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Comment by dddbbb | Hacker News Reader

He's still relatively young, and likely realises the near absolute power he holds over one of the largest companies in the world is not something he can get back once he gives it up. Also Gates, to put it in very uncharitable terms, has shown that it doesn't matter if you're seen as a hated, greedy CEO as long as you do enough philanthropy later in life.

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What would Bill Gates have to do to finally shed his reputation as a business man?

Honestly, Gates seems like a pretty good guy from interviews he’s given and he’s doing something good with his money.

In my youthful days of Microsoft bashing, I learnt that many people couldn't distinguish between the man, the company, and the product. They also seemed to have trouble separating the motivation, the behaviour, and the consequence. In the end, I suspect that the reputation he acquired as a businessman was embellished.

I suspect that Gates will have trouble shedding that reputation since those people will have a hard time distinguishing between his past and present behaviour.

You don't have to "distinguish between the man, the company, and the product." You only have to read his open letter to hobbyists to see how they all intersect.

To take your question to an unnecessary extreme, what would Adolf Hitler have had to do in early 1945 to shed his reputation?

Once a nail has been hammered in place, even after removing it the hole in the wood is there to stay.

If you followed his MS days closely, like many in this community, I doubt you'd change your mind about him. But I imagine large part of the public knows about him mostly from his philanthropy. Heck I bet some people only know of him from whatever that 5G conspiracy was.

>If you followed his MS days closely, like many in this community, I doubt you'd change your mind about him

As in, he was a good fella on the net?

For many, it seems like his rehabilitation was bought with dirty money:

1. Earn a billion with brutal, unscrupulous business practices

2. Spend half of that charitably, keep the rest, and expect to be seen as a great philanthropist.

Suddenly his charitable works don't seem to offset his reputation so much.

Yup. I understand that Al Capone ran soup kitchens in Chicago.

When you're as rich as Gates and Buffet you not only have a teams of people managing your money, you also have teams of people dedicated to managing your image.

So yes - Gates seems like a pretty good guy. And he'll have paid a lot of money to create that impression.

Zuckerberg doesn't seem to be running the usual PR operation - possibly because he's too young to be bothered, and possibly because he doesn't really care much.

Likewise Bezos. But you can be sure that if/when they turn to philanthropy, they'll consider the option of a similarly wholesome transformation and proceed if it seems likely to provide extra social leverage.

The alternative will be managed media invisibility, which is also an option at that level.

That's pretty cynical. Giving away your entire fortune to charity and convincing others to do the same isn't just PR, it's a genuine effort to make the world a better place. He was a cutthroat businessman and made millions at the expense of other businessmen, many of whom would've done the same to him if they could. I don't think being a hardass in the board room disqualifies you from being a generous and caring person in your private life.

> I don't think being a hardass in the board room disqualifies you from being a generous and caring person in your private life.

No, but it also doesn't somehow wipe away the actions he took to make that money.

He didn't just attack other businesses, he attacked open source, and would have destroyed it if he could have.

By all means, you can think whatever you like about the man. Gates has done some pretty slimy shit. Being nice now is nice, and I applaud him for it, but nobody is obligated to develop amnesia.

Further, there is no obligation to politely applaud the rich person picking and choosing who should benefit from their largesse. Nor in noticing the massive PR campaigns that go along with it.

He's buying what he wants with his money.

> He didn't just attack other businesses, he attacked open source, and would have destroyed it if he could have. By all means, you can think whatever you like about the man. Gates has done some pretty slimy shit. Being nice now is nice, and I applaud him for it, but nobody is obligated to develop amnesia.

I’m not asking you to forget what he did as a business man. But people grow by integrating new information and changing their minds. And Gates seems to be progressing in the right direction.

But all of you anti-Gates people are hell bent on defining him by his actions as the head of Microsoft. And being cynical about his motivations.

I’m grateful that he’s changed his ways and is making a positive contribution to the world. He really does seem to try and understand the issues he wants to tackle and not just hire people to do it for him.

> I’m grateful

Herein lies our difference of opinion. I consider it a positive thing that he's changed and grown. But grateful? Wealth-worship is gross and I'm not his dependent.

Again, he's buying what he wants to buy with his money.

Exactly right. He won the money game, he couldn't feed his ego with that anymore. Now he is feeding his ego with philanthropy. He literally couldn't spend it all on himself. So he sprinkles it around with his name attached. People don't cheer when I give pocket change to the homeless, yet it is a similar percentage of my net worth.

