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History Will Revere Bill Gates and Forget Steve Jobs, Says Author
Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that journalist Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers, has stirred up quite a controversy in tech circles with his off-the-cuff remarks that history will remember Bill Gates fondly while Steve Jobs slips into obscurity. Gladwell likened Gates' charitable work to the German armaments maker Oskar Schindler's famous efforts to save his Jewish workers from the gas chambers during World War II, and added that because of Gates there's a reasonable shot we will cure malaria. 'Gates, sure, is the most ruthless capitalist. And then he decides, he wakes up one morning and he says, "Enough." And he steps down, he takes his money, takes it off the table ... and I think, I firmly believe that 50 years from now, he will be remembered for his charitable work,' said Gladwell. 'And of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. Who's Steve Jobs again?' For all his dismissal of Jobs' legacy, however, Gladwell remains utterly fascinated with him. 'He was an extraordinarily brilliant businessman and entrepreneur. He was also a self-promoter on a level that we have rarely seen,' said Gladwell. 'What was brilliant about Apple, he understood from the get-go that the key to success in that marketplace was creating a distinctive and powerful and seductive brand.' Gladwell concludes that the most extraordinary moment in the biography of Jobs is when Jobs is on his deathbed and it's over and he knows it. 'And on, I forget, three, four occasions, he refuses the mask because he is unhappy with its design. That's who he was. Right to the very end, he had a set of standards. If he was going to die, dammit, he's going to die with the right kind of oxygen mask. To him it was like making him send his final emails using Windows.'"
But say what you want about Microsoft or Bill Gates, but he sure has helped the world with the fortune he created during his lifetime. He sure is a great person for that reason, and kudos to Bill for that.
The article is right, though... 50 years from now, Steve Jobs' chief contribution will have been the creation of a design company that hasn't actually come up with a new idea since a couple of years before Jobs' death. I would be surprised if Apple is still in existence in 50 years. Jobs will end up as a footnote in history. I would be equally surprised if Microsoft is still in existence in 50 years, but they do have a better chance because they're ruled by committee. How many people remember what Douglas Engelbart did for computing? This place is populated by geeks, and I'd lay odds that several people reading this don't know what he did, even though modern computers couldn't work the way they do without his contributions. 50 years from now, Jobs will be in the same category.
Here's the thing... the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is set up as a self-perpetuating trust. They are spending gobs of cash, but they're only spending the interest and are actually profitable despite the amount of money they're spending on charity work. Barring some kind of global economic meltdown orders of magnitude worse than the one in 2008, 50 years from now the Gates Foundation will still be around, and will still be doing charitable work. For that reason alone, Bill Gates will be better remembered by history.
"They abused their position as an OS vendor by tweaking products to be less interoperable with their competitors' software. They abused their thus-gained monopoly position through all manner of anticompetitive practice. This resulted not only in a dearth of customer choice (necessary for a healthy marketplace) but also in actual negative financial impact to human beings."
Wait, are you talking about Microsoft or Apple here?
Add to that, that Jobs did give money to charity, except Jobs didn't advertise it, while gates apparently did it because it was 'expected' for the billionaires club. Bono said he has given tens of millions to charities under the table but refused to have his name attributed to it.
Which is more charitable in such cases?
More and more I'm seeing users here toss around allegations of "astroturfing" or "shilling" any time anybody says something that isn't completely negative about Microsoft, or Apple, or Google, or Oracle, or Facebook, or Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or basically any other prominent company or individual.
Worst of all, this is done without providing any sort of evidence that astroturfing actually is taking place. The age of an account and the number of comments posted using it in the past are not evidence, by the way.
Martin Espinoza, please present some real evidence to show that this is indeed a case of astroturfing. At the very least, you'll need to prove that the "DemomanDeveloper" was in contact with a representative or representatives of Microsoft and/or Bill Gates, that an agreement was put in place for "DemomanDeveloper" to fake support for Gates, that consideration (financial or otherwise) was involved, and that Slashdot comment 40273599 was intentionally posted to fulfill the obligations of this agreement. I await your evidence.
Save the accusations of "astroturfing" and "shilling" for when such incidents can provably be shown to have happened. Otherwise, learn to accept that some people may have opinions that differ from yours, and that just because they support Microsoft, or Google, or Facebook, or Apple, or whoever, it does not mean that they are "astroturfing".
It really degrades the conversation here, Martin Espinoza, when people like you are tossing around "astroturfing" accusations and allegations day-in and day-out, with no evidence or proof of any kind. I'd expect that over at Digg or reddit, but not here.
How sad and cynical do you have to be to seriously believe that all the time and money Gates has spent, especially post-Microsoft, is some sort of elaborate ploy to make people think better of him? I'm sure he's under no illusion that he can convince certain elements of the Slashdot community, but really, that's far more a reflection on those people than it is him.
Your comment has truly depressed me. Doubly so that it got modded anything other than flamebait.
I suspect Gates does do what he does in part because he wants to be liked. Humans have a lot of trouble not having that as a motivation. However, I agree strongly with your analysis. The real evidence that Gates is trying to really be helpful and that's his primary goal is what he has targeted. He isn't doing flashy stuff in the developed world, but rather looked and said "how can I save the most lives the most efficiently?" and then went and did this. This is what charity should be, not feel good measures but giving money where it is really needed.
