
I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. AMA - taylorbuley
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/
======
dm8
Wow, Bill Gates thinks his portrayal in Pirates of Silicon Valley was very
accurate
([http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_c...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/c8ddpwq?context=3)).

Even Woz had said that the film accurately portrayed all the personalities.

However, we should appreciate Bill for his honesty. He is not shown in good
light in that movie.

~~~
angersock
Honestly, of the two icons shown in the movie, I'd rather take Gates to dinner
over Jobs. Sure, he's shown as being a conniving schemer, but at the same time
much less of a reprehensible human being (PoSV was not kind in its depiction
of Job's handling of his daughter).

~~~
Samuel_Michon
From the IAmA:

 _Q: "How was your relationship with Steve jobs? I always hoped that y'all
were really good friends and competitors."

A: "He and I respected each other. Our biggest joint project was the Mac where
Microsoft had more people on the project than Apple did as we wrote a lot of
applications."_

So Bill might be giving away some money nowadays, his character doesn't seem
to have changed much, still taking credit where it isn't due.

~~~
phaus
All I have to go on is a handful of interviews, but I've never seen Steve Jobs
act like anything other than a condescending douche bag towards Bill Gates and
Microsoft.

Anyone know if there's any public evidence that they shared a mutual respect?
If there is, I'd like to read / watch it.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Well, Walt Mossberg interviewed both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5 in 2007.
The gents seemed to have fun, and they complimented each other plenty.

Video:
[http://allthingsd.com/video/?video_id=60C4F9FA-9AD5-4D04-8BB...](http://allthingsd.com/video/?video_id=60C4F9FA-9AD5-4D04-8BB6-015AEBB1C052)

Transcript: <http://allthingsd.com/20070531/d5-gates-jobs-transcript/>

~~~
phaus
Thanks. I'm not surprised that it exists, I just think the media likes showing
the clips where Steve is busting Bill's balls over Windows supposed
inferiority.

I'm going go finish the video now. I appreciate it.

------
larrywright
Post-Microsoft Bill Gates is a much more interesting person. I'm not a
Microsoft fan, but I have a huge amount of respect for how he's choosing to
spend the money he made. Interesting contrast to Larry Ellison, for example.

~~~
perry5000
Larry Ellison has put virtually all of his assets into a trust with the intent
of giving away 95% of his money to charitable causes when he dies.

~~~
smackfu
What's he using to buy all his boy's toys, like yachts and plans and sports
cars? Or is that just a meaningless percentage of his wealth?

~~~
sliverstorm
The man has a net worth of $41B. 5% of his wealth is still $2B.

I don't know about you, but I don't begrudge a man worth $41B who plans to
give away nearly all his wealth, a yacht or two.

------
bcoates
Bill Gates showing off his baller touchscreen is priceless:
<http://i.imgur.com/1JqrLVc.jpg>

~~~
recoiledsnake
Fanboys and haters flagging this HN article is more priceless to me.

Grow up guys, you can upvote your Apple and Google posts all you want, you
don't need to go out of your way to flag this post out of spite and abuse your
moderator privileges.

~~~
marknutter
If I could go a week without someone on HN using the word "fanboy" I'd be a
happy man.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Yet, you seem to be okay with the folks who flag this story.

What do you call people who go out of their way to flag even product
announcements and posts like this? Tech enthusiasts? I'll be happy to use a
less abrasive substitute.

~~~
marknutter
No, I think that's pretty lame too.

------
kunai
I created a Reddit account simply for this moment.

Amazing. Bill has had his fair share of flak and has made some decisions in
his career that I wouldn't approve of, and I am not particularly a fan of
Microsoft, but his humility, modesty, and great work has made him one of my
greatest inspirations.

He's a multi-billionaire with a heart that is worth so much more.

