
Bill Gates tells students being a billionaire is "quite strange" - curtwoodward
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2011/10/27/bill-gates-uw/
======
aristus
...for one thing, every offhand remark becomes a news story.

~~~
mc32
It's a longish article but it goes on about how he feels frustrated by the
political system, educational and health systems of the country and that he
and Buffet believe they should be taxed more.

Moreover it appears, that like Jobs thought, wealth, after certain point is
redundant -and to them, it was a side effect of their pursuit of their
interest. It seems despite Jobs' jabs at Gates, Gates is personally a quite
normal guy, psychologically speaking -he's not the megalomaniac people kind of
make him out to be sometimes.

~~~
jdludlow
_he and Buffet believe they should be taxed more_

The two of them can send their checks here:

    
    
      Gifts to the United States
      U.S. Department of the Treasury
      Credit Accounting Branch
      3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
      Hyattsville, MD 20782
    

I'm sick and tired of people who have already made enough income to last
multiple lifetimes telling us that income taxes should now be raised. The
government lets you tax yourself at 100% if you want. Ship them the money.
They won't refuse it.

Enough with this "I'm feeling guilty, therefore other people should also pay
more" nonsense.

~~~
kiterooks
It's more about the view and wish for changing the system and organizing it
more efficiently so that more people can benefit from it. Taxing hoarded money
that cannot be spent in a reasonable way by a few individuals and using that
money to enhance lagging sectors is something a good government should
hopefully be able to do. Couple of people sending the government a few billion
is not going to accomplish much in that direction.

~~~
throwawayday
"cannot be spent in a reasonable way by a few individuals" - again with the
socialist claptrap - these people earned the money, they should decide what
it's best possible use is.

I'm stopping by your place today to raid your refrigerator, and take those
clothes you aren't wearing. That good with you? 'cause that's what you're
saying.

------
gruseom
Cut the number of words by 2/3 and this sounds surprisingly like PG:

 _I think most people who’ve done well have sort of found something that they
just are kind of nuts about doing. And then they figure out a system to hire
their friends to do it with them. And if it’s an area of great impact, then
sometimes you get financial independence._

Edit: specifically the part about friends.

~~~
mhartl
The spoken language is different, but yeah:

 _Most people who do well find something they love. Then they convince their
friends to do it with them. If it solves a big problem, they might even get
rich in the process._

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ck2
I bet it is. For one thing you can rent half-million per month homes for your
daughter.

But I'll let that slide since he is giving away all his money to great causes
and the medical research he has funded.

------
known
With billions, you'll have many options. Without billions, you've to pick the
right option.

------
folkster
Students tell a billionaire being Bill Gates is "quite strange"

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bluedanieru
Strange that even he still thinks of money as nothing more than a means to buy
things. Maybe that's because he really only ever ran the one company, and so
never really became personally acquainted with its other uses. Certainly
though among his fiscal peers though? So that's strange...

Wealth is inextricably tied to power. Everyone knows this, or has heard it,
but I guess many often don't reason about what it means? Gates seems to be
saying that there isn't a big difference between being worth 60 million and
being worth 60 billion, because hamburgers taste the same, after all. That's
all well and good if wealth is all about buying things, which it basically is
for about 99,999 out of 100,000 people at least, but for that one person it
definitely isn't. Someone worth 60 billion is at least 1000x more powerful and
has 1000x greater impact in how he goes about wielding his power than the
person worth 60 million. He is in many respects equivalent to 1000 people
worth 60 million each, doing their thing, and perhaps more so since he can
more easily strive toward a purpose or calling in a way that 1000 people
couldn't, with committees and whatever else. So he's completely wrong about
that (although he's the billionaire and I'm certainly not, so perhaps I should
just defer to his judgment :-)

Which sort of brings up the other thing he said, which is that absolute
poverty relative to historical values is decreasing, especially in the
developing world at the moment, and that there are a few very rich and well-
connected individuals isn't such a problem, to the extent that they don't
corrupt the political system. But of course they _do_ corrupt the political
system. The entire problem with massively unequal distribution of wealth isn't
that you get to live in a nice house on the water while for whatever reason
someone else has to live in a one-room flat. It is decidedly _not_ about
jealousy and envy. This is what critics of the OWS movement do not seem to
understand. We're trying to have a democracy, so have all the wealth that you
want, but if your wealth begins to subvert that democracy, well then we have
to do something about that.

I'm sure he gets this based on things he's said in other talks, and he's an
honest enough guy I think (now, anyway), so maybe he just wanted to avoid
making a complicated, and currently rather politically charged, point.

~~~
leak
I'm not sure the kind of power you're referring to is the same kind of power
that say, the Pope has. Gates with his billions has massive amounts of power
in business and maybe local politics but he is nowhere near the level as say
the Pope, who is by definition poor.

All the money (and power associated with it) cannot end world hunger. Ever. So
I understand what Gates is saying when he's referring to the hamburger. He
probably doesn't have the kind of power you are imagining he has and that
1000x doesn't really mean anything. All you can do with money is acquire more
money in different forms. You're not changing the world with money.

I never comment on here so be gentle please. :)

~~~
redthrowaway
I'm a bit loathe to give this response as I come here to get away from
politics, but look at how Koch Industries and the like subverted the tea party
movement, and the effect that that's had on congress. _That's_ the kind of
power money buys: the power to take a small, libertarian grass-roots
organization and turn it into a nation-wide astroturfed phenomenon, getting
dozens of congressmen elected in the process and having a huge impact on
government policy. $60m doesn't buy you that kind of power, but $10b does.

This is what the parent was saying, and what Gates doesn't think about because
he clearly never tried to use his money to exert that kind of power (the
courts might have been nicer to him if he had). The tech industry in general
seems reluctant to use its vast wealth to exert that kind of power. If they
had spent half the money they did in the patent wars on lobbyists, we likely
wouldn't have the e-parasite act and its similarly harmful brethren. That's
just not how we think, however, and so much smaller industries end up exerting
a huge amount of power.

