this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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That part of it, sure, but the guy was good at business and made some smart bets (that the microcomputer industry would explode, for one). Microsoft didn't get as big as it has based only on their technical ability. They got there because they made the right decisions and were cutthroat against their competitors.
Bill was at the right time and right place, but he was also the right guy. You gotta have them all.
Cutthroat is an understatement. He did a lot of illegal stuff in the USA and internationally because governments had no idea how he was exploiting them/breaking commercial law. He also bribed hundreds of governments and stifled innovation. The world would be a better place without him.
Got any source for that? That's in pretty stark contrast to what I see him doing now with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sure, but that's how business works when you're as big a company as Microsoft. And he was good at it.
I never said he was a nice guy, only that he was good at business.
Choosing to play is still immoral even if that's how the game works.
I never said he was moral, either.
So I agree that's how it works with businesses under Anglo-Saxon style capitalism, but I disagree with that's how it works across the world with large companies. There are large multinational corporations that are ethical. Not as successful in profitability as Microsoft, but they are more successful ethically and better for society.
I'd argue that American and some Western European companies are much more ethical than African child labor mines, Chaebol, and Zaibatsu
I'd argue that too. Empirically en aggregate though.
Quite possibly. I wouldn't know. Either way, Microsoft is an American company and plays by (or subverts, or writes) American rules.
Money is power. Get enough of either and you get corruption. Some people fight the system, some people learn to profit off it. If it doesn't work that way in other parts of the world, then it's because their systems work differently than ours.
Edit: quite possibly, not quit possibly. I'm a touch typist. I type every day. So why does my typing get worse with age?
Yes, what you're describing is called the "Social Structure of Accumulation" in Political Economic theory.
It's easy to make some smart bets when you can make many bets and fail over and over and not become destitute.
True, but he didn't.
Bill Gates did have some business expertise, yes.