------
sukuriant
They've already said it on Reddit; but, he has to be the fastest Reddit AMA
that I've ever paid attention to. He's responding to so much, so quickly; and
a lot of the questions don't seem like ones he could pass off to someone else,
not to mention the wording, etc seems consistent throughout.

~~~
mkr-hn
The enormous touchscreen probably helps.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
How so? I seriously doubt he's typing on that 82" touchscreen, it wouldn't be
very fast and it'd be hard to keep up. So if he uses an external keyboard, how
does using that giant gimmick help him in answering quickly?

EDIT: Ah, I didn't notice the sarcasm tags, +1.

~~~
mkr-hn
That was humor.

------
dylangs1030
I just finished reading the entire AMA.

If there's anyone who doesn't want to dig deep into the comments, here's a
cool thing:

Bill Gates intends to eradicate Polio within the next _six years_ and then
eradicate Malaria within his lifetime.

Kudos, Bill.

~~~
mratzloff
That would be an incredible legacy if he can achieve it.

------
vijayr
Q: "Anything left on your bucket list?"

A: "Don't die..."

He has some humor too :P

~~~
pcrh
Q. What do people give you for your birthday, given that you can buy anything
you want?

A.Free software. Just kidding.

Books actually.

~~~
kostya-kow
I will send him a Trisquel GNU/Hurd CD for his birthday :p.

------
orangethirty
I just asked him the following question: _Do you still program?_ I have always
been incredibly interested to find that out.

~~~
Edootjuh
I was very surprised he said Basic.

Of course, he presume he doesn't do much hard core software engineering
anymore, but I assumed that family was pretty much a thing of the past (and
legacy code).

~~~
astine
Gates founded Microsoft to sell a Basic interpreter. His company spent a lot
of time keeping Basic as a core part of its line up long after it was
considered passé. I suspect that Gates has some nostalgia for it.

~~~
0x0
Yeah, Microsoft really is the "BASIC company". From the early 8bit machines
(did you know the Commodore 64 BASIC ROM is (c) Microsoft?) through qbasic and
all the way up to visual basic and VBA...

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Not just the Commodore; the Apple II, TRS-80, and MSX all used Microsoft's
BASIC in one form or another. It shouldn't be any surprise at all that their
dev tools continue to be rather well done (regardless of what you think of the
platform they're on)

------
grimlck
I really wish reddit had a better interface to see the questions and Bill's
answers all at once without scrolling through random comments.

Why hasn't reddit's AMA been surpassed by a dedicated AMA site with a user
interface designed for AMA?

~~~
kmfrk
Remember <http://formspring.me>?

I think there just aren't enough interesting people doing Q&As for a business
model based on this to make much sense.

Reddit's AMA format is pretty bad, especially if it's a woman/girl answering
questions, though.

~~~
andrewguenther
I'm curious what someone's sex has to do with their ability to conduct an
AMA...

~~~
georgemcbay
I think what he meant is that if a girl is giving an AMA she gets a lot of off
topic "wow you're hot" type posts from the peanut gallery, something that
wouldn't happen if the system were more moderated. OTOH, the lack of
moderation is part of the charm of AMAs IMO even though it does result in the
trolls being trolls.

(The "Woody Harrelson"/Rampart AMAs would be the norm if not for the chaotic
nature of reddit).

~~~
kmfrk
"Charming", sure. Must be great for women to sift through comments like

    
    
        I would like to marry you... or just buy a pair of your
        used undies. It's funny that people actually do that.
    

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/17yd4k/iam_emmy_rossum...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/17yd4k/iam_emmy_rossum_actress_in_shameless_and/c89zcxu?context=3)

Just hi-larious.

~~~
georgemcbay
I'm not suggesting they are all charming, some of them are pretty terrible,
but that's the price you pay for having relatively free speech. While
moderating the questions would eliminate posts like the one you linked, it
would also eliminate ones which aren't terrible but are certainly "off the
script" of what would be asked if everything were cleanly moderated.

~~~
kmfrk
I don't see anything to support that.

And if it's a trade-off where more "impulsive" comments are deleted, then I
prefer that to subjecting female respondents to constant come-ons from
pubescent, sad human beings.

I think it's clear what Emmy Rossum prefers.

~~~
fyi80
It seems that Emmy Rossum prefered Reddit's version, not the version you
prefer.

Emmy Rossum went to reddit for an AMA, and used the site's commenting
functionality to ask people not to be rude. She did not cancel her AMA, ask to
have the rude comments deleted, etc.

~~~
kmfrk
Awesome victim-blaming right there. Good grief.

------
danso
I wish Reddit implemented a more...un-arbitrary way of calculating upvotes.
Gates currently has 6,211 net upvotes, with a total of 11,500 upvotes.

That's already almost half the _net upvotes_ of what Obama got:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obam...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obama_president_of_the_united_states/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=feed)

But Obama's IAMA got _239,221_ upvotes total. Which means he got 225K
downvotes...which I guess is feasible, but for all we know, that was just an
arbitrary result Reddit's strange algorithm of adding downvotes to obscure the
upvote count.

I guess it doesn't matter in the end, it just seems that upvotes should be a
real reflection of how liked (or polarizing) a thread/discussion was.

~~~
freebsd
"For all we know"? They explicitly state [0] that upvotes and downvotes are
fuzzed, it really isn't a matter of some weird machination.

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_a_submission.27s_...](http://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_a_submission.27s_score_determined.3F)

~~~
danso
Yes...I don't think I was clear enough about what I meant, in a statistical
sense. I know that upvotes/downvotes are added artificially. I'm saying, it's
hard to gauge the real ratio of upvotes to downvotes with this fuzz.

The FAQ you linked to gives this example: a submission with 5 upvotes and 3
downvotes may be tweaked to say 23 upvotes and 21 downvotes.

So the net number of upvotes remains the same. But the ratio of approval, a
statistic that is prominently listed for each submission, changes:

    
    
         5 / (5+3) = 62.5%
         23 / (21+23) = 52.5%
    
    

I thought I had also read that, in earlier implementations of the fuzz,
upvotes were either removed, or downvotes added, so that doing an all-time
view of popular posts would not completely consist of new posts (because the
reddit user base is much bigger than it was several years ago, so a relatively
mediocre post could garner more upvotes than a very good older post).

~~~
Karunamon
>I'm saying, it's hard to gauge the real ratio of upvotes to downvotes with
this fuzz.

This is the entire point.

That said, I wish they'd just ban spammers and give everyone accurate metrics.

~~~
SquareWheel
Are you suggesting they _allow_ spammers? Every time I remove a spammer post I
submit it to /r/ReportTheSpammers, and they get killed almost immediately.
What else can they do outside of that? Not allow new users to vote and
comments?

The best they can do is make spammers be unclear on if they're having any
effect or not, by obscuring votes, or by secretly banning them without them
realizing.

It's a tough problem to get right, especially without making the experience
worse for everybody else. I think they've found a happy medium.

~~~
Karunamon
_> Are you suggesting they allow spammers?_

... for crying out loud.

>That said, I wish they'd just ban spammers and give everyone accurate
metrics.

~~~
SquareWheel
They do ban spammers. You're implying they don't.

~~~
Karunamon
I implied no such thing. I wish they'd use the banhammer AND not break vote
counts.

As long as spammers are banned, there's no reason to screw up a site feature
for everyone else.

------
dylangs1030
"Windows 7 or Windows 8? Be honest, Bill."

"Higher is better."

Probably the funniest part of this entire thread is the slew of comments now
trying to establish an out of context quote in response to that:

"Higher is better." ~ Bill Gates

~~~
mdda
I guess Windows 2000 was the high point then...

~~~
csmattryder
Little too high there, buddy.

Wind it back to 98, and you've got it.

------
rikacomet
This is the 'fuck I shitted my pants' moment!

Really great to have him in public this way, I mean, most of the celebrities
have help teams, that post for them, which is kinda boring, but there are
always haters and weeners, that would fill up such pages with some meaningless
crap, so my biggest concern is Bill Gates, getting err... unlovey to Reddit ?
:( __that would be sad __

------
potench
He has some pretty insightful responses in general, but I really enjoyed this
gem:

Q: What's the cheapest thing that gives you most pleasure? A: kids,
cheeseburgers... Q: where are you acquiring cheap kids? A: the stork

------
breck
I liked this question a lot:

> What's your favorite book?

> "My favorite [book] of the last decade in Pinker's Better Angels of our
> Nature."

Hadn't heard of that book before, but definitely going to read it now.

------
adamnemecek
The fact that someone bought him Reddit Gold is pretty hilarious.

~~~
RandallBrown
every single post he replied to got Gold. I wonder if Bill Gates is
purposefully buying everyone Reddit Gold?

------
gesman
This is cool and really nice of Bill Gates. Would be nice to see well-
formatted Q/A results after this ends.

------
speeder
Whoa, that surprised me!

I hope people can get interesting information, Bill Gates III is seemly a
interesting character.

------
orangethirty

        'Anyone good at QBasic?
        'I haven't written it in years.
    
        ANSWER = INPUT
        PRINT ANSWER
        PRINT "Thank you for playing."

------
6thSigma
He should do an AMA here!

~~~
simba-hiiipower
..unfortunately it'd probably get flagged off the front page

~~~
recoiledsnake
Surprisingly(or perhaps unsurprisingly), this very post seems to be getting
flagged a lot.

------
lifeguard
Someone ask him if it is true he thinks church is a waste of time (said this
in an interview in the past I think).

~~~
SkyMarshal
Fwiw, I know religious people who think church is a waste of time. Not sure
his answer to that would be particularly interesting.

------
cooldeal
Why in the name of sweet Jeebus would someone flag this post on HN?

<http://i.imgur.com/ao8qgdG.png>

This is ridiculous, and proves that HN is filled with closed minded fanboys
and hater zealots instead of technology lovers who otherwise have good karma.

Can anyone who flagged this post tell us why they did so?

If this is not moderator abuse, I don't know what is.

Reminds me of the Germany jury system that had to be abolished:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury#Germany>

>Trial by jury was introduced in most German states after the revolutionary
events of 1848; however, it remained controversial and early in the 20th
century there were moves to abolish it.[34] The Emminger Reform of January 4,
1924, during an Article 48 state of emergency, abolished the jury system and
replaced it with a mixed system including bench trials and lay judges. In 1925
the Social Democrats called for the reinstitution of the jury, and a special
meeting of the German Bar demanded revocation of the decrees, but "on the
whole the abolition of the jury caused little commotion".[35] Their verdicts
were widely perceived as unjust and inconsistent.

~~~
dylangs1030
Listen, I don't mean to be rude, but this isn't really the place to hash it
out with moderators, or draw parallels with any part of Germany's less
reputable history.

You should email them if you're convinced it's flagged and you have an issue
with it.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>and you have an issue with it

You don't see a problem with a section of posters with good karma flagging
posts like this?

Edit: I do think a better parallel is Digg's bury brigades.

[https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=digg+bury+b...](https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=digg+bury+brigades&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest)

~~~
dylangs1030
I hope this doesn't come across as pretentious, because I don't mean it that
way.

But honestly, I don't take Hacker News seriously enough for it to bother me. I
use it to build connections in the community, keep up to date on tech and news
matters, and post things from time to time.

It's not as though I _need_ my posts to hit the front page. I post
intellectual curiosities and some of my more interesting blog posts around the
internet, but I couldn't care less if a small but powerful "1%" holds voting
power on Hacker News.

------
codingblues
It been an hour and still no response from Bill, Obama was much more prompt
with the replies

~~~
persona
The original post is from over an hour but answers should start now: "I’ll be
answering your questions live, starting at 10:45 am PST"

~~~
codingblues
yup he's replying now...very damn punctual... #Respect... posting an hour
before replying is certainly clever...

------
bdcravens
Looking at the AMA, the "verification photo", and the posted video, I see
nothing convincing me it's real. However, the responses seem non-trolly, but
I'm still not convinced.

~~~
lutusp
The people at Reddit are pretty careful about establishing identities. They
certainly did for my two AMAs. Here's a link to my most recent AMA -- notice
the bona-fides at the top:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q9qzn/iama_former_nasa...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q9qzn/iama_former_nasa_space_shuttle_engineer_created/)

