Bill Gates Promotes Vaccine Projects, Swipes At Google

Nerval's Lobster writes "In a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Bill Gates discussed his Foundation's work to eradicate polio and malaria, while suggesting that vaccine programs and similar initiatives to fight disease and poverty will ultimately do much more for the world than technology projects devoted to connecting everybody to the Internet. While Gates professes his belief in the so-called digital revolution, he doesn't think projects such as Google's Internet blimps (designed to transmit WiFi signals over hundreds of miles, bringing Internet to underserved areas in the process) will do the third world nearly as much as good as basic healthcare. "When you're dying of malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that [Internet] balloon, and I'm not sure how it'll help you," he said. "When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there's no website that relieves that." Gates then sharpened his attack on the search-engine giant: "Google started out saying they were going to do a broad set of things. They hired Larry Brilliant, and they got fantastic publicity. And then they shut it all down." Google focusing on its core mission is fine, he added, "but the actors who just do their core thing are not going to uplift the poor." The Microsoft co-founder also has no intention of following Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and other tech entrepreneurs into the realm of space exploration. "I guess it's fun, because you shoot rockets up in the air," he said. "But it's not an area that I'll be putting money into.""

Comments

Waste of whose money?

[pboy2k5]

Dear Bill Gates, Please refund all the money we "wasted" for buying the crappy Windows OS with the BSOD that got you really rich. I can't imagine how much money people have lost because their computers got the BSOD and didn't have the chance to save their work. Then you can rip over Google for "wasting" their money on some hot air balloon. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

Re:Idea

[Lennie]

I'm sorry, I know where the money for this charity work comes from, it's from a convicted monopoly and the above mentioned charity organisation which does things many individuals would think are not ethical.