
Remembering my father - janvdberg
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Remembering-Bill-Gates-Sr?WT.mc_id=20200915000000_Remembering-Bill-Gates-Sr_BG-TW_&WT.tsrc=BGTW
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viksit
Personal anecdote. I ran into Bill Gates and his dad at the Taj Mahal once
when I was there visiting with family. I remember being struck with how tall
he was, and their stark height difference! I was 22 at the time and being a
huge fan, I walked up to them - except Bill jr thought I was trying to sell
him something and preemptively said no thanks and started to walk away. Bill
sr, however, took a minute and engaged with me with a smile and the two of
them talked to me for a couple of minutes about the Taj and what got me into
tech. I remembered this friendliness today on reading this. And that last line
about overusing the word incredible really resonates. RIP.

~~~
bena
For anyone curious, Bill Gates is 5'10", his father was 6'7". That's an inch
taller than magician Penn Jillette.

~~~
alberto_ol
5'10" = 1.78m, 6'7" = 2.01m

~~~
Alir3z4
Thank you sir.

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hangonhn
The Starbucks story involving his father is incredible. Schultz had actually
left Starbucks and started his own coffee chain (Il Giornale) when the
founders of Starbucks didn't want to expand the number of stores. They mostly
just wanted to roast coffee. When the chance to buy Peet's came up, they
decided to buy that instead and put Starbucks up for sale. Schultz was
actually super passionate about Starbucks and jumped at the opportunity to buy
it. Then one of his investors from Il Giornale tried to undercut him by
putting in a higher bid for Starbucks. Bill Gates' dad was apparently a highly
respected lawyer in the Seattle area and Schultz went to him for help. Bill
Gates Sr. called the investor and gave him some tough talks and the investor
withdrew his bid. It's incredible that senior Gates did that out of a sense of
fairness and righteousness.

Source: [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wondery/business-
wars/e/677...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wondery/business-
wars/e/67717289) (This is the start of the series. The story itself is a few
episodes into the series)

~~~
nuclearnice1
I guess I need to dig a little deeper into that Starbucks thing.

But if I was an owner of Starbucks and Bill Gates Sr called the high bidder
and scared him off so someone else could buy my business for less, I don’t
know if I’d ever forgive that.

It doesn’t strike me as fair or righteous.

~~~
hangonhn
I see what you're saying. Here's the CNBC version of it:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/04/bill-gates-sr-helped-
howard-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/04/bill-gates-sr-helped-howard-
schultz-buy-starbucks.html)

It sounds like the Starbucks owners already offered it to Schultz and gave him
90 days to buy it and it was an exclusive offer. Part way through fundraising,
an Il Giornale investor caught wind of it and approached Starbucks with a
higher bid. I think the fact that Starbucks had offered it to Schultz first
and then his own investor tried to undermine him and Il Giornale is sort of
rotten and underhanded. I think the fact that Starbucks had offered it to
Schultz first and agreed on a price and Il Giornale's own investor tried to
undermine the deal is where things get a little shady.

Apologies for telling the story poorly and missing some important details.

~~~
nuclearnice1
Tough call.

If you and I handshake on buying my house, you’re rightfully upset when I sell
to someone else for more.

On the other hand, all we had is a handshake, so I’m rightfully upset when you
chase off a higher bid.

I guess how shady depends on the agreement that Schultz had. The fact that Sr
was able to chase them off suggests the agreement was at least of some
substance.

~~~
tlb
In SV fundraising deals, going back on a handshake is considered pretty bad
behavior. Investors stand to lose many future deals if they break one without
a darn good reason. Discovering a serious misrepresentation is such a reason,
but seeing a better deal elsewhere is not.

The point of handshake deals is to give everyone time to get the details
right, without the pressure of having the deal stolen. Forcing parties to rush
through the details damages the whole ecosystem, so everyone is motivated to
encourage everyone else to respect handshake deals.

~~~
jjeaff
That happened to us and on this VC firm's maiden round. They offered no reason
except that they reconsidered. Wasted months of our time.

Our attorney (from Fenwick & West) told us the same, that it would damage the
VCs reputation and that this was pretty much unheard of for them.

But I never heard another thing about it and that VC firm seems to not be
having too much trouble filling out their rounds.

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sktrdie
Such wholesome words from a man that has everything. As a Serbian proverb
says: “Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of
stars.”... applies perfectly to Gates.

~~~
raz32dust
Is it an old proverb? Never heard of any culture that considered human beings
to be made of stars. It is fascinating because now we know that we literally
are made of stars.

~~~
cyphar
I asked my mom (native Serbian speaker) and she said she's not heard of it as
a proverb, and some Googling reveals that native Serbians are confused why
foreigners seem to attribute it to us[1]. I also weirdly found a lot of
questions on Quora and Yahoo answers asking for people to translate it _to_
Serbian -- which explains why the proverb sounds slightly strange when read in
Serbian. My guess is that this is actually some recent English proverb which
someone decided to attribute to us (though it is neat that "zemlje" and
"zvezda" do have a certain kind of rhyme).

[1]: [https://www.svetnauke.org/95-srpska-
poslovica](https://www.svetnauke.org/95-srpska-poslovica)

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kumarvvr
We Hindus believe in the law of Karma.

Gates Jr. would have had some real good karma in his bank to have had a father
like Gates Sr.

It's only in later years, upon reflection, we can understand how much we
become is the influence of our parents and especially of our father.

