

Bill Gates is officially redeemed from presentation purgatory - FraaJad
http://blog.duarte.com/2010/02/news-alert-bill-gates-is-officially-redeemed-from-presentation-purgatory/

======
mcormier
Whoever did the slides did a great job.

~~~
conover
While the pictures are cool, I feel that using them as the background for some
of the slides distracting. For instance, on the slide that says "26 billion
tons of CO2" with the sun peaking around the earth, does the background
picture really add much?

~~~
philk
I think they're so many light years ahead of "here's a whole fuckload of text"
that it doesn't really matter.

And if you're going to have slides which don't have lots of bullet points you
need something to give them visual panache.

~~~
wallflower
Just submitted this, a personal favorite.

Ten amazing presenters and their presentations. Many different styles.

Steve Jobs, Dick Hardt, Guy Kawasaki, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lawrence
Lessig, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Andy Kaufman, Rupert Everett

[http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-
presentati...](http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-
presentations-ever/)

Also, the 10 best that the Readers nominated. Hans Roling, Sir Ken Robinson,
Al Gore, Majora Carter, John F. Kennedy, My Name is Joe?, Ze Frank, Douglas
Englebart, Steve Jobs, and lastly, Crosby, Stills & Nash

[http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/10/01/top-10-best-
presentati...](http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/10/01/top-10-best-
presentations-the-readers-choice/)

------
tsally
Lawrence Lessig does presentations like this [1]; I've always been a fan.

A great example of this type of presentation done well is Cal Handerson's
keynote at Djangocon in 2008 [2], "Why I Hate Django". Previous discussion on
this presentation here [3].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Lessig_Method>

[2] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk>

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=305630>

------
acg
Looks great.

I heard in an interview once that Gates would like to win a Nobel prize. This
looks like the vice president's route.

------
ghshephard
Unfortunately, his basic premise is incorrect. Key to every Carbon Management
program I've ever read about involves Carbon Sequestration - I.E. Net Negative
Carbon reduction. (Think about Planting Trees, growing carbon hungry algae,
etc..)

Still, a really great presentation.

~~~
roc
Sequestration without first bringing production to zero is a Sisyphean
endeavor.

~~~
ghshephard
That doesn't make a lot of logical sense. If I can develop an economy in which
my gross reduction is 10x my gross production of carbon, resulting in a 9x NET
reduction of carbon - why does it really matter if my Carbon Production is
zero or not?

People tend to lose sight of the fact that it's NET reduction of carbon that
we're interested in, not GROSS reduction. I'm fine with an industry putting a
million tons of Carbon into the atmosphere as long as it pulls out 1.1 million
tons through some mechanism.

The fact that Bill's entire presentation is based on a false premise, and that
nobody in this thread other than me has called him on it, is disturbing.

Pretty slide presentation aside.

~~~
roc
Was it a false premise to rein in toxic waste dumping, rather than just
concentrating on clean-up technologies?

There's that old adage about 'an ounce of prevention', which I think is even
more apt in cases such as this, where the 'pound of cure' is an as-yet-
undeveloped technology.

Mathematically, yes, you could focus on sequestration. But policy-wise, it's
inviting disaster to defer today's problems as something to be solved with
tomorrow's advancements.

And even if a suitable 'pound of cure' is found, it will almost certainly be
dramatically more expensive to fix the problem, to say nothing of fixing the
collateral damage caused in the interim.

------
psycandrew
Gates Favorite statistics is Childhood Deaths... Guess all that thrash metal
never leaves the blood.
(<http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bill_gates_unplugged.html>)

~~~
philwelch
I don't understand the thrash metal reference but I'm curious. Google only
leads me back here.

------
mrshoe
I don't know what exactly was lacking from Bill's software presentations, but
I really don't think it was passion about the subject matter.

~~~
FraaJad
He has come a long way since this:
[http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/it_...](http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/it_was_one_of_t.html)

------
aresant
His presentation asthetic reminds me of the Bing.com interface which in turn
reminds me of Corbis - which Gates privately owns.

He's always had a passion for imaging, interesting to see it just appearing in
his presentations and in modern Microsoft products . . .

~~~
joezydeco
I thought he created Corbis because he wanted to corner the digital art market
for picture frames and wall displays.

The technology didn't catch up so Corbis became a stock photography house.

~~~
aresant
You're probably right. I remember reading in his book "the road ahead" about
his obsession with actually using the Corbis collection in his own home, with
photos that updated all over the walls etc . . .

------
rbanffy
More like "Bill Gates no longer makes his own PPTs"

~~~
brown9-2
You think he made them himself when he was presenting Microsoft corporate
stuff?

If anything, the difference is now he can have a small team of professionals
helping him, compared with a bureaucratic army of Microsoft's marketing
department.

~~~
rbanffy
No marketing department could be that incompetent. Remember: they graduated in
marketing and should have strong communication skills.

~~~
brown9-2
Decision made by committee can lead to really crazy things

------
mrcharles
Is there video of this presentation online?

~~~
MikeCapone
No yet afaik.

When there is, it will be at <http://www.ted.com/talks>

------
vladimiroane
Amazing slides indeed!

