Bill Gates Drops To Number 2

A number of readers made sure we know that Bill Gates is apparently no longer the world's richest person. His wealth, estimated currently at $59.2 billion, has been surpassed by that of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, runs businesses in a number of industries from Mexico City. Stock in his wireless company, American Movil, recently surged in price by 27%, boosting his net worth to $67.8 billion. Last April Slim passed Warren Buffet, who had long held down the number 2 spot. In this audio Bill Gates says he won't care when he is no longer number 1.

We still hate him

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some people - including Gates himself - that Bill Gates is hated because he is rich. This is not true. We envy him because he is rich.
We hate him because he produces crappy software and uses unethical techniques to promote it. Being surpassed in the richest person list does not change this.

Re:We still hate him

Um, either reason is missing the point.

Technology rules and shapes the human race. He seeks to control all technology. *That's* the real reason to hate him. For 25 years the world has concerned itself with pittiances like who's president and which country has a despot in charge, while right under our noses the biggest monopoly in human history has effectively brought the globe under the dictatorship of Bill Gates - through the computers.

Wait til we rely on biotech to live past 150 years and we're colonizing space. There Gates will be, deciding who lives and who dies and charging everybody 50 cents to breathe. Think the people will wake up then? If so, do we want to wait until it's that bad before we start to resist?

Sigh

Bill Gates is one entrepreneur among many. His products came to a position of prominence in many markets, competing against the likes of NeXT, Apple and Sun whose offerings had weaknesses obvious to anyone who was trying to actually build a company using them. His company, Microsoft, isn't as nice as Ben & Jerry's but then it's a lot nicer than Sun and IBM. Although by offering commoditized, loosely-controlled solutions in an industry previously dominated by massive hardware/software lock-in, he is still small fry compared to the great 19th century monopolists like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, or even the great 18th century players (Clive of India, anyone?)

He's a guy, with a company, that makes products, that people either buy or don't. He has major market share in a niche which, to be honest, was not very strongly contested, and he has a few OK products in other niches. Microsoft's smaller than Exxon, way smaller than GE, FAR smaller than Standard Oil, and VASTLY less controlling and anti-innovation than old-school IBM. On the other hand, it's not a particularly nice and fluffy company either. None of them are. Get over it. Now, quietly listen to yourself:

For 25 years the world has concerned itself with pittiances like who's president and which country has a despot in charge, while right under our noses the biggest monopoly in human history has effectively brought the globe under the dictatorship of Bill Gates - through the computers.

First, it's 'pittance' and it doesn't mean what you think it means.
Second, the above is exactly why basement-dwellers whose whole