I met Bill G and had dinner with him when he published our software in the 80's. What you see is what you get with Gates. He's not a complicated guy. Smart, but uncomplicated. I liked that about him.

> What would Bill Gates have to do to finally shed his reputation as a business man?

I don't think he has to shed his reputation as a business man, if "being a business man" means maximising profits. He was great at that, and his activities were lawful, at least up to the point when he was judged to have acted in violation of anti-trust laws in trying to parlay one monopoly into another.

What he'd have to do to stem my disappointment in him as a leading fellow of the software development community of his day, is to acknowledge that after already earning his first 10 billion from DOS, Office and Windows, he actively worked to impede the progress of the internet, and hold back a generation of young non-millionaire developers, by "cutting off Netscape's air supply".

It's a good thing we have a laundry list of his dastardly deeds so we don't go off what he "seems" like.

Key words: "seems like". Imagine you lived in the same area as Gates and every so often an acquaintance or colleague tells you a story of their encounter with Bill Gates. I have heard many of these stories. One is less likely to see such behaviour from him in public anymore if by chance he is seem in public and over the years one would expect his wife has "reigned him in". Most people are amazed by his interest in vaccines and Africa, and the foundation work, but how many know it is actually his spouse, formerly his employee at Microsoft,^1 who has the sincere interest in Africa and initially he just went along for the ride. When you have that kind of wealth, and so many others are dependant on your "generosity", naturally you have much more potential for control over what is written about you in the press. As such, the impressions you have from merely reading news stories are not exactly "organic", like hearing a story from someone you know. In the earlier days he had less control over what was written about him. Here is one from the archives that I think exemplifies Gates' personality quite well:

https://www.cringely.com/2013/02/25/accidental-empires-chapt...

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19920227&slug...

Recently, he was attacked online by conspiracy theorists. This prompted an interesting response from him. Perhaps it has also caused some to look closer at how much "control" he can potentially exert on the media these days.

https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-fu...

Not sure if Gates has shown that.

> According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 44 percent of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements — a widely debunked conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.[0]

[0]: https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-cor...

It's depressing knowing how large swaths of people are anti science and have made it part of their political identity to boot

They're not anti-science: they're ignorant.

If we had better basic education, presumably people would be able to understand how things work.

It's partisanship. Some people will say they believe even the most ridiculous of things if that means they're toeing the party line.

I agree with this. And partisanship is largely the outcome of propaganda peddled by the media to sell ads. I know this is a narrow, arrogant viewpoint, but I view all hardcore partisans as victims of propaganda (with the caveat that perhaps "propaganda" is not the best word here...).

This is ridiculous both-sidesism.

I'm not a both-sidesist. My comment has nothing to do with "both sides have good/bad people." We are currently in a situation where many on the left believe that the far right are pure evil idiots. And those on the right believe that people on the far left are... pure evil idiots. But - guess what - this isn't true.

The American left isn’t currently trying to turn the country into a single party state ruled by an autocrat. I don’t care if they’re idiots or not, but the right have abandoned respect and decency for their fellow citizens. I don’t want any of them dead, I just want free and fair elections in the country I love. It’s their media sources arguing for armed vigilantes to take to the streets to defend their beliefs.

The right-voting populace just wants abortions to be illegal. Everything else that's going on is collateral damage. I know - well, not a lot, but a couple handfuls of - Trump supporters, and 100% of them vote for him because of his purported policies on abortion (and they all lamely defend him on his other actions). I think people underestimate how many voters are single-issue voters, and that this is THE issue.

I want the things you want to - and I am very very left leaning. And I strongly disagree with your "their media" statement. I think many media outlets are contributing to a widening gap between the left and the right, because sensationalism and stupid articles sell. A single example from yesterday: I just read an NPR story that 260 out of 500,000 Sturgis attendees have come down with Covid. And they're trying to pitch that this is... a lot?

You claim to want the things I want, and yet you seem to think that reporting on a spike in COVID cases in a small state due to a large event is comparable to Tucker Carlson shrugging and saying “eh, you can’t blame him” about Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha? They’re not even within the same realm of discourse.

I suspected you would conclude I was suggesting equivalence. I am not. I’m trying to discuss the role the media plays in furthering the divide. Many on the right are convinced that the Covid response is overblown and insincere. Can’t you see how this NPR - a supposed liberal media outlet - story, especially the tone of it, could be construed to play directly into that narrative? Hyper-partisanship is not a natural outcome, but is fed into our gullets because news has to be framed in ways that piss off both sides.

