 has seen just about nothing from the options. My buddies and I used to joke about being Microsoft Hundredaires. The stock price is so habitually flat now that the company even stopped bothering to give out options some years ago.
Leaving aside the question of stock, it's a crappy place to work. The management is clueless, the bonuses small, the review system unbeliveably stupid and annoying. I am so glad I quit a couple of years ago and got a better job at a non-evil company.
Unfortunately, the original article has disappeared into the aether, but there's an archive.org copy of what happened to the Original Microsoft 11 here:w ww.abqtrib.com/archives/business00/041200_microsof t.shtml
http://web.archive.org/web/20040202201554/http://
Your way to angry
"You're", "too".
your own good, you act
"good; you" or "good. You".
release an imperfect OS, nobody is forcing
"OS; nobody" or "OS. Nobody"
etc.
but its just that
"it's".
I think the amount of money that man has given to charities absolves him from anything he has done. [...] When Gates starts murdering inocent people
Overlooking for a moment the fact that you can't prove that he hasn't murdered anyone, innocent or otherwise (and your misspelled adjective "innocent" seems to imply that his absolution covers the murder of not-so-innocent people), are you suggesting that anything else that he may have done should be forgiven simply because he gave away some of his money? That sounds like bribing the public to me. Let me remind you of some of the things that Bill Gates has done:
1. He has named the largest software company in the world based on a description of his penis.
2. He has contributed to the destruction of innocent pies thrown by his detractors by imposing himself directly in the path of their trajectories (the pies' trajectories, not the detractors' trajectories).
Oh, yeah, and then there's that whole DOJ fiasco, and backing SCO, and the Halloween documents, and the "Just the Facts" deceptions, and his supplying the Nazis with tabulating machines that they used to help with their attempts to exterminate the Jews and others, and his assassination of Abraham Lincoln shortly after World War I, and his patent infringement suit against Harry Gutenburg (which delayed the introduction of the printing press by over 10 years, which in turn was a direct cause of the Dark Ages), and his betrayal of Jesus to the Romans, and his battle with God at the beginning of time that caused his banishment to Hell, from whence he plagues humanity to this day...
Wait, sorry, I seem to have strayed from the topic somewhat. Anyway, Bill Gates can't buy his way to heaven the way Donald Trump did.
Wait. Sorry, sorry. I'll shut up now and go use Linux.
That's not their money, it's ours, jerks!
Just say no to license servers!!
Shit, there's an obvious solution to that: Don't live in New York City.
your example above is unfair, but guess what that wasn't Microsoft enforced. They didn't actually say to those large vendors you have to use our stuff or we punish you. They said if you use only our stuff we give you a large discount. You chose to deal with a MS exclusive vendor, Guess what every industry has exclusive vendors and they all work the same way. Don't blame MS for your poor choice of supplier.
I hope their tax returns reflect it.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of us have somehow gotten so wrapped up in our silly little arguments about which browser is better to be able to care.
I care a lot, as do lots of other people. That is why I object to Gates-style philanthropy in principle. Monopolizing a market, siphoning hundreds of billions out of the economy, and then aggrandizing oneself by giving back a small fraction of that is not an efficient way so help third world nations.
If Microsoft had not killed dozens of innovative companies and imposed enormous unnecessary costs on businesses, Zimbabwe might well be getting a lot more money than it is now, both from private donations as well as from tax revenues.
Of course, given that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and doing what it is doing, I prefer them to donate money to worthy causes. But that doesn't excuse or justify Microsoft's past or current behavior. Gates is behaving just like the so-called "robber barons" a century earlier.
you're just glad that somebody's doing something.
There are thousands of dedicated volunteers, and billions of dollars of donations and government funds flowing into HIV prevention and care. But the only thing that you recognize is when Gates writes a big check in his comfy mansion. Your arrogance and thoughtlessness is disgusting.
Any comments that this is obscene is pure jealousy.
I am jealous of the money they have. I do not make a lot of money, like a lot of people, and would really love to be at least a little better off. It is not the money itself that is obscene, but the way in which it was made. You state that their richness is a sign of the 'fine job they did'...
I disagree. It may be like that with some consumers, but they have systematically rigged it so they cannot be toppled and you are required to purchase their products with every computer you buy. In a business sense, that is a 'job well done', but if thats what it takes to be rich, I'll pass.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Gates gives $100 to fight HIV and $421m to fight Linux
Stick Men
Don't forget that money came from charging 4 to 5 times the market value of the products (most vouchers were never cashed so there was in practice no punishment) and from scams like Microsoft Software Assurance.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Both the EU and US still have large trade barriers and ridiculous subsidies in place.
Until these are removed, giving poor countries equal access to the world markets that EU member states and NAFTA states enjoy, any aid given is little more than propaganda.
Deleted
You do know linus is a millionaire as well right? I mean, obv not on the scale as BG and as you point out, in a far better manner. AFAIK he lives in a nice house, drives a decent open top car and looks after his kids.. Seems pretty straightforward use of money... no famous charitable stuff, but no investing in giant feet sculptures or whatever it is the MS guys are doing.
