Microsoft co-founder and current chairman Bill Gates, currently worth an estimated US$50 billion, has said he does not want to be the world’s richest man.
“Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told an online advertising conference Wednesday that he’d prefer not to be the richest person in the world. ‘I wish I wasn’t,’ he said in a session in which he was being interviewed by Donny Deutsch, the host of an interview show on CNBC,” Allison Linn reports for The Associated Press. “‘There’s nothing good that comes out of that,’ he said. ‘You get more visibility as a result of it.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike K” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: At the rate Microsoft’s going lately, Bill’s about to have his wish granted sooner than later.
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Shut the fuck up Gill Gates!
Bill, let me help you out: I’ll take a few mil from you, now sweat
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mike,
So what is your point? That Gates apparently cares a great deal about his wealth and his “I don’t want to be the richest guy in the world” line is just transparent posturing? That was exactly my point, n’est-ce pas?
Next thing, Bill Gates will come out and say how much he’s so “environmental,” never mind the hundreds of trees that were cut down to build his 40,000 square foot mansion.
http://www.zpub.com/un/bill/ecology.html
Oh never mind. His house is “ecological.”
“Every great fortune begins with a great crime.”
The founder of IKEA is currently richer than Bill Gates.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet, so I apologize If I repeated it.
Instead, he goes about and acts like it’s some kind of unavoidable genetic affliction
Agreed. Whiney whine whine.
Bill could EASILY say F it, sign every last dollar away, and join the homeless on Seattle’s park benches.
But he doesn’t.
Bill, if you really aren’t happy, either do something about it or STFU.
Just like the rest of us.
Perhaps this is a belated recognition on Bill’s part that he doesn’t *deserve* to be the world’s richest man, as so much of his wealth was ill-gotten or the result of dumb luck.
I had the opportunity recently to see “Pirates of Silicon Valley”. It’s a look at the early days of the personal computer revolution (mid-70s to mid-80s), especially focusing on the roles of Jobs and Gates and their cohorts up to the first release of Mac and Windows. We see Jobs and Woz working successfully to deliver something real and significant; Gates and Ballmer, in contrast, are depicted as computer wannabes who are in most respects insignificant, but who through bluster and chicanery, deception and theft, and that IBM alliance, end up on top.
It’s worth a look if you haven’t seen it.
“never mind the hundreds of trees that were cut down to build his 40,000 square foot mansion.”
Would it have been better to build a steel-and-concrete house? The product of strip-mined ore, quarried rock, polluting mills, and mass amounts of non-renewable diesel fuel and coal?
40,000 sf of anything is an environmental wreck. Esp. a single house.
You don’t know the history of being a billionaire like I do Bill!
Oh… and Rasterbator is my love child with monkey boy
Wow, it’s like the biggest bully in the world robed and killed all the people in his way and says: gee, I’d wish I did not do that!!! WTF!!
Bill Gates could always drain his resources for a thousand more ground-breaking developers.
just give it all to me. cus I want to be the richest bastid ever
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No joke, I just got an envelope in the mail today. In it was a letter to the NetScape design team and was a signed letter of condolences from Bill along with a check of 500,000 dollars.
Sure, the law suite was for more, but you know, it’s a start, and this truly is a nice gesture that I appreciate.
Gates was once quoted as saying he planned to give away 95% of his wealth. We’re still waiting, Billy Boy …
Oh, the poor baby…trying to act like some sweet innocent victim! Bill Gates has earned his reputation by trampling his way to the top using the most merciless and indecent business practices. Microsoft has been convicted of being a preditary monopoly and Bill Gates is the one who was (and still is) running the show when it happened. Heaven only knows how many companies and hard-working people he’s put out of business with his crooked tactics. I don’t see even a hint of remorse in that man, so I’m not swallowing his sob story.
“Gates was once quoted as saying he planned to give away 95% of his wealth.” – Conner MacBook. I heard that too, some years ago. He plans to have it given it away AFTER he’s dead. Be assured, the people Bill Gates has scalped through the years won’t see so much as a penny of that.
“The rain hit the old dog in the twilight’s last gleaming
He said son it sounds like rattling old bones
This highway is long but I know some that are longer
By sunup tomorrow I guess I’ll be home
Through the hills of kentucky ’cross the ohio river
The old man kept talking ’bout his life and his times
He fell asleep with his head against the window
He said an honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind
This world offers riches and riches will grow wings
I don’t take stock in those uncertain things
Chorus:
Days turn to minutes
And minutes to memories
Life sweeps away the dreams
That we have planned
You are young and you are the future
So suck it up and tough it out
And be the best you can”
Hey, don’t be so hard on Bill Gates. I’m an ultra-rich rock star and I bitch and moan about success all the time. I mean, it’s sooo hard to have all this money. I cry every day. I shoot heroin to numb the pain of my success. I fought so hard to make it to the top, and now I hate it. I’m rich, I married a porn star and I live in a 15,000 sq. ft mansion in Beverly Hills. Ain’t life a bitch?
