Things like this are neat because they remind folks that tech titans, billionaires, celebrities, and the like are, at the end of the day, people too -- not that dissimilar from everyone else. It's so easy to forget that.
It's awesome that Bill Gates decided to participate in the gift exchange.
This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International.
So, yeah, he's a regular dude in a lot of ways. He's also still a ruthless billionaire who created a company that was known for crushing its competitors.
People are complicated, and just because he can be nice doesn't mean that he's not other things too.
During his tenure at Microsoft, I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. He crushed competitors into the ground and punished his enemies with reckless abandon.
He now seems like a nice guy, in large part because he can afford to be. He has no competitors, and his only agenda is to give away his billions. If I had that much money and was retired, you would rarely find me in a bad mood either.
True, but don't forget people can also act egoistically or produce harm to others completely on purpose too, just to say that this gift doesn't automatically makes Bill a good person in average, nor his bad actions from the past make this gift dishonest.
Well, maybe it reminds you of that. As for myself, it reminds me that Bill Gates has a PR agency working for him that engages in stuff like this as a way to "relate to the community".
As a different way of expressing the same thought: Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now.
I'm sure he's a nice guy, likes puppies, Mom, and apple pie, but you need to be aware how public relations works if you're going to have any hope of mentally combating its power.
That's a fun gift. I used to get solicitations from Heifer international years ago, and the sad thing is that they advertise themselves such that if you donate 50 dollars, a family will get a flock of chickens; if you donate 100 dollars, a family will get a baby goat. Etc, etc. But all the money goes into a common fund.
I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it. On the other hand, I suppose Bill's underlings conduct proper due diligence.
I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it.
Amusingly, this exact issue, of Heifer International putting money into a common fund vs. buying a water buffalo as expected, led Philip Greenspun to make a blog post on Dec. 26, 2006 (which I just stumbled on yesterday) wherein he wrote, "We are trying to decide if this is the crummiest possible Christmas present."
Then he went on to he ask what it would mean to actually buy water buffaloes for poor families. It turns out, a guy named Robert Thompson, an American living with his Chinese wife in China, left an informed answer in the comments and, long story short, Greenspun and his business partner put up the money and Thompson, with the help of his wife and her family, bought a deserving family a real live water buffalo.
You can read about it (be sure to read comment #1, which is from Thompson) and/or watch the short film Thompson made of the buying and presenting of the animal to a Chinese family, which shows the impact such a gift can have:
Looks like they've had a drastic drop in rating from Charity Navigator, from 4/4 stars to 2. Apparently due to them spending 22% of their income on fund raising [1]. This is the first I've heard of them and I may still give just because I like the idea.
It would be ridiculously inefficient to literally use your money to buy the chickens or whatever. So yes, it's abstracted a bit, but so is every charity.
I wonder if there is a generational difference between people, say, 30+ and the under 30's of their view of Bill Gates?
For people my age he was "evil" personified during the Netscape/IE/Anti-Trust era. I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist?
As for me, if he keeps this up I'm going to have to start liking the guy :-)
I'm way over 30 and I've always had a positive view of Gates. That's largely because I don't view business competition as a gentlemen's duel. It really is cutthroat as hell. In my early 20s I found the strategy docs for my mega-tech corp on an insecure network drive. Spent the weekend learning about how companies really compete: backroom deals, legal maneuvers, strange contracts, and even political pressure. Very few companies can be the Ghandi of the Fortune 500.
Everytime Gates is mentioned on HN we get the exact same 200 comments detailing his alleged crimes. Gates bought a cow? Sure, but he killed Netscape. Gates built an AIDS research center? Sure, but he added the Office ribbon. Can't we all calm the fuck down and just appreciate 1 rich dude trying to do some good his own way?
> I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist
From personal experience, almost exclusively.
The difference is more marked outside the tech sector, too. None of my acquaintances in the 19-30 age range outside the tech industry consider Gates evil, and many love him.
Within the tech industry, I can think of one acquaintance within that age range who considers Gates evil -- and he is exactly 30.
It's difficult for people of my generation to quite understand Microsoft's wrongdoing during that period, when now the company's not nearly so powerful. The 'evil' all seems quite abstract and far away, while the Gates foundation seems to have much more direct results.
My results are skewed because I know an awful lot of people who work for charities and non-profits, who'll naturally have a better opinion of someone who works in the same (ish) sector.
When I was at Microsoft, I actually remember Bill talking about how he's a hard person to buy gifts for. I think he said (I could be misremembering this) that he doesn't watch certain TV shows he really enjoys because he wants to be gifted the DVDs. He specifically mentioned 24.
I know he also really enjoys DVDs from the Teaching Company and has a pretty extensive collection.
A note, which will attempt to explain him how his 'Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help'[1] and Open source movement are basically one and the same.
His recent Wired guest-editor issue talked about his passion for books, I'd look through the books he has and pick out a couple of my favourites that he hopefully hasn't read yet.
Not just his mother. It was his father who instilled in Bill the need to do something good for the world. Bill Gates Sr. was also in charge of the charitable giving when Bill Gates Jr. (fun little piece of trivia: nicknamed "Trey" in his family to avoid confusion) was still very much involved in the day to day running of Microsoft.
