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pupowski
Premium
join:2002-03-22
Vancouver, WA
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| Bill Gates is a prick
A very successful one, and the richest man on earth because he saw opportunity and exploited it. His success is wildly disproportional to his contributions to technology, and stem from three things,superb marketing, intellectual property rights laws he helped create, and IBM's failure to adequately patent the PC.
DOS, the software that made Gates billions, was written in a few weeks by one man. Gates bought it for $50,000 and a million dollar bonus if it was successful. He refused to pay although he made Billions from DOS, and the owner had to sue. Microsofts best ideas were pirated, including windows and the strategy for Microsoft's monopoly.
Gates has an ulterior motive for everything, including his "charities". By law, such foundations have to spend a % of their assets each year to retain tax exempt status, so they have to distribute grants to one cause or another. Gates isn't in the same league as the great American philanthropists, although he has amassed a larger fortune. His philanthropy, like his software and MSN, is second class.
If the American public wasn't so lazy,stupid, apathetic and cowardly, Gates wouldn't be as wealthy, and the RIAA/MPAA and BSA wouldn't be using the FBI as keystone cops to raid our universities and arrest students for file sharing.
There is no question Gates is a genius, or that he worked for his money and is entitled to great wealth. And he isn't a crook like so many CEO's in the news lately. But he isn't a hero either, or much of a philanthropist, just a very rich man with no class.
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Trust the Constitution, not the administration. | |
no1ukn0w
Whats This?
join:2002-01-24
Boerne, TX
| said by pupowski:
Gates has an ulterior motive for everything, including his "charities". By law, such foundations have to spend a % of their assets each year to retain tax exempt status, so they have to distribute grants to one cause or another.
And if he wanted to he wouldn't have to give a single penny to any charity. I've read where he has given hundreds of millions to certain charities (equipping schools with computers was the last one I heard about). Does he have to do this? NO.. its his money if he wants to keep it all and pay hella taxes on it he could. So he's not as evil as you make him out to be.
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2002-06-11 15:30:39 EST: 206 / 33 --- my isp says there is no problem. 512/256 plan. | |
AkumalDave
Life's A Beach
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-20
Minneapolis, MN
| Philanthropy? Or just good business?
said by no1ukn0w:
I've read where he has given hundreds of millions to certain charities (equipping schools with computers was the last one I heard about)..
No doubt that Gates has, on the surface, donated Millions of Dollars to charitable causes (as I fully intend to do - once I, too, am a Billionaire  ). However, at least one of those donations was revealed to be his own product - MS Software - which, I'm sure, MS deducted at full retail from their tax returns (rather than simply the hard cost of duplication and whatever pitiful printed documentation still comes with the software). As a contrast, I'm pretty sure a guy like Ted Turner (another famous Billionaire philanthropist) donates real money - not AOL CD's... Time will tell how truly philanthropic Gates is/was.
Dave | |
vic102482
Premium
join:2002-04-30
Upper Marlboro, MD | reply to pupowski
Re: Bill Gates is a prick
Yeah I know right Active Directory cough ...stolen...cough...from novell...cough cough | |
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