Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Bill Gates imagines his life 20 years from now

By | April 20, 2010, 2:10am PDT

Summary: At a talk in front of students at UC Berkeley, Microsoft Chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates discusses the world issues he plans to work on during the next 20 years.

At a talk in front of students at UC Berkeley, Microsoft Chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates discusses the world issues he plans to work on during the next 20 years. He says his priorities are in developing vaccines for disease and improving health care for the poor.

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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Seriously?
Richard Flude 20th Apr 2010
"What "sins"? "

You're familiar with the antitrust cases against MS, the source of all
his wealth?

"Gates is doing something he doesn't have to do & what most rich
people won't do but should."

I suggest you read about Standard Oil and Rockefeller. Deja vu. Who
else in his position doesn't do what Bill is doing?

"He should be commended for this but instead he gets ripped for
some preceived wrongs that he supposedly committed."

To the extent that he is able to improve the lives of the poor he
should be commended. But we should not forget or excuse his past
because of money.
Admire a few screenshots from a game a 26 year old Bill Gates wrote in 1981:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey.bas_title_screen.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey.bas_game.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Donkey.bas_explosion.png

Hope that Bill's vision for the future is more sophisticated than that 'game' he called 'Monkey' because even for that era it definitely sucked all around. Compare it to what Atari was doing back then and weep.

Learned about this "gem" only a few days ago, still surprised it didn't make it into Windows 7.
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Ah, you are so...
Rama.NET 20th Apr 2010
Anyway, that was not Monkey, it was Donkey. There was a never thought at time considering IBM PC as a gaming device, but that simple, stupid game opened a totally new concept, using IBM PC as a gaming device that is using x86 processors for gaming.
--Ram--
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Did you enjoy playing that, erm... "game"?
Great Kahuna Updated - 20th Apr 2010
I bet that the best part of the, erm... "game" was waiting for it to load.

Am I right?
Honestly, all I can say thank god for people like Bill. Love him or not, if more mega rich people actually did this type of thing, either directly or not the world would be a much better place to be
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and I'm glad he's doing it.

Now I'm only waiting for him to show repentance, publicly.
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RE: "Sins"
step69 20th Apr 2010
What "sins"? Gates is doing something he doesn't have to do & what most rich people won't do but should. He should be commended for this but instead he gets ripped for some preceived wrongs that he supposedly committed. This has nothing to do with Windows vs Linux or Windows vs Apple.
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Seriously?
Richard Flude 20th Apr 2010
"What "sins"? "

You're familiar with the antitrust cases against MS, the source of all
his wealth?

"Gates is doing something he doesn't have to do & what most rich
people won't do but should."

I suggest you read about Standard Oil and Rockefeller. Deja vu. Who
else in his position doesn't do what Bill is doing?

"He should be commended for this but instead he gets ripped for
some preceived wrongs that he supposedly committed."

To the extent that he is able to improve the lives of the poor he
should be commended. But we should not forget or excuse his past
because of money.
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What "Sin" did he commit?
Rama.NET 20th Apr 2010
Could you please be elaborate. Please don't bring your Linux/Apple into picture, but any public sins such as theft, treachery, rape, killing etc. he committed.
--Ram--
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However, most of Bill's sins are not amenable to legal prosecution.

But in spite of that, his sins have already been judged by Bill's tech peers and the ruling was overwhelming:

"Guilty as charged" the jury said.
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Does it involve Bill Gates personally
Rama.NET Updated - 20th Apr 2010
or Microsoft? Dude, it seems your personal issues over Bill Gates financial position is blinding you. If I say Linus stole Unix Design and so he is also guilty, would you accept. I wonder, you would come and bad mouth me.
--Ram--
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I couldn't care less about Bill Gates' financial position.
Great Kahuna Updated - 20th Apr 2010
What I care about is his legacy. Computing is years behind where it could be today due to Bill Gates' action and the dog-eat-dog culture he instituted at Microsoft.

Bill Gates should have chosen a different career, like medicine. Both the world and his conscience would be much better off today had he chosen that path.
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Well,
HypnoToad72 20th Apr 2010
(a) considering his company gets lots of tax cuts and breaks and "corporate welfare" (government subsidy), that makes the following link disheartening:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/2/7/184312/5388

Or, better yet since the article headline mentions the pesky "M-word":

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-to-grassley-were-still-using-h-1bs-no-moral-imperative-to-hire-americans-2009-3

As for taxpayer-funded subsidy to an obviously not-hurting Microsoft (circa 2002):
http://www.ctj.org/html/corp0402.htm



(b) Caught in 1994 for forcing OEMs to sell Windows on every PC the OEM made, even if the end-user or company was not going to us a MS OS on it. (MS made money on a sale that was forced. If you or I used such predatory tactics, we wouldn't get a free ride in return.)

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5263175.html

(c)

Before I go any further, how long of a list would you like?
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This is nonsense
Rama.NET Updated - 20th Apr 2010
I clearly mentioned sins such as theft, murder, rape and such criminal activities and also the sins personally committed by him not his company. I wonder if, you claim you haven't done any sin including blaming others, if so you have every right to blame him and get the feel of doing the sin.
happy
--Ram--
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what sins ?
chuckleberry 20th Apr 2010
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RE: Bill Gates imagines his life 20 years from now
Loverock Davidson 20th Apr 2010
I love listening to Bill Gates speak. The man is a visionary. He has a very positive outlook on life. He knew what he wanted to do years ahead of doing it. Not many people can say that. The funny part of the clip was when he said he didn't want to write a check to the government. Kudos to Bill Gates for all his efforts to make the world a better place!
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"preceived wrongs that he supposedly committed."

LOL perceived? try PROVEN IN A COURT OF LAW.
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above was @step69 -NT
tripolitan 20th Apr 2010
NT
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The little bast*rd is lucky hes not doing 10-20 hard time.
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i hate that interviewer. he asks a question & he isn't even
engaged in what bill is saying.
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20 or 50 years no matter, really hot location
Mordecai Irony 20th Apr 2010
.. his priorities are in developing vaccines for disease

Real cute, spawn of satan. Last month the penultimate classless icon made a public statement that his vaccine program will be used for population control. At this point in their End-Game for 'useless-eaters' (meaning, YoU), the facts are quite real. The corporate raiding model that was inflicted on so many gifted minds in the US v(and robbed of their lives) was transferred to this idea of medical purposes. Of course this is a matter of family tradition with the rockefeller line as it was billy's grand daddy that established this relationship, for philanthropical purposes. For sure, there is -no- other way such a monstrosity of mediocrity could have metastasized without heavy connections. Period. One can simply look up the following keywords:

--- Gates GAVI Africa AIDS
--- MEPHA
--- Sverbald Gates Rockefeller

Other perspectives -
resources used in the best way .. for what? It is their goal to reduce the world population to 500 million as stipulated at their (only one example) Georgia Guidestone monument. Yet another couterfeit model for 'good' purposes.

save lives .. who's? and for what purpose? remarkable investment, for $2k+- people are messed up for life and dependent on more govt fascist programs .. as oultined in the obamarxist kevorkian health care plan.

Only a bootlicking society could perpetuate this lie.

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