After a gushing review of how great Bill was and what a wonderful experience. "...ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward..."
This was a great article, and a reminder that the internet allows us to make a difference in people's lives in ways we never could before.
Reddit Secret Santa is definitely a very cool project. Kudos to Bill and all the others for participating. Though as other people have mentioned Heifer spends quite a bit of money on advertising, like most other charities I suppose. My roommate donated $10 about a year or 2 ago for a contest and every other week we receive letters, magazines, and photos asking for more money (way more than $10 worth of material). It would be sweet to see a charity spend their money on the actual cause rather than just promotional material.
[+] [-] sethbannon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knowtheory|12 years ago|reply
This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International.
So, yeah, he's a regular dude in a lot of ways. He's also still a ruthless billionaire who created a company that was known for crushing its competitors.
People are complicated, and just because he can be nice doesn't mean that he's not other things too.
[+] [-] Laremere|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|12 years ago|reply
He now seems like a nice guy, in large part because he can afford to be. He has no competitors, and his only agenda is to give away his billions. If I had that much money and was retired, you would rarely find me in a bad mood either.
[+] [-] CurtMonash|12 years ago|reply
It was a good wake-up call for me; I'd been pulling some of the same BS he had. I like to think I've treated my romantic partners better ever since.
[+] [-] pablovidal85|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kro0ub|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jellicle|12 years ago|reply
As a different way of expressing the same thought: Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now.
I'm sure he's a nice guy, likes puppies, Mom, and apple pie, but you need to be aware how public relations works if you're going to have any hope of mentally combating its power.
[+] [-] mynameishere|12 years ago|reply
I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it. On the other hand, I suppose Bill's underlings conduct proper due diligence.
[+] [-] qohen|12 years ago|reply
Amusingly, this exact issue, of Heifer International putting money into a common fund vs. buying a water buffalo as expected, led Philip Greenspun to make a blog post on Dec. 26, 2006 (which I just stumbled on yesterday) wherein he wrote, "We are trying to decide if this is the crummiest possible Christmas present."
Then he went on to he ask what it would mean to actually buy water buffaloes for poor families. It turns out, a guy named Robert Thompson, an American living with his Chinese wife in China, left an informed answer in the comments and, long story short, Greenspun and his business partner put up the money and Thompson, with the help of his wife and her family, bought a deserving family a real live water buffalo.
You can read about it (be sure to read comment #1, which is from Thompson) and/or watch the short film Thompson made of the buying and presenting of the animal to a Chinese family, which shows the impact such a gift can have:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2006/12/26/water-buffalo-...
[+] [-] xhrpost|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...
[+] [-] acheron|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qq66|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monksy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bambax|12 years ago|reply
> ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward.
[+] [-] gadders|12 years ago|reply
For people my age he was "evil" personified during the Netscape/IE/Anti-Trust era. I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist?
As for me, if he keeps this up I'm going to have to start liking the guy :-)
[+] [-] silverlake|12 years ago|reply
Everytime Gates is mentioned on HN we get the exact same 200 comments detailing his alleged crimes. Gates bought a cow? Sure, but he killed Netscape. Gates built an AIDS research center? Sure, but he added the Office ribbon. Can't we all calm the fuck down and just appreciate 1 rich dude trying to do some good his own way?
[+] [-] James_Duval|12 years ago|reply
From personal experience, almost exclusively.
The difference is more marked outside the tech sector, too. None of my acquaintances in the 19-30 age range outside the tech industry consider Gates evil, and many love him.
Within the tech industry, I can think of one acquaintance within that age range who considers Gates evil -- and he is exactly 30.
It's difficult for people of my generation to quite understand Microsoft's wrongdoing during that period, when now the company's not nearly so powerful. The 'evil' all seems quite abstract and far away, while the Gates foundation seems to have much more direct results.
My results are skewed because I know an awful lot of people who work for charities and non-profits, who'll naturally have a better opinion of someone who works in the same (ish) sector.
[+] [-] ZoFreX|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sriramk|12 years ago|reply
I know he also really enjoys DVDs from the Teaching Company and has a pretty extensive collection.
[+] [-] stevenj|12 years ago|reply
I'd also include a personal write-up as to why I enjoyed each, without giving away any important details.
[+] [-] kamaal|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bill-gates-wired-essay...
[+] [-] tjmc|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] endgame|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cLeEOGPw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlees|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meowface|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chippy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CurtMonash|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shdon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankydp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] socalnate1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sifarat|12 years ago|reply
Point. He is just being what everyone else us are here. a normal human being.
[+] [-] csmuk|12 years ago|reply
1. A pig foetus preserved in alcohol.
2. A selection of root vegetables, petroleum jelly and gloves.
[+] [-] kylelibra|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rschmitty|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|12 years ago|reply
This was a great article, and a reminder that the internet allows us to make a difference in people's lives in ways we never could before.
[+] [-] joshaidan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tossrock|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mburst|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnator|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidgerard|12 years ago|reply
GEEKS! When you're rich and famous, REMEMBER TO STILL DO COOL STUFF!
[+] [-] Julianhearn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|12 years ago|reply