This statement is so 90s and so BOFH-centered that it is irrelevant to a level of stupidity. Gates has done a lot to prove he's not a cold-hearted mf and compared to all the bros in their prime at the moment, dude, just think of Elon or Larry Ellison, well our man Billy is really very much a bright persona.
Rationally, you're correct. But emotionally, there's a lot of people who don't understand why someone would provide a free service without an ulterior motive. Gates talks about this a bit on the Trevor Noah podcast.
Microsoft's company practices under Gates don't help, but they are far from the main issue people have with him nowadays. Most people aren't even aware of the things Microsoft did.
People think he is the antichrist because he promotes vaccines and because there are multiple quotes of him where he explains that he wants to reduce the world's population. By raising the standard of living and giving healthcare to the poor, which empirically seem to cause lower birth rates, but lots of nutjobs assume he tests weaponized vaccines or something like that. And people are distrusting of people who appear too altruistic in general, thinking it's some kind of con (and often they are right).
There is a difference between reducing the world’s population and slowing its growth rate. The highest growth rates are necessarily in areas with high mortality. People have more babies to compensate for this mortality. Improve mortality rates and the population growth naturally goes down.
Good point, "Reducing population growth" is a more accurate portrayal of what Gates actually said.
But in practice they are the same thing. Almost the entire developed world has a fertility rate below the replacement rate. Even the upper half of developing countries are below replacement rate. If you bring health care, urbanization and the economy across Africa to levels comparable to Russia or Brazil we can expect their birth rate to similarly fall below the replacement rate too.
Agreed—I spent the 90s idolizing Jobs and despising Gates. But today I have deep respect for Gates and the way he's using his wealth as a positive force in the world. Jobs had better taste and was a more effective product leader, but I'm sorry to say that he sucked as a philanthropist. It's disappointing that he spent ANY of his mental energy at the end of his life building that dumb $100M yacht, rather than focusing on his legacy.
I’m making a stretch to find an answer, but there’s an argument to be made to putting great works of art and beauty in to the world counts as an act of bettering humanity. Look at The Vatican for an example. The patronage of that wealth concentration gave us many of mankind’s greatest achievements.
So if you consider Jobs’ boat or Apple Park or the fact that 700M people hold a literal masterpiece of design and engineering in their hands in order to send nudes and memes to each other a work of benevolence then it makes sense.
I think the comment was referring more to the antivax/conspiracy crowd who often mix Gates in with Soros, etc. in their stories. Still plenty of those folks.
I am not saying Gates is a monster. So I am not commenting on him. I am commenting on your logic of doing supposed good and hence they becoming good.
When you look at the history of most colonial monsters you will notice is an often repeated trend. Those despicable monster amassing wealth literally on the bodies of natives and then going back home (including some to USA) and buying a "good name" (sometimes literally in the form of those fancy titles and peerages etc).
Oh by the way, Musk and Ellison from your example are benign non-beings compared to pretty much all those "monsters".
I don't know where you are from or where you are now but a lot of world sees "good deeds of good people" with great suspicion.
