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Comment by ceilingcorner | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people seem to think that the image Bill Gates presents to the world is accurate, that he is just an awkward but nice man trying to make the world better.

Anyone who was around in the 80s and 90s knows this is a laughable farce. After his antitrust lawsuits, he obviously hired a large PR team and set out on a multi-year image rehabilitation plan. This has clearly been successful, considering how many regular people come out of the woodwork to attack any criticism of him. Most of these people, I think, were too young to remember Gates before his program of “donating” his money to organizations which he either owns or controls.

If he wanted to truly give away his wealth, he could do so. It isn’t that difficult. Instead, he’s basically just moving it around while playing world savior.

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I'd agree with that statement. Especially when people claim Bill Gates eradicated polio.

He matched funding with what Rotary international raised, they've been at it for 35 years and Mr Gates gets the glory!

https://rotary.org/en/our-causes/ending-polio

They did the hard part of standing in the streets collecting money, running events. When the Gates foundation had all the money outright!

Most people aren’t perfect. Is he doing wrong by playing fairy godmother with his money instead of buying bigger and bigger yachts?

I’m not mentally committed to him being a cuddly awkward bear, I just don’t think anything in the article supports him being an evil schemer.

He uses his wealth to affect social policies in third-world countries. That is by definition anti-democratic. It’s corporate colonialism, plain and simple.

But what would be better? Give that money to another undemocratic org, like WHO or UN, and let them affect policies of other countries?

Also let’s not exaggerate with “colonialism”, that is where purpose is overtly exploitation. Is that the case here? Was the Marshall fund colonialism?

I don’t know, anything other than using your wealth to shape third-world countries to fit your own ideological agenda?

Hell, even redistributing his stocks and wealth to Microsoft employees would be less destructive.

It’s colonialism because it’s forcing Western values on to people that are too powerless to fight it. Accept our ideas of how society should be constructed, or else.

The Marshall Plan was absolutely used to reshape countries according to American desires. However, this was largely intra-Western, so the situation isn’t quite the same as in India or Africa.

He doesn't buy yachts, he buys islands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0Yxhtl793c

> Anyone who was around in the 80s and 90s knows this is a laughable farce.

Since this was 30-40 years ago, why do you find it implausible that he outgrew his previous CEO persona? 30 years is far too long to pay someone for an image rehabilitation plan.

Someone with fuck you money at the level of Gates has zero motivation to patch his public image especially this long after he passed from the immediate public view. e could be a happily rich anonymous guy right now.

> If he wanted to truly give away his wealth, he could do so.

Did you look at this from your own perspective? How easy would you part with your wealth? Why do you imagine that a far richer person would be able to do so more easily? Once they're accustomed with a certain living level I think most people have problems scaling back.

The antitrust lawsuits were in 1998 and 1999.

I don’t fault Gates for being rich. I fault him for claiming to be a philanthropist that gives away his money (and revives adulation for it) while his net worth continues to rise.

And of course he is motivated to improve his image. He has serious global influence now with genuine geopolitical power.

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