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Is Google Too Smart For Its Own Good?
An anonymous reader writes in with a piece in Fortune speculating on what's next for Google. The writer believes that a supersaturated solution of very smart people, plus stock that may have run out of upside, will yield what he calls Son of Google — a large wave of innovative companies created by Google graduates. And a Google less intent on hiring, and less able to hire, the very smartest people around. Could happen.
Kind of how Failchild Semiconductor was the wellspring for many of todays semiconductor companies? This graphic (PDF warning) was the best thing I could find.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
They didn't just "happen to be at home". Bill Gates' mum (!) set up a meeting for little Billy boy.
It kind of pisses me off when Bill Gates is presented as some sort of rags-to-riches success story. He had some starting-post advantages, folks.
That said, I don't really begrudge him his wealth - society was stupid enough to allow copyright and patent monopoly law (note that Bill Gates was hanging around washington when that was being decided - believe it or not, it wasn't until 1983 that binding U.S. precedent for software being copyrightABLE was actually set), he just acted 100% rationally to maximise his personal gain using the law as a tool.
But damnit, if you convict an entity of being an abusive monopoly, for god's sake stop handing them monopolies on a plate! The only punishment microsoft should have had for its offences was for its copyrights and patents to be placed in the public domain. The fines and such are meaningless - look at the EU - Microsoft basically paying "fines" (bribes) to the EU Commission while the EU Commission works on introducing software patents for microsoft's benefit.