Post-Microsoft Bill Gates is a much more interesting person. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I have a huge amount of respect for how he's choosing to spend the money he made. Interesting contrast to Larry Ellison, for example.
There are definitely worse ways to spend your time and money.
I'm not judging Ellison at all. Bill could have done the same, but I think it's cool that he is choosing to oversee how that money is spent while he's still alive.
By spending the money on charity while alive, Bill is celebrated as a benefactor while he is alive and charities (and people) worldwide will mourn his death.
Larry, on the other hand, is not celebrated as a benefactor while alive, and charities will celebrate after he dies and they finally get the money.
http://cms.givingpledge.org/#larry_ellison
The full letter is an interesting read
I don't know about you, but I don't begrudge a man worth $41B who plans to give away nearly all his wealth, a yacht or two.
Give me Ellison over Gates any day.
He's trying to eradicate disease and help people who don't have billions of dollars, or even millions...or even hundreds of dollars to their name.
Bill Gates didn't screw up computing. The Microsoft that exists today is an entirely different animal than it was when it was just a startup, just as Google and Apple are different.
This isn't cynicism about startups' growth trends; this is a point that Bill Gates has revolutionized the entire industry multiple times over. How he chooses to spend his wealth is what most people would call generous and altruistic.
Although I wasn't comparing the operating systems, I was comparing the pattern of the companies' growth and changing management over the years. That's why I included Google.