
A Conversation With Bill Gates - azharcs
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/01/24/opinion/1231546145505/a-conversation-with-bill-gates.html/
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dmix
"He's now trying to do to aids, polio and malaria what he did to Netscape."

Ouch, not even attempting to cure AIDs will go without mention of his past.

But it probably took about 10 coders at Microsoft to build IE and then package
it with Windows. The problems he's trying to tackle around the world is much
more challenging.

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ivank
"Microsoft spent over $100 million a year[1] in the late 1990s, with over
1,000 people working on IE by 1999.[2]" (wikipedia)

I think the IE7 team was less than a dozen people. IE8 is probably a bit more.

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moe
Interesting variance. 1000 people for IE5/IE6, a few dozen for IE7 and a bit
more for IE8 again?

Well, a browser is undoubtly a huge project but I wonder how you coordinate a
thousand developers (or heck, more than a few hundred really) to produce
something useful? I just can't think of enough non-overlapping tasks in such a
project that would allow more than maybe 100 people to work simultaneously.

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kingkongrevenge
I doubt Gates is aware of this fascinating statistical truth: in the third
world when you lower the death rate from disease, living standards fall and
malnutrition gets worse. It's the same dynamic that sent living standards way
up in the wake of the plague in europe. Living standards in much of west
africa are now something like half what they were 100 years ago because
medical technology keeps the death rate down.

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davepeck
It would be unwise to "doubt" Bill Gates on any substantive point related to
his philanthropy. In the past 5-10 years, he has transformed himself into one
of the world's foremost thinkers about this and many other matters.

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canoebuilder
Have any links? Has he written much on such topics?

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davepeck
I'd certainly start with his annual letter:

<http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter>

