If ever someone got more attention than he deserved, other than our current president, it is probably Bill Gates. He's been viewed as one of the seminal geniuses of the PC revolution, along with Stephen Jobs, when in fact neither one of them had much to do with the development of the personal computer and accompanying software other than to successfully market it. Their "genius," if you can call it that, lies in their entrepreneurial skills, not their programming or even their development skills.
Gates moved out of Jobs' sizable shadow, when the apple founder died nine years ago. The media has come to treat Gates as a modern-day Marshall McLuhan, having helped realize the late Canadian philosopher's "global village." The funny part is that Gates didn't even design the platform on which this village is based. That credit belongs to Gary Kildall and Tim Paterson.
As far as Jobs' personal computer, that credit should go to Xerox PARC, where it was first developed but few thought the PC would fly as it was too costly to ever reach consumers in a big number. Jobs found a way to make it more compact and affordable, thanks to his partner Gary Wozniak, and unleashed his first Mac on the world in 1984, a very propitious year. It wasn't like we hadn't seen previous generations, namely the Commodore, but they couldn't do what the Mac did, and hence a revolution was born.
The only problem with Jobs' vision is that he put all his apples in one basket. He thought his Mac would overtake all other personal computers on the market and he would be king. Gates outsmarted him, making Windows compatible with any computer, thereby allowing any company to have access to this burgeoning new market. It was less a battle between two genius computer programmers as it was a battle between two daring young entrepreneurs.
In the end, both won. Gates had a much broader market, but Jobs cultivated a phenomenally lucrative niche market that worships his apple products in a way Gates could only dream of.
Along the way, both stifled competitors with a ruthless zeal you previously found only on Wall Street. They either acquired or crushed any start-up that posed a challenge, making Silicon Valley one of the most ruthless places on earth to do business. Mike Judge has comically brought this nerdfest to life in his HBO television series over the past six years. But, if you want a deeper inside look, then watch the PBS documentary series from 20+ years ago, Triumph of the Nerds.
Bill dropped out of the game in 2014 to devote his energies full time to philanthropic works. He and his wife had created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, which has over $46 billion in assets. Their focus has been on the developing world, sponsoring all kinds of badly needed projects to "empower the poorest." Yet, over the past 20 years his personal wealth hasn't diminished, but rather increased tremendously for a man who purportedly contributes more than 45 percent of his wealth to charitable causes.
If you look at the list of generous tech billionaires compiled by Business Insider, you will see that most of these guys contribute less than five percent of their personal wealth. Jack Dorsey made a big splash recently by announcing on twitter that he was moving 28 percent of his personal wealth to #startsmall to help fund a number of global efforts, including the battle against COVID-19. However, if these geeky robber barons would just pay their taxes they would be contributing far more to national health, education and welfare. This doesn't even consider Liz Warren's proposed wealth tax that they all rebelled against.
Bill is seen each year at Davos, the Galt's Gulch of contemporary titans of the universe, influencing the way governments do business, much like Ayn Rand had imagined in Atlas Shrugged. He is often pushing his philanthropic efforts, encouraging other billionaires to join him, as he helps provide better sanitation for the third world and fight tuberculosis, among other viral diseases. But, what is the underlying motive here? Surely, these billionaires are not simply looking for tax write-offs each year. There must be some financial gain from all these philanthropic efforts?
To hear Bill, there is not. He's just trying to make the world a better place to live, along with his buddy Warren Buffett, who has similarly invested a huge portion of his personal wealth in philanthropic efforts, and has used Berkshire Hathaway to invest in a large number of renewable energy projects, notably wind and solar power.
I just don't buy it. Much of this information technology revolution today relies on precious minerals from a handful of countries. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of these countries. Powerful countries and corporations are fighting over this beleaguered African nation, among others, in a bid to control this precious mineral market. It seems to me that Bill is trying to win the hearts of minds of Africans, much like China has been trying to do for the past 30+ years, with the hope of being able to exploit these precious resources to further his company's interests.
Even if he is this great polymath and philanthropist that we are led to believe in documentaries like Inside Bill's Brain, these ideas all came from somewhere else. He didn't invent a TB vaccine. He simply provided a more effective means of distributing it. Imagine how profitable that might be when it comes to delivering testing kits and eventually a vaccine for COVID-19?
No one's intentions are pure, and certainly not Bill Gates' intentions. This guy stands in a very enviable place among the richest most powerful men in the world, and he is using that platform for a wide variety of purposes.
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