COVID is extremely serious, you and I both know this. Accurate reporting on it is going to sound overblown if you're convinced it's not a problem. What would you suggest the news do? Pretend it's not an issue at all?

Also not sure which article in particular you are referring to, but the one I found doesn't seem sensationalistic at all:

"'I think it's still a little early to really know how this is going to play out,' says Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials." — https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

It's a conspiracy theory, so even education doesn't always help. Kary Mullis is one example of someone who was smart enough to win a Nobel prize for his work on PCR... but unfortunately later fell into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole for HIV, climate change, etc.

I have read that anxiety issues [1], as well as a personality spectrum called "schizotypy" [2] which in itself can be linked to severe anxiety issues at the heavier end of the spectrum, [3] is linked to the ability to believe conspiracy theories [4]. My guess is that the wide spread of conspiracy theories related material (which COVID-19 has amplified to considerably) boils down to some combination of mental health and other social and/or economic anxieties, and the conspiracy theories really won't go away until some of these anxieties are addressed.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-drawn-to-c... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disord... [4] https://www.psypost.org/2017/10/study-links-facets-schizotyp...

I'm not sure whether this holds much merit in reality as it is purely speculation, but I'd strongly suspect that a great deal of modern popular conspiracy theories are designed and initially propagated by PSYOP groups to influence and control certain aspects of reality for whatever intended purpose (that's kind of the essence or purpose of a PSYOP) - like for example, preventing Bill Gates' eliminating third world poverty or whatever his goals are. Some of his philanthropic work will quite possibly have a snowball effect on a certain areas that some countries won't like which would give rise to misinformation campaigns to sabotage and hinder his work.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories is extremely meta and wonderfully ironic.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they don't want you to think they're out to get you.

Many people are willfully ignorant. Dinosaur bones are "carved from stone" so that their infallible written timeline of events remains unchallenged.

> If we had better basic education, presumably people would be able to understand how things work.

Agreed, like the fundamentals of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc. Perhaps then we could rid the world of this widespread perception of clairvoyance (perception of knowing the thoughts of millions of other people, for example).

I think what's missing from education in the US isn't more depth or breadth of facts, but the ability to think independently and critically. We need to gain better awareness that if we're responsible for making an important decision, but we can't be bothered to become informed before making that decision, bad things will happen to us (and others who rely on us) that we could have avoided if we had taken responsibility for our actions like an adult.

I think a huge fraction of society are used to living like a child -- we're used to being told what to do in every part of their lives. So we never learn to accept responsibility... for a business, or an investment, or the health/welfare of others, or for their jobs and livelihoods. We reject accountability.

I think most people believe they're powerless to control their lives, that they're helplessly propelled by giant forces far beyond their control, so their individual decisions and actions don't matter. Thus they don't need to know the facts or consider the consequences of their choices. The collective they belong to will make that decision for them. Their only decision is what sociopolitical gang they should join. They delegate all authority to the group's leaders to think for them after that.

> I think what's missing from education in the US isn't more depth or breadth of facts, but the ability to think independently and critically

Absolutely. I've long thought a modern version of rhetoric is perhaps the most important class to mandate in a democracy.

At least one full semester of a teacher trying to lie or convince you of things using common approaches, coupled with an analytical study of what they are and how they work.

> We need to gain better awareness that if we're responsible for making an important decision, but we can't be bothered to become informed before making that decision, bad things will happen to us

IMHO, democracy is predicated on the ratio of informed_voters : total_voters. That ratio has never been 1, but it feels like it used to be higher.

I think the next version of democracy is going to use a pre-test of objective facts (so loaded!) to weight votes.

I don't buy that they're simply ignorant. Yes, perhaps they are but tied into that ignorance for many, many people (that I've met anecdotally and, i'm sure in statistical terms) is a strong willfulness about their postures.

In other words, despite being shown any evidence you'd like, no matter how concrete about the incorrectness of their beliefs, they'll simply disregard said information, because to accept or even consider it would imply the possible disruption of specific political/religious beliefs that a great deal of emotional identification is invested in.

And lack of access to information isn't even an excuse for this in most cases: It applies frequently to people who live otherwise technologically connected lives, with easy access to a vast wealth of extraordinarily detailed knowledge about anything they don't understand in terms of evidence, theories and facts. Despite this, they just.... disregard it, and will even give MORE weight to the most absurdly unsubstantiated "alternative" ideas so long as they don't poke at that emotional investment I mentioned above.

Again, this is not simple ignorance, it's something much more deliberate and to call it anti-science is not at all unfair.

