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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."
And bill bought all these
fuvoo: watch something
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
Not too shabby. But Mikey Dell's little ranch cost more.
Odd part is, he pay less in property taxes than me.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory(Average tech worker with average house in same area)
Microsoft gives a crapload of money to different causes though. In fact I think they're number one when it comes to philanthropy. For example, if an employee donates to a charity the company will give twice that.
Especially with the liberal area the Microsoft headquarters is in, it's almost a given that they give tons of money to "disadvantaged" groups.
Right you are. That is one of the biggest problems facing open source right now.
You get a handful of well-educated people arguing for an idea. Then you get a mob of people who just want to bitch at something... Bill Gates is just their target.
If you want to bitch about something, target on it, make sure it's the truth, and then try to correct it (instead of mindlessly bitching).
Honestly, do you think that MS was able to rise to such a strong position without a lot of help from a lot of entities? You know that IBM did a lot of soul searching about the time that Windows 95 and OS2 were floating around. The American public has to be swayed. Offer a cheaper computer, with Linux, OpenOffice, and so forth... do you really think that the question "is it compatible?" is coming out of the mouth of a person who really fully grasps the ramifications of that statement?
Wake up, the people who want to drive us into a police state certainly aren't smart enough to keep capitalism alive. You're going to need another approach, and spreading lies on a message board won't help.
Mod the parent way the hell up.
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
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.
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.
wow, great priorities
There's a big difference between donating out of the kindness of your own heart, and donating to glean massive tax write offs.
Remember, Microsoft is a company in this order.
1. Marketing/PR firm
2. Law firm
3. Software company
4. Hardware company
he might be a great guy and all ...
but the same year he started providing grant money for research at my university, they signed an exclusivity agreement with microsoft... that means that they started dismantling the mac equiped labs (we would have no more if some faculty members had not fought against it!), and that it is now a hassle for researchers to buy macs with their own research grants! Giving away a few hundred thousand dollars here and there in exchange for valuble contracts does not seem so charitable to me!
WOW, they sure are getting a fantastic deal from the US govt. the top 21% of the earners in this country control over 90% of the wealth and yet only pay 55.9% of the taxes.
evil is as evil does
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://
Right, Microsoft "gifts" often come with ugly strings attached.
Case in point: in exchange for a grant of merely $2.3 million, U. Waterloo agreed to no longer teach C++ and to teach Microsoft's C# instead. Details from CNet: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-949945.html
I pray such "gifts" aren't coming to Berkeley: http://www.cheesebikini.com/archives/001061.html
No, actually it makes less sense the more you think about it. Sales tax
...Doesn't account for the difference in impact money has depending on how wealthy you are. A low-income family that has to buy a beater car for $2,000 is probably already fucked because of the money they'll spend fixing it, and you say $300 is "practically nothing"? Where I grew up, $300 was *a lot of money*. I would say $22,500 is a lot closer to "practically nothing" for someone who has the kind of money that they can throw it away buying a cock on wheels.
...Makes no economic sense whatsoever. Sales tax hurts consumption. Basic economic theory... price goes up, consumption goes down. Progressive income tax, on the other hand (continuously progressive, none of this bracket shit) doesn't really nerf incentive to do anything. No one says, "oh fuck it, this job only pays $3,000 more than the alternative instead of $5,000 more, I don't want to make more money unless I keep all of it." As long as making more money never costs you as much as the gain, there's incentive to do it, and someone will.
Now please give me a good rationale for abolishing inheritance tax. It seems pretty goddamned obvious that in a system where it "takes money to make money", it's a slippery slope into very centralized control of the vast majority of wealth (can you see any parallels in America today?). Why should rich kids get a free ride just because they were born to rich parents? They're already going to have all the advantages associated with growing up wealthy (better nutrition, better schools... Kurt Vonnegut would describe it as them being taught at an early age to sip from the money river). Honestly, I wouldn't lose much sleep if Joe Billionaire could only make his son into Joey Millionaire. Boo hoo, he can't buy two beach houses and fifty cars.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack