*Xerox PARC. It's an acronym for Palo Alto Research Center.

Yep I remember that movie, but read Steve Levys Hackers. Gates was always a douch. I also read the letter he wrote. I think it was an opinion piece in a newsletter.

I read about that, yeah. All hail Mammon; money above all. Sometimes I think wealth changes something in a person's brain, like psychologically or neurologically. It's as if they get so detached from reality that they lose all empathy and sense of community. I've heard the term 'affluenza' used as a joke, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense as a legitimate thing.

No, I don't think that's accurate. Oxford Unkversity was going to waive their rights to the vaccine, and Gates pressured them to instead partner with Astra-Zeneca. But to my knowledge Gates never profited from that deal. Now, was there still some shady backroom dealing going on? Very possibly.

kffhealthnews.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/amp/

Very well put. I cannot stand the entitlement in the original letter.

His work on malaria in Africa focused on bed nets to the explicit exclusion of larvacide control of mosquitoes. Millions of preventable cases over the last 30 years.

Then there's the circumcision to fight aids.

Guy's a fuckwit.

Behind the bastards

Yeah, I read that he was a nepo baby. Also, people say "But he dropped out of university to start Microsoft."

He dropped out of fucking Harvard. His life was easy as piss from the get-go.

His mother came from money, being the daughter of a banker, and the granddaughter of a banker. His father was a lawyer who founded a law firm focused on corporate law and technology law. Given that his mom knew Opel personally, and his dad was a technology lawyer, is it any surprise that Gates' first contract with IBM was so incredibly friendly to Microsoft's interests?

In addition, IBM was under pressure at that point because it was being sued for antitrust violations by the US government. That limited how aggressive it could be in new contracts without drawing extra attention. In other words, the antitrust effort from the US government took power away from IBM and allowed for new companies to flourish. Then about 20 years later, Microsoft was sued for its own illegal use of its monopoly (a trial at which Bill Gates lied on the stand, and where Microsoft falsified evidence), and this work to limit the reach of Microsoft allowed for the Internet to flourish and led directly to the rise of companies like Google and Amazon. It's now time for another round of antitrust to allow more companies to flourish -- only hopefully this time the antitrust efforts don't fade out and are aggressively pursued year after year so we don't get more shitty monopolies making things awful.

He sold his first software before it was even finished to his own unuversity.

What drives me crazy is when I hear this fact being cited as a positive thing that makes him a role model.

He didn't even write that software, he had to buy it from someone else because his own version sucked.

I don't know The Hated One; I'm assuming they are a content creator. What kind of stuff do they usually do?

Paul Allen got great cards.

Yup. He stole a bunch of ideas and code, then got upset that people were stealing his ideas and code. Do as I say, not as I do.

You don't get to a billionn without exploiting people along the way.

There is no such thing as an innocent billionaire.

Warren Buffet is ok in my book.

I kinda compare it to semi truck weigh stations. I found out some time ago that if the math works out that a truck got from one weigh station to another too fast the driver can get a speeding ticket since its assumed they broke the law getting there. Apply that to money. If a person accumulates too much money, it should just be assumed that person broke laws getting it and they should be severly fined (like, most of it).

It should be classified as a sign of mental illness. If I had half of a billion dollars I wouldn't work another day in my life and the general public would never hear from me. These fuckers have more money than they could ever spend and still desperately want more.

You can be a billionaire if you are willing to pay a million per month as taxes.

I don't mind billionaires as long as everything is fairly taxed.