YOU ARE NOT DEFINED BY WHAT YOU OWN.
“‘There’s nothing good that comes out of that,’ he said. ‘You get more visibility as a result of it.'”
Pay attention to this, he’s not morally worried, his concerns are about his personal security…
What a fucking moron, I hope you die in a hotel fire Billy Sucker Boy.
“Would it have been better to build a steel-and-concrete house? The product of strip-mined ore, quarried rock, polluting mills, and mass amounts of non-renewable diesel fuel and coal?
40,000 sf of anything is an environmental wreck. Esp. a single house.”
Uh, I don’t think we’re arguing here, more smog. It just happened that Bill’s house looks like it’s largely made out of wood, even to the point that all of the wooden beams “don’t even have a single knot” because Bill doesn’t like the look of knots. Imagine how many trees were felled just so Bill could get “perfect” beams.
The point, the guy is all about excess. Excess without class.
“If you get a bunch of money through illegal means and give a percentage to charity that looks impressive, are you a great man? Or are you a thief and cheat who gave away some of the money that you cheated and stole from others?”
Fred Mertz,
That’s an extremely interesting philosophical question. While I’m certainly not defending the means by which Gates acquired his colossal fortune, can anyone say that he tortured or murdered to amass it? And if not, does the good he is doing outweigh the cheating and stealing his company engaged in? Clearly Microsoft’s behavior is probably responsible for putting a lot of people out of work, but does their discomfiture mean more than the many lives, possibly millions of lives, his foundation has probably saved by providing such basic necessities as clean water and medication to the poorest of the poor? I’ve heard a lot of people hyperventilating about giving the people of poverty-stricken developing nations laptop computers fer chrissakes, so that they don’t fall behind in education. Hell, if they die of many preventable diseases for lack of fresh drinking water, whether or not they’re educated is moot. Gates-haters and Microsoft bashers are so zealous in their rush to demonize the man that these factors don’t even enter into their equations. As is true of all human beings, there really are only shades of grey when it comes to morality, some merely fall more towards the darker side than most of us.
For years I’ve pointed out the eerie analogies between Gates and another titan, John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil. Both were visionary and ruthless enough to seize control of critical industries by mercilessly crushing competition, thereby amassing incomprehensible fortunes. But oddly, for Rockefeller it wasn’t for his personal aggrandizement. His strict religious upbringing dictated a frugal life and charity, and despite his mansions and estates, he lived an extremely simple, almost ascetic life. Even before he became the richest man in history (in today’s dollars wealthier than Gates), he was noted for his generous donations, eventually endowing the University of Chicago, among other notable things. What is really odd about Rockefeller was that he saw no dichotomy between his ruthless, and frankly nauseating, business practices and his charitable works. He honestly believed that God gave him a talent for business and that he should give back what he had been fortunate enough to receive. Andrew Carnegie was no saint either, but his unshakeable belief in education for the underprivileged led him to create many public libraries, over the doors of each of which was the inscription, “Free For All”.
Someone once said of Gates back in the ’90s (sorry, I don’t remember who) that he really didn’t care about money; business to him was like a pinball game, and his hypercompetitive nature drives him to rack up the top score. It was much the same with Rockefeller, it wasn’t about the money, it was about winning. Even if he had to, figuratively speaking, break his rivals’ kneecaps to keep them out of the race.
I don’t believe that either man had the same sense of morality that most of us do and sincerely didn’t believe that they did anything wrong in their pursuit of success. Of course they did. But who can quantify the bad versus the good in a meaningful way, and honestly say that one absolutely outweighs the other? I certainly cannot.
He should just buy $50 billion macs and give them out like hot cakes.
Bill stole this idea like he has every other, from last week’s episode of “the west wing”
rich computer maker doesn’t want to be the richest man in the world, want’s to take his money and use if for good.
I watched the Gates interview with Donny DeutschBag.
What a softball interview.
This Gates guy is one creepy human.
He will be fun to watch as the years pass.
Bill, you could become not the richest man in the world today. If you really wanted to. Fact is you’re a liar………. – and this proves it.