The guy (Steve Jobs) parked in handicapped spots, and even went so far as to only keep his cars long enough to skirt under the registration requirement so he couldn't be ticketed for it.
I know there are a lot of Apple haters out there, but everything I've ever read about Steve Jobs as a person is totally negative and points to him being an asshole of epic proportions. This makes it hard for me to believe he was a philanthropist in secret.
This quote in particular cracks me up:
“He’s gotten a lot of criticism for not giving away tons of money, but I think it’s a bum rap. There’s only so many hours in a week, and he created so many incredible products. He really contributed to culture and society.”
Only in today's twisted world can creating Chinese-made, throw-away consumer goods sold for premium prices be considered "giving back to the world". It fits well with this whole mythology we're building up around the wealthy these days, how it's just such a burden being rich and all that...
"Only in America do people tell you about all the good work they are doing for charity anonymously" - Jay Leno
He didn't give us Windows, he forced windows on us by having an exclusive contract with the PC vendors.
I hate MS and Bill Gates almost as much as Linux zealots ... but this is just a retarded statement.
No one was FORCED to buy Windows, everyone DID buy Windows because it fit there needs better than alternatives.
If people didn't want Windows, he wouldn't have been able to get exclusive distribution rights with PC makers.
I suspect that if he's going to admit it (which no one should hold their breath waiting) he'll do it on his death bed so he can't be chewed out for the damage he's wreaked on the computing sector.
Seriously? You've got a warped view of the world if your reason for doing things is because of what others think of you.
If Bill Gates is concerned with with how he's acted in this world, he's concerned RIGHT NOW. He's already aware of his evils, FAR more than we are.
People don't make death bed confessions because they were afraid of what was going to happen to them in life. People make death bed confessions because they are afraid of what comes in the after life and they're hoping for forgiveness before its too late to be forgiven.
And yes, DOS was better than CP/M, you know why? Because the shit I wanted to use ran on it. If you think the 'technically superior' product is the one that wins the market, you've never had your eyes open. Technically superior products ALWAYS fail as people don't want technically superior, they want fucking useful, which is almost always different. Go see how HURD and Plan 9 are doing.
You speak like a 15 year old who hates gates because its nerd trendy.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Gladwell is way off base. We remember the business giants of bygone eras for being business giants, not their charitable work. Rockefeller is known for oil more than anything else. Likewise with J. P. Morgan and banking, Carnegie and steel, Vanderbilt and railroads, etc. None of these guys have a savory reputation. They were all known for being ruthless businessmen ready to engage in any profitable behavior no matter how unethical, if they had good odds of getting away with it or getting off lightly if caught.
Today, there isn't a one among our best business leaders who doesn't have more and worse baggage than the average politician. Nor has there ever been. The very "best" business leaders ever (as crudely measured by wealth) look pathetic next to the best statesmen, scientists, journalists, explorers, military leaders, sports stars, artists, and performers. Top business leaders are almost more infamous than famous. Always seem to leave behind them a long trail of victims of dirty competition, callousness, theft, treachery, betrayal, bribery, graft, and corruption. Many even think that sort of thing might be necessary to succeed big in business, so bad is its reputation. One of the earliest business leaders recorded in history, Crassus, the wealthiest Roman ever, was of the same stripe. Greedy, unprincipled, arrogant, and crass. The very word "crass" comes from his name.
For the most part, their charitable work looks like feeble attempts to make up for the damage they did to accomplish their rise, to buy love and popularity just like they buy everything else. And it's never above suspicion, as charitable contributions have been used and abused to dodge taxes.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Search for it. I am not your personal Google.
The burden of evidence is on the person making a claim, not on the reader of said claim.
Telling people to search for the evidence of your claims on their own is a strong indication that your claim is weakly-supported (even if it is not, like this instance). Otherwise, why would you not provide them up-front?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
In fact, no.
I accidentally posted this anonymously farther down, but in fact Bill Gates has done tremendous harm with his so-called "philanthropy"; his real contribution is "leveraged philanthropy", where you use philanthropic donations to control something so that you make more money. This is true with his vaccine so-called "charity" - which forces poor nations to spend money from other sources on expensive foreign vaccines, rather than on development of local vaccine manufacturing or of general public health infrastructure, and thus actually degrades the quality of 3rd world health care while making Bill Gates his "charitable" money back and then some. This is true of his education so-called "charity" - which forces poor school districts to spend money from other sources on high-tech gadgets and expensive consulting services, which are sold by Bill Gates' various partners, but which are actually worse than no services at all.
The Gates' foundation has announced a partnership with Pearson (for profit-education company) to develop and market materials aligned to the common core. These are the materials that your school district must agree to purchase (this particular test cost $32 million state wide) in order to qualify for Race to the Top.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-19/news/31369375_1_answer-silly-question-pineapple
So, Bill Gates is using a small amount of his "charitable" money to force public money in much larger amounts, to be wasted on this crap.
Bill Gates wants to fit teachers with galvanic bracelets:
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/09/just-when-you-thought-it-couldnt-get-crazier/
Bill Gates needs vaccines to be a "profit center" for his pharmaceutical buddies. I spelled this out above but read the comments.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2011/11/10/what-bill-gates-says-about-drug-companies-2/
Oh, hey, Bill Gates is using his agricultural charity to force the 3rd world to buy Monsanto's crops:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.