
A Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein That Bill Gates Now ‘Regrets’ - claudeganon
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html
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drcode
Just curious, why are most people in 2019 so convinced that Bill Gates is "the
worlds greatest guy"? Don't we have plenty of evidence of a long history of
shady business practices (that really only ended around 1998 when Microsoft
lost their stranglehold on the computer industry due to the internet) and
isn't it likely that Bill Gates most likely has the world's greatest PR team?
Also, do we have any evidence that Bill Gates is a generous guy when he isn't
attaching his name to it for self promotion?

I'm sincerely asking these questions: I agree he seems like an OK guy these
days... but the rational part of me kinda wonders what evidence we have that
he isn't just the product of a giant PR campaign.

~~~
rayiner
What did Bill Gates do in the 1990s? Bundle IE with Windows? Pay Dell not to
install BeOS? Maybe those are antitrust violations, and bad business conduct,
but they’re not inherently immoral. Meanwhile, spending billions and tons of
personal time and expertise to solve world problems is inherently moral.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
The fact that you're quite flippant about MS's conduct in the 90s makes me
think that Gates' PR _has_ been amazingly successful. Does no one remember the
default Borg icon for MS stories on Slashdot?

Here's another great example:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_i...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_incompatibility/)
. MS _deliberately_ displayed false incompatibility error messages when
Windows detected it was being run on DR-DOS instead of MS-DOS in an effort to
crush any fair competition. MS was absolutely ruthless in the 90s, and I can
only hope you are younger than 30ish or so if you don't think MS's behavior
then was immoral. It's interesting to me that Google gets so much shit for
their practices these days on HN when MS was easily an order of magnitude
worse in the 90s.

~~~
drcode
> Does no one remember the default Borg icon for MS stories on Slashdot?

Drcode remembers...

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breck
This is an interesting read, but I don't think it's fair to judge someone by
who they hung out with a few times. I wish we didn't live in a world where
someone has to say they "Regret" hanging out with someone.

If you could not hang out with people that have made mistakes, you could not
hang out _with anyone_. If you could not hang out with people who have
criminal records, among the people you could not hang out with would be MLK.

I grew up in a poorer city where a few of the people I hung out with are in
jail for long sentences, or drug dealers, or dead from drugs. Do I regret
hanging out with them? No. If you run away from anything you are told is bad
or evil you are going to live in a bubble. That shows cowardice and not
courage. Better to use your brain and think for yourself (and not _engage_ in
the bad behavior or condone it, but not flip the bozo bit on anyone who has
been accused of anything). Does that mean I'm a bad person? Do Emily Flitter
and James B. Stewart only hang out with perfect angels?

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blazespin
Presumably there is a lot more the NYT didn't report because it was
unsubstantiated. You don't write these kind of pieces against someone super
powerful for no reason.

~~~
craigc
I agree there is a lot they left out, but as I posted elsewhere in this
thread, I think the Times actually went _extremely_ lightly on Bill Gates. It
read to me like his PR team authored it. Seems almost like they are trying to
get ahead of some new information that may soon come to light.

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craigc
This piece reads like it was authored by Bill Gates’ PR team. The Times has to
do better than this. They do not question a single assertion and take it all
as fact.

> Ms. Arnold said Mr. Gates and the foundation had been unaware that Mr.
> Epstein had been seeking any fee.

> Some of the Gates Foundation employees said they had been unaware of Mr.
> Epstein’s criminal record and had been shocked to learn that the foundation
> was working with a sex offender.

> In March 2013, Mr. Gates flew on Mr. Epstein’s Gulfstream plane from
> Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach, Fla., according to a flight
> manifest. Ms. Arnold said Mr. Gates — who has his own $40 million jet —
> hadn’t been aware it was Mr. Epstein’s plane.

> Mr. Epstein complained to an acquaintance at the end of 2014 that Mr. Gates
> had stopped talking to him, according to a person familiar with the
> discussion.

Obviously, everyone is in damage control mode and looking to distance
themselves from Epstein, but there is a very good chance that Bill Gates and
others knew exactly what he was involved in and went along with it anyway.

How do you fly on someone’s private plane without realizing it is their plane?

~~~
ryanlol
>How do you fly on someone’s private plane without realizing it is their
plane?