I feel really pained to see so many places in the world where children grow up
without fathers.

No one in the world can replace the roles played by parents in a kids life.

~~~
sshlocalhost
Right !

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trentnix
My father died just over 7 years ago. I think about and miss him every day. I
am supremely grateful that I had a father that demanded well of me and was
honorable.

My sincerest condolences and prayers to Mr. Gates’s family and friends. What a
gift to have had such a long life and a good relationship with those he loved.

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rickdangerous1
People who grew up with good fathers, have no idea how fortunate they are.
Even after they think they do. Having a bad father puts wounds in your psyche
that most people can never heal.

~~~
kilroy123
Couldn't agree more.

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rootusrootus
All the money in the world can't bring your dad back. I still think about mine
and miss him every day.

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mattr47
Incredible tribute to his Dad. I really appreciate how he gives credit to them
as a safety net when he left Harvard.

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Aeolun
> The truth is, he was everything I try to be.

I can only hope that my children will talk like this about me some day.

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gridspy
What a moving tribute. It is a great reminder to cherish the time we have with
those we love now. Do great things together and inspire each other.

I'm glad that Mr Gates got the chance to enjoy and develop his relationship
with his dad into adulthood.

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atum47
yeah, I've watched the Netflix show about Bill Gates, he said that in the
show: that his father is the real Bill Gates. really cool. I don't think he
reads HN comments, but if he does, my condolences. I'm very attached to my
father either and I can't imagine life without him. All the best

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turing_complete
I wonder if Gates might support longevity research now. He wants to save lives
and improve the human condition. Ending Malaria is great, ending aging would
be the greatest thing ever.

~~~
jeroenhd
Ending aging would only serve to make the rich immortal while the poor still
suffer. I think it would create the biggest distance between the common folk
and the elite that history has ever known.

Even if such technology would be available to the entire world, it would still
not solve the issue of overpopulation and the pollution associated with it.

Why invest into making a few thousand immortal when you can help billions with
much simpler anti-malaria programs?

~~~
PavleMiha
I agree with you that abolishing malaria is probably a better place to put our
resources, but I disagree that ending ageing would only make a few thousand
rich people immortal. There's nothing to say that the treatments would be that
expensive. It's possible we find cheap therapeutics, or expensive ones that we
can make cheap and accessible. Ageing related deaths are higher than malaria
deaths, and ageing places a huge burden on all our systems.

~~~
InitialLastName
Can you imagine the demand curve for an anti-aging treatment? You're right
that it's possible the therapeutics will be cheap to produce, but the price
that the wealthy would bear for such a treatment would lead to dramatically
more revenue than you could make from setting it at a price that more than
half of the world could bear. No fiscally responsible entity would make
something like that affordable to the entire world in the modern era.

~~~
PavleMiha
Couldn't a lot of the countries that have single-payer systems negotiate
better prices that more people could afford? Isn't this what happens with
other life-saving therapies at the moment? The economics of health care costs
confuse me because yeah, demand for staying alive is somewhat infinite, but at
some point governments seem like they should be able to tell pharma companies
they can either take what's offered or get nothing at all and have the
governments ignore their patents.

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fergie
All of the articles on gatesnotes are so well written- I wonder if Bill Gates
writes these completely by himself or if he gets help?

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balls187
What a very touching tribute to his father.

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maceurt
Was a member of the eugenics society of America and was on the board of
planned parenthood. Used his power and connections to pull strings for
Microsoft and help it become a behemoth that threatens the fair market of
desktop operating systems and open source software. The Gates family is a
criminal organization hell bent on control.

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tempsy
Every time Bill Gates comes up in the news I'm reminded by how insane the
conspiracy theories surrounding him have become on social media, more so now
than ever.

~~~
canada_dry
I think for some people it's just really hard imagining that Gates pivoted his
ruthless passion for business ( _emphasis on ruthless_ ) into a genuine
mission to make the world - especially the impoverished - a better place.

Feeney, Buffett, and Gates need to be celebrated and revered way more than
sports and movie idols IMHO.

~~~
colourgarden
Could you give a summary of how Bill Gates is viewed by "the average
American"?

As a Brit, I think he's just viewed as "the rich computer guy". It's hard to
fathom that people think he's involved with political topics.

~~~
Aeolun
Much less so than any owner of Twitter, Google or Facebook is anyway.
Microsoft is just selling unopinionated software to all businesses in the
world. Out of all FAANG they’re the least politically aligned.

~~~
kabacha
> Microsoft is just selling unopinionated software to all businesses in the
> world

You have to be satirical right? Microsoft is notorious for lobbying everything
to this day. Browser monopolies, OS monopolies, they pretty much invented EEE,
made whole cities switch to their OS and the whole xbox platform is very
political regarding software, gambling and IP politics.

~~~
barry-cotter
He asked about how the average American views Bill Gates, not how the average
person who read /. in the 90s views Bill Gates.

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b3lvedere
May you rest in peace Mr. Gates. At the moment your son is doing great things
for humanity.

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comboy
> The experience of being the son of Bill Gates was incredible.

I think that is a typo, but a very telling one.

~~~
jmercouris
It isn't, his father has the same name.

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comboy
It says William H. Gates in the article.

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llbowers
Bill is often used as shorthand for William.

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comboy
TIL, thanks.

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alex_young
Deleted. Didn't intend to offend anyone.

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site-packages1
This is super non sequitur on a post about Mr. Gates’s father passing. It’s
even slightly callous.

