GFGGL

"Gates Foundation for Getting Geeks Laid"

I love the part where Bill Gates is supposed to ask for financial advice from Phil Angelides, the ludicrous former Democratic candidate for Governor of California! Phil really knows how to make things happen! He ran such a brilliant campaign ("I am for family and hard work!") that the Republican looked like more of an environmentalist!

It isn't lack of capital that's holding back the windmill makers... It's lack of demand. Maybe Gates should do a little consciousness raising with the public instead of pouring a huge investment into some company that can't even sell the windmills in its warehouse.

The problems with the Gates Foundation's philanthropic outreach programs go beyond its investment for profit practices. Just take a look at a couple of its education policy efforts:

(1) The notion that providing laptops, or even desk computers, for poor public school children, will make any difference at all in the educations these children receive is ridiculous. Inner city and other at-risk school children are failing for a lot of reasons, but these reasons DO NOT include lack of access to a laptop or to a desktop computer.

(2) Because our education system is not producing enough workers to fill good-paying jobs in the tech industry, Bill Gates himself is lobbying Congress to allow more foreign workers to come into the U.S. to fill these jobs, instead of lobbying Congress to develop sound education policies that would result in more better-skilled workers.

Bill Gates and, by extension, his Foundation did not get where they are today by doing the right thing, but rather by doing the thing most profitable for Microsoft. All that Gates Foundation money is just being used to promote Bill Gates and Microsoft.

I can think of hundreds of ways to improve education for at-risk students that have nothing to do with laptops and desktop computers, and I can think of dozens of ways to invest in American infrastructure, ways that would promote healthy communities with good jobs for its residents. I won't hold my breath waiting for the Gates Foundation to put its money into these productive-for-society areas.

It's not realistic to expect the Gates Foundation to act in a visionary manner.

Unfortunately, neither Bill Gates nor Microsoft succeeded by being visionary, nor revolutionary, nor anything similar. Mythology aside, they succeeded by leveraging other people's/other organization's innovations, by being in the right place at the right time, by focusing more on marketing than technology, and be being more fleet-footed than IBM (not generally hard to do!).

Expect Gates money to move into the area of social responsibility only when there's an perceived opportunity to integrate that functionality into a future version of Windows, or Office, or some other Microsoft product.

The Gates Foundation should use some of their money to compensate computer-users for the aggravation and the lost time routinely caused by Microsoft's unnecessarily cumbersome and too-frequently unreliable functioning.

Almost everything on the internet is compatible with Microsoft, less with Mac, very little with Linux, (probably the best system). We are almost forced to use Microsoft, at least much of the time, because of these restrictions. (If there's a reliable way around it, I'd love to hear about it. I'm still very new to computers, but several people have assured me that this is a real problem.)

LindaS

I fairly recently did 3 years of college work without a computer of my own. (During the last half of that time, I did have a StarWriter word processor to write my papers - an academic task not given to children.)

In answer to the article's topic, who says Gate$ has a heart? All progressives should be running GNU/Linux and dump Windoze now. If you're running Windoze, you're part of the problem.

Is this guy Loeb a complete idiot or is he just on the Microsoft payroll? The Gates Foundation is a tax dodge warmly embraced by another criminal piece of human garbage, Warren Buffet, which allows the mega-rich to control their assets without paying any taxes. Anyone who thinks these greed freaks are "philanthropists" better pull their heads out of their collective asses.

"All that Gates Foundation money is just being used to promote Bill Gates and Microsoft."

Bill Gates is a thief. It's how he made his fortune. What substansial good can be expected to come from this? Many of these "philanthropists" give away money so they can write it off. They often end up making money from their acts of "charity", and it ends up being a drop in the bucket.

Individuals with deep pockets aren't going to repair the world's problems anyway.

Please someone kick me in the head. I'm completely lost. Charity organizations invest in other companies? I always had the idea that they gave money to those who needed it, not to corporations that robbed those most needy?

Heres an idea. Gates could hire an American Electrical Engineer to design and build a solar power generation station using the local unemployed as labor.

If a fair wage was paid, the formerly poor employees could buy computers for their kids. The solar system could be improved and built in many other suitable locations. The power could be sold at a low rate to schools. The kids could study how it works. In other areas wind or other renewable sources could be used.

Lots of winners.

It's interesting that they invest in Exxon/Mobil (a company whose product causes global warming) to make money, and then give it to causes that fight global warming. Am I missing something?

Do our kids really need laptops to play video games?

Anyone who accumulates as much money as Gates is already on the wrong path (and I'm not saying I would be any different maybe, but I hope I would be).

The problem is that most of society still seeks status symbols, even if they are the cause of suffering (our big car results in our soldiers and Iraqis are dying, the coal miners who were trapped etc)

I'm sure it's hard to keep track of all that money at all times, must have to pay a staff to take care of most of the details. There is so much that could be done, and should be done to improve the circumstance of todays world community, so why would Bill not establish that when it comes to investing the "Foundation's" money it is at least equally important that the investments are not contributing to the problems as that they produce profits, and in some instances the profit IS the improvement produced rather than the dollars and cents. At what point is the result of the investment not a pure dollars earned but job accomplished task, such as feeding/educating starving children, providing clean water, even reducing carbon levels even if it doesn't produce a good $ profit. I won't write Bill off just yet, there's a lot he could do if in fact he was inclined to. Lets see if some of us might be able to add a little motivation with some positive direction and our Windows Outlook.

Hmm, lets think what would JESUS do with all of Gates money.

"Gates Foundation Should Invest Its Money Where Its Heart Is"

It is!