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Comment by penprog | Hacker News Reader

His charity (while good for the world) doesn't undo the damage he caused when he was CEO of Microsoft.

I'd also question what damage he did as MS CEO that can in any way take away from the good his foundation is doing/has done.

I'm generally opposed to the idea that people can crush others in their pursuit of wealth, and then become "good" now that they are part of the uber-rich (and can afford to just toss money around). It encourages the idea that the ends justify the means.

It's business - you play to the limit of the rules and if you break them then you try your best not to get caught.

MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.

> MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.

Companies run by robots, I suppose.

No, run by people - as your facetious comment sarcastically points out.

However, it is entirely possible for these people to get another job.

So, because people can "always get another job", you think it's right that Microsoft under Bill Gates (unethically) crushed the companies that they put their time, money and effort into? Man you must be drinking some crazy corporate kool aid

Yes.

A company is not a person, a person is not a company. Attacking one should not be considered the same as attacking another, our entire economic system is based around the abstraction of organization so as to shield people from legal liabilities incurred by simply pursuing trade. You can't have it both ways, to both enjoy the legal benefits of a corporate structure, and then to be able to claim public sympathy when you get beaten in the market.

Corporate personhood is a dangerous legal concept that Americans believe in for unfathomable reasons, and it causes all sorts of ethical problems, particularly legalization of political manipulations that are considered corruption in other parts of the world.

The idea that "it's just business" so it's ok to do anything and everything that you can get away with (up to and including breaking the law) is a harmful idea. "Crushing" other businesses by participating fairly in the market is different than using under-handed tactics to win at all costs ("history is written by the victors," "might makes right" and all that).

Not drinking kool aid - just have a realistic understanding of how business works.

I never said it took away from the good. I said that the damage he caused doesn't disappear because he is doing good.

What damage. How did it impact you.

Well, ms crippled the web as an application development target by freezing ie for somewhere between 5 and 10 years, in order to support their desktop software monopoly. A monopoly that used to cost on the order of $100+ per pc. So they got probably an extra $400 from me.

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