Brain(s): 0.0% user, 1.3% system, 0.1% nice, 98.6% idle
Always reminds me of:
Three women die and go to heaven. They get to the pearly gates and St. Peter says, "sorry ladies but we are expierincing technical difficuties so until they are fixed I am authorized to return you to earth as anyone you want to be." The first lady says I want to go help with civil rights I want to be Rosa Parks. St Peter claps his hands twice and she disappears and is rosa parks. The second lady says I want to be an actress I want to return as Audry Hepburn. St Peter claps his hands twice and she returns as Audry Hepburn. The Third lady approaches St Peter and Says I want to return as Sarah Pipeline. St Peter says Who?? She repeats Sarah Pipeline. St Peter says there is no one by that name. the lady says here and hands St Peter a newspaper clipping. He reads it looks at the lady and ma'am you have read it wrong it is the Saharah Pipeline that was laid by 100,000 men in a month
So what are you saying? That we should fund charities by the generosity of the rich?
Didn't that used to be the US policy -- let the Red Cross and other charities handle all welfare for the poor? The system was so ineffective (be it for bureaucracy, not enough donations, or whatever) that the people demanded the gov't step in and develop what we now know as our welfare system.
Addressing the needs of the poor via various gov't-mandated welfare systems is a standard worldwide tactic (no matter how much the ruling elites of the US want to dismantle such systems).
But advocating, as you seem to be doing, that we instead address charities by allowing huge corporations to reapeatedly break the law (as Microsoft has done and which has helped make these new millionaires to be millionaires), establish monopolies, and then admire and rely on the generosity of their new millionaire stockholders is an appalling idea.
My point was to contrast the above idea to what free software authors are doing: they are breaking no laws; they are not extracting money from any person; they are contributing to the good of society with software which is worth millions -- they are giving back to the common community simply by their own labor and highly specialized skills (in addition to whatever charitable contributions they might make).
Which is to be desired more?
* A corporate lawbreaker and the people who benefitted by breaking those laws, who then publicly spend some their cash and throwing some money to charity
Or
* Someone who breaks no laws, exploits no people, and who seeks enjoyment by working for the public good by quietly giving the public millions of dollars of a product from their highly specialized labor?
In that case your ignorance is exceeded only by your stupidity.
I'm fed up hearing people diss bowling without thinking about the amount of time, effort and money required to be (and STAY) good at it. The term 'professional athlete' isn't restricted to physical fitness, but as someone who sits in front of a TV/computer every day I wouldn't expect your superior being to understand that.
It's grossly unfair for the top n% of taxpayers to pay >n% of total taxes, and even these flat tax proposals going around don't adequately address this grotesque injustice. I suggest that instead of our current "progressive" system or any of these half-assed flat tax rate schemes, we just charge everyone a flat amount.
The ideal solution would be to completely abolish all income/inheritance/capital gains taxes completely, and move to an entirely consumption-based tax model. It shouldn't matter how much you earned or won or inherited, if you don't spend the money. Why not just have a 15% sales tax on everything? Houses, cars, clothing, everything. 15%. Then the super-rich, when they buy their $150,000 Ferraris, will pay 15%, which is a huge pile of tax money, while the low income family buying a used beater car for $2000 will pay practically nothing in tax.
It's a radical shift in mindsets, but the more you think about it, the more sense it makes.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Who is responsible for creating those children?
Who is responsible for having unprotected sex while knowing that if they produced any children, those children would be starving, either because those having sex have an insufficient economic status (unsustainable for rasing children) or because they are just irresponsible? I'm not talking about disaster stricken areas, which happen every once in a blue moon, I'm talking about the consistently poor nations.
Why do we see perenially pictures of starving children living in squattersville? Is it Microsoft's fault that people who can't afford to are having sex and producing children?
If you want to solve the problems of poverty and starving children, you need to take a serious look at the irresponsible behavior of adults, who refuse to abstain from sex or refuse contraceptives.
Put a sock on it. Literally.
And stop blaming other people for their problems.
By the way, I heard on the BBC about people in the tsunami stricken area complaining that not much development work is going on in the area, and thus the inhabitants of the region are unable to return to fishing. Complain, complain, complain. Here's a suggestion, folks: Move the f--- out of that area and get a new job! It's not the d--- responsbility of the world to cater to your personal preferences of vocation! Besides, if a tsunami hit that area before, it's going to hit again.
Sheesh.
So let me get this straight:
I should be envious of people that have lied cheated and stolen their way to the top? And if I'm not, then I'm considered jealous of them?
You are as disturbed as they are.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, giving money to charity isn't _always_ a good thing. traditionally, it's just a defense mechanism that the rich use to keep the poor, poor and slightly happy, intear of poor-er, and angry, or trying to become less poor.
That said, BG's charity is one of the best ways of charity, he invests in social development.
About bussiness tactics, well, MS bussiness tactics take money away from poor countries that don't need to buy their products, and do need to invest that money on social stuff, and that does translate in dead people, much more than with polluted rivers.
Of course MS doesn't have as much of the fault as dumb governments that keep funneling money to them, for software without added value over free alternatives.
So you're happy to take over cleaning my families computers of spyware, then?
Fine job, my ass. They got where they were through corruption and criminal activity. It is obscene.
Ironic, isn't it, that the researcher at UW they are collaborating with (Mullins) is Apple's poster child for OSX and XServe.
Somebody needs to rent and/or read "The Corporation"...
And while they're moving, we could teach them about standard agricultural techniques so they don't turn their new habitat into a desert like their old habitat...
Seriously - check out why Africa is so dead. A lot of it had to do with poor farming practices and overpopulation. They killed their own land.
Even when much of the money was made illegally?