Easily, you just assume it’s a charter. When you fly on private jets every day
you stop thinking about these things really fast.

~~~
craigc
Haha. I clearly do not have any experience in that area, but I guess that does
make some sense.

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cperciva
Did Bill Gates ignore some warning signs? Sure. On the other hand, Jeffrey
Epstein from all appearances was a billionaire who was close to many other
wealthy and influential individuals, and claimed that he wanted to help the
Gates Foundation. When you're spending your days talking to people and saying
"for every X dollars you give us, we can save another life" you probably end
up looking at things differently.

If I were in Bill Gates' shoes and thought there was a chance that Jeffrey
Epstein would provide (personally and via his connections) enough money to
save hundreds of thousands of lives... honestly? I would absolutely ignore the
"convicted sex offender" thing too. Because, you know, hundreds of thousands
of lives.

~~~
simplicio
Does Gates really need help networking with wealthy people? If Gates wants to
talk some oil tycoon or whatever into donating cash, wouldn't he be better off
just asking himself instead of sending a convicted sex-offender in his place.

~~~
cperciva
_Does Gates really need help networking with wealthy people?_

You might be surprised. I'm sure that Gates can pick up a phone, say "I want
to talk to Mr. X" and one of his flunkies will make it happen; but
introductions are incredibly important -- especially if you're _asking_ for
something.

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catalogia
I thought the relationship between Epstein and Gates was meant to be mostly
bullshit, with Epstein harassing Bill Gates on a handful of occasions then
bragging to other people that he was friends with Bill.

That's the story I heard a few weeks ago anyway.

~~~
simplicio
According to the article, Gates visited Epstein in Epstein's apartment several
times. So that doesn't really square with Gate's being an unwilling
participant.

It's a weird story. It's hard to imagine Gates, whose foundation is the
largest charitable organization in the world, really needed Epsteins advice on
setting up charitable funds, which seems to be the official line. And Gates
certainly wouldn't need help networking or coming up with $$.

~~~
AndrewBissell
Gates probably needed something else from Epstein, likely having to do with
his ties to intelligence agencies.

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smacktoward
I imagine that anyone who had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein now regrets
it. Funny how none of them discovered those regrets after Epstein hit the
front pages.

~~~
drcode
To be fair, I'm sure some people regretted it earlier in private, before there
was an expectation to put their opinions into the public record.

~~~
smacktoward
The question isn't putting their opinions into the public record, it's the
wisdom of maintaining the relationship in the first place.

Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking in 2008, eleven years before his
story became national news. A cursory Google search of his name anytime after
his conviction would have turned that up. And yet all these luminaries were
happy to continue keeping his company and taking his money through those
eleven years -- until he became a public relations liability.

Even if they privately had regrets about maintaining a relationship with
Epstein, clearly those regrets weren't strong enough for any of them to
actually, you know, _do_ anything.

~~~
miracle2k
He was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution, with there being public
accusations of underage prostitution, something that Epstein claimed however
to be not aware of. See [1].

Given that people convicted of crimes such as prostitution deserve to be re-
integrated into society rather than being shunned, it's not clear you can
accuse Bill Gates of much except maybe taking on a PR risk to himself to be
kind to another human being. I am assuming he did not have a relationship with
Epstein for the money.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/02/usa.internatio...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/02/usa.internationalcrime1)

~~~
AndrewBissell
The conviction was for solicitation of an underaged prostitute.

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blazespin
NYT hopefully has a lot more they aren't reporting. I'd hate to think they'd
write an article like this just because they met a few times. But who knows
with NYT these days.

Not that I want Bill to be the bad guy, but if he is, it should come up.
Enough with the preying on the vulnerable. This is 2019

Is it me or is it pretty obvious that Epstein's ploy was to implicitly
blackmail rich people after seducing them with young women? reply

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onetimemanytime
I wouldn't be surprised if Bill was blackmailed at some point, being human and
all. Even if the woman was 18 and a day, it would still hurt Bill's
reputation, on many counts (why would an old man want to sleep with such a
young woman, for one?). And we know that there's no real difference between an
17.5 year old and an 18 year old. But one might send you to jail...

From our chairs it's easy to say how dare he but ...

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kgarten
Why is this post flagged?