> Again, this is not simple ignorance, it's something much more deliberate

what is it? i couldnt get it from the comment... just curious

I'm tempted to call it a dogma, but it strikes me as something much more visceral than that. The closest that comes to mind is a mulish rejection of reason when it strikes emotionally rooted beliefs. Calling it "Anti-science" is valid but tricky, because the anti-scientific part can be very selective: argue with certain people about the safety of vaccine science and they reject you outright no matter what evidence you offer, but explain how a cell phone works to these same people and they'll happily defer to scientific explanations.

maybe "memes" are a useful term?

seems some memes get stuck in peoples heads and blocks all reasonable discussions?

I tried arguing with a "Bill Gates wants to kill Africans", and "there's an online furniture store peddling kidnapped teenagers to pedos" girl once, and she thinks I'm the one being brainwashed by MSM and snopes.com (and that they're controlled by the Rotschilds and Rockerfellers), and she thinks she's the one who is enlightened. If I asked for proof, she'd link to some random blog she read and trusts where some lunatic (from my point of view) is asserting some lie. And if I sent her links to MSM sites debunking things, she's claim these are the lies. I posted a link to Snopes and of course she had a link ready showing how Snopes was paid off by someone.

How do you win? In the end I felt like she was just being narcissistic, I couldn't be bothered continuing the discussion, because I knew it would just piss me off...

why do people beleive "wacky" relegions?

my guess is it provides an explanation for things, and for people who might not have some direction in their life, something like conspiracy theories provide some meaning (stop the evil conspiracy) + explanation (so thats why things are so screwed up)...

thats my guess anyways....

It's depressing knowing how many people think all polls are scientifically valid representations of the general population. It's well known that even the way a question is stated or worded can influence the outcome of a poll.

This is an encouraging comment, if more people were actually scientific minded enough to realize this type of thing, perhaps we could get out of the ditch we've driven into.

Well, a single poll, sure. Many polls...

Until I was about 28, myself and my whole group of friends would 95% of the time give bullshit (usually whatever was funniest) answers to anything resembling a poll. Didn't matter how 'private' or anonymous. We thought polls were bullshit, and we treated them thus. Other classmates, even more than us, filled them out as the person they wish they were.

We CAN'T be unique...this happens a LOT!

And polls are used more often to drive opinions than to report on them.

I think a lot of people say they "believe" that, but really the question they are answering is, "do you like Bill Gates, or do you think him morally capable of doing this horrible thing?" Bill Gates was one of the early, big proponents of Common Core, and educational testing and reform movement which ended up becoming very unpopular on the right.

That’s a massive cop out. You either believe in conspiracy theories or you don’t. People who don’t believe in conspiracies don’t say they do as a way of expressing they don’t like the people involved.

In my experience, your second statement is, factually, incorrect. Nothing personal, but I find that not to be an accurate reflection of human behavior.

Well, it fits with my experience.

The unnecessary dismissal of these theories as having "no basis in fact" probably contributes to their stickiness. This absolutely does have basis in, arguably misconstrued, fact:

>The claim emerged after a Reddit Q&A in which Gates mentioned foreseeing the use of “digital certificates” to show who has been tested for COVID-19 or who has recovered from the disease . Most of the iterations of this claim misleadingly refer to “quantum dot dye” technology, which was founded by the Gates Foundation. Kevin McHugh, one of the lead authors of the “quantum dot dye” research paper, confirmed to Reuters this technology is not a microchip or human implantable capsule. Instead, it is similar to a tattoo, which would help provide up-to-date patient vaccine records for professionals in places lacking medical records. [0]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-gates-fauci/fal...

This isn't arguably misconstrued, it's deliberately twisted by actors with an agenda.

It's also an own-goal on the part of the Gates Foundation. Any adult in the US should know better than to tap into "mark of the beast" hysteria; anything which smacks of Revelation is politically a non-starter.

I think the greater source of damage is squarely on WHO and CDC: they baldly lied about masks for almost two months, then turned around and made them mandatory.

That was incredibly reckless and stupid: I was furious about it at the time, and the consequents have played out exactly how I envisioned at the time.

Our authorities spectacularly blew their credibility, out in the open where everyone can see it. Now we need them to have that credibility back, but, it doesn't work that way.

my "insider" knowledge from the FB upper management is that Zuck is considering a future presidential candidacy so all of this congress stuff, dealing with political correctness, etc is great training wheels when he eventually gets into it. If you look at it from that lens, it makes sense right?

Disclaimer: note bunny ear quotes and like any 2nd hand information, there might be some stretched out truths attached to it.

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