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Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

Of course and you can't knock him for doing that. It's good, good for him. We could at least acknowledge that others didn't accumulate that wealth because their standards for business were higher than his.

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Gates is doing this because in a few short years he went from America's darling super rich success story, to the monopolistic Satan most of us tech people remember. He was not prepared for being vilified so quickly and completely during the anti-trust years.

Same thing as Andrew Carnegie: After the violent putting down of steel worker strikes, Carnegie was seen as the devil himself. He was so upset that this would be his legacy, Carnegie went about doing charitable work to change his image. You probably have a library he built within 50 miles of you, no matter where you live in the US.

Gates is doing the same thing. He does not want his legacy to be that of a businessman, but rather, that of a philanthropist.

What about all the other enormously rich families that don't have the spotlight shined on them to hold them to a higher standard?

They won't need to give 90% of their wealth away to make sure they don't get villainized.

The Carnegie library I grew up near is the reason I am where I am today in life. If I hadn't had access to all the books I spent my childhood and teenage years reading from that library, I'd be a lesser person.

There’s a few Carnegie libraries around Ireland too [0] and as a child I fully benefitted from my local one. In fact I obtained my first Linux distro from there all the way back in 1997 when I was supposed to be studying for my high school finals .. it was a pivotal moment in my career

[0] http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-hist...

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