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Bill Gates Drops To Number 2
A number of readers made sure we know that Bill Gates is apparently no longer the world's richest person. His wealth, estimated currently at $59.2 billion, has been surpassed by that of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, runs businesses in a number of industries from Mexico City. Stock in his wireless company, American Movil, recently surged in price by 27%, boosting his net worth to $67.8 billion. Last April Slim passed Warren Buffet, who had long held down the number 2 spot. In this audio Bill Gates says he won't care when he is no longer number 1.
There seems to be a misunderstanding by some people - including Gates himself - that Bill Gates is hated because he is rich. This is not true. We envy him because he is rich.
We hate him because he produces crappy software and uses unethical techniques to promote it. Being surpassed in the richest person list does not change this.
I thought I had heard that Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish owner of Ikea, had surpassed Gates due to the slide in world markets of the American dollar versus the Swedish crown.
... but I'm too tired and it's obvious by now that some people agree. Though I'm sure there won't be a lack of posts on that topic for this particular news story.
... will we remember Kamprad or Slim? Highly unlikely. But Gates has touched entire generations with software we been forced to and have chosen to use for better or for worse.
Of course, Forbes never registered that because, I believe, the slide was temporary and the dollar rebounded somewhat and some reports put Kamprad in front of Gates and some didn't.
It's kind of funny when your ranking in the world's richest raises and falls with small market fluctuations. Regardless, I'll throw out the idea that it is extremely likely that Slim's net worth will be 'adjusted' by the stock market in the coming days when his stock is re-evaluated. I could be wrong but Kamprad saw his worth rise on something that is (usually) much more stable than the stock market--his country's currency.
Placing an unprecedented 27% increase in his stocks makes his position as the world's richest man all that much more volatile to me. Then again, I'm not an economist or finance specialist so I could be wrong. How the stock market index seems to consistently return 11% on investments baffles my simple computer scientist mind.
I would also like to point out a few things relating to this #1 position of world's richest man. It's obvious in (at least America) you often need money to make money. More money you have, the easier it seems to be to make money.
I've half a mind to go on a rant about the questionable business model that Gates employed to gain his position as world's richest and keep it
Reason Gates won't care that he's not #1 is probably because he's giving a lot of it away anyway in the end. That and he's made his mark on history
My work here is dung.
Telmex and Microsoft use the same monopolistic practices, Gates and Slim are not very different. They both apply the same practices in different markets. The interesting part is that we will get to see both of them competing in a few years, since POTS is disappearing and the fight will be on VoIP, that's a market both of them will be into.
I Hope we see them fighting each other for control, because if they reach an agreement, for example, m$ makes voip software, and Telmex provides the service, we are really screwed up.
Telmex got here [Argentina] only a few years ago, they acquired CTI (Biggest mobile telco), Techtel (at the time one of the 5 top players in the carrier and corporate market), Ertach (Biggest Wifi ISP), and lots of kilometers of fiber that interconnects the main cities in Argentina from other companies (metrored, etc.). They also are betting money into Telecom. So, in just a few years they become the third biggest player in Argentina (In this order: 1 - Telefonica, 2 - Telecom, 3 - Telmex), But they have a pretty tight relationship with Telecom Argentina (Read: They are buying stock, big time), And Telefonica has a policy of being friendly with the 5 biggest players, and screwing the rest, So they are now the second bigger in Argentina, and the first one keeps them safe.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
"Well, well. If it isn't number 2..."
Telmex and Microsoft use the same monopolistic practices, Gates and Slim are not very different.
They both may be monopolies, but there IS quite a difference. The difference is that Telmex *IS* a competitive and efficient company. If it wasn't for Slim's investment in telecom infrastructure, we mexicans would still be calling the state-driven phone company to complain that our 24K modems disconnect too often. I do remember those times... Slim practically saved the country from stagnating in the information era.
Microsoft is an artificial monopoly, reeking with planned obsolescence and lack of innovation. In contrast, Telmex already gives us the videophone service.
:D Feels glad to be mexican.... *sigh* :)
Why? Are you sharing in his success?
Slim was one of the first traders in mexican stock market (before he was stock operator in usa) but really become mega-rich after getting TelMex from the goverment (at that time the monopolic, state owned telephony company) from former mexican presindent Carlos Salinas (due to corruption)
Talk about, how not to sell a state monopoly: just making it private, instead of dividing it to form a competitive market. To this day méxico suffers from that.
America-Movil its the celular telephony company from Grupo CarSO (Carlos Slim keiretsu that started with TelMex)
Today CarSO participates in the telephony of most countries in latinamerica, and soon also in spain
Both Gates and Slim are unfair market monopolist... because the ones in power dont care
At first I thought it read "Bill Gates drops A number two".
I though "man, is this a slow news day or what?!" and "Did he flush?"
I guess it's time to get some sleep. Or stop smoking crack. Either way.
blah blah blah
"We hate him because he produces crappy software and uses unethical techniques to promote it."
There are lots of guys out there running software companies that produce crappier software than MS and are less ethical. Since they aren't rich, however, nobody gives a shit.
This is a race where coming second or third (or even a hundred and third) is still winning.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
But isn't part of the reason why Bill Gates isn't so rich anymore because he's giving his money away? He's given away more money than anyone I can think of.
How much has Carlos Slim given away to help fight AIDS? How much has he given away for education?
It's not how much money you have that's important, but what you do with it and the impact it has on others.
Quick, let's all buy an overpriced vista ... we can still push him to #1
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Carlos Slim should use his money to build schools in Mexico and pay adults as well as children to attend.
I'll forgive you. You must not read Slashdot, or you would have seen this article.
And in the Linux world, you're seeing all kinds of nifty new virtualization technologies as well. Don't count out Xen.
And some of us prefer IE to other browsers.
You are entitled to your opinion sir, but I'm guessing the vast majority of the Slashdot crowd will disagree with you. In fact, I think most web designers will disagree with you. You don't see tons of websites dedicated to saying exactly how much Firefox is the worst piece of software ever created, but there and tons, and tons of such sites dedicated to explaining exactly how horrible IE is. The moment you attempt to tell me that IE is a good piece of software, you lose all credibility with me and come across as a troll. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and we'll continue.
Lastly if XP and 2000 sucked at one point, but they were fixed, for free, then they shouldn't be included. OS X sucked and then you got charged for 10.1, bitch about that.
Well, the parent asked for a list of Microsoft products, so mentioning OS X really has no place in the discussion. I specified 2000 pre-SP2 and XP pre-SP1 because I am not this huge hater. I dislike Microsoft as a company, and most of their products. But often I defend XP as being a pretty good OS in the end. I prefer XP with SP1, and not SP2 personally. SP2 added nag screens and bloat without really fixing security problems so much. However, when XP first launched, it broke apps, broke drivers, ran slow, and was extremely buggy. SP1 improved the OS in all those areas.
Also how do you knock a free email service? What did any other free service do that was so much better.
Because Hotmail is absolutely horrid. Slow, insecure, and they sell your email address out so you get spam. They try to sign you up for various newsletters, tons of people have complained about entire accounts and all their email magically vanishing, slow service, and not very feature rich. GMail destroys Hotmail. The new Yahoo-beta destroys Hotmail. Hell, SquirrelMail destroys Hotmail. Note, defending IE and now Hotmail? You have to be kidding me, right?
Same with Messenger, what does anyone else do that takes it out back behind the shed and beats it with a stick?
I would urge you to look at Gaim/Pidgin, Kopete, Trillian, etc. How about the fact that Messenger would put itself back in the startup group repeatedly when it was removed? That alone makes it crappy and annoying software. What about the fact that you could be blasted with unsolicited spam via Messenger, and many people had no way or clue to get rid of it? So you're defending IE, Hotmail, and Messenger, three of the most hated things on the planet. Are you sure you're not trolling.
Works may suck but how many options were there for you if you didn't want to spend a ton of money on an office suite 10 years ago? Or even 5? Works and...? And oo.o wasn't really an option unless you had high speed, or wanted to spend $40 on a cd version of free software. Plus you had to go to compusa or some other store full of untrained morons who either don't know what you're looking for or spend the whole time trying to talk you into ms office (quick rant, I went into a compusa to buy a tv, pre massive shutdown, and I had to tell the guy 5 times I didn't want the extended warranty, I finally had to tell him that if he didn't shut the fuck up I was going
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
led here I did think,
believing a haiku here,
i was badly wrong
Basically, why bother trying? Imagine you're rich. Not just rich, but super-duper rich. More money than you can sensibly spend in a lifetime. Would you care if there was someone richer by a few billion bucks? I wouldn't.
At some point, money ceases to matter. When you have more than you can spend, there's a dividing point for people. Either they stop caring, and I think Bill did. Why else would he start a charity fund? Or they get even greedier and want MOAAAAAAR, with "getting money" becoming a reason to exist all by itself. Which is kinda sad (I've seen it in a few friends in the dot.com time).
I doubt Bill falls in the latter category. I'm fairly sure he read it, shrugged and went on with his life. Being rich is not a matter of having more than the other rich guy. Just more than most others, so your money actually has some value. If everyone was rich, money would be useless.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bill Gates is one entrepreneur among many. His products came to a position of prominence in many markets, competing against the likes of NeXT, Apple and Sun whose offerings had weaknesses obvious to anyone who was trying to actually build a company using them. His company, Microsoft, isn't as nice as Ben & Jerry's but then it's a lot nicer than Sun and IBM. Although by offering commoditized, loosely-controlled solutions in an industry previously dominated by massive hardware/software lock-in, he is still small fry compared to the great 19th century monopolists like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, or even the great 18th century players (Clive of India, anyone?)
He's a guy, with a company, that makes products, that people either buy or don't. He has major market share in a niche which, to be honest, was not very strongly contested, and he has a few OK products in other niches. Microsoft's smaller than Exxon, way smaller than GE, FAR smaller than Standard Oil, and VASTLY less controlling and anti-innovation than old-school IBM. On the other hand, it's not a particularly nice and fluffy company either. None of them are. Get over it. Now, quietly listen to yourself:
For 25 years the world has concerned itself with pittiances like who's president and which country has a despot in charge, while right under our noses the biggest monopoly in human history has effectively brought the globe under the dictatorship of Bill Gates - through the computers.
First, it's 'pittance' and it doesn't mean what you think it means.
Second, the above is exactly why basement-dwellers whose whole world is home computers do not wind up in important decision-making roles. And I think we should all be very grateful.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
and you had better press "allow" really quick...
I think you're resorting to some inverse megalomania.
Bill Gates has never shown any inclination to reach beyond the electronic realm with evil inclinations.
Quite to the contrary, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given so much money away that I'm willing to bet that if they hadn't, Bill would still be on the top of the list.
You can pooh-pooh Microsoft for giving away computers loaded with Microsoft software to indoctrinate the next generation into their cult, but you can not fault Bill Gates for his charitable donations, because he gives large cash donations and other useful things as well.
I really don't think Bill is evil. Ruthless with his business yea, but not evil. And yea, I envy the money the guy has, but in the same situation, I'm not sure i could have accumulated it the same way, but since he did, I'm glad he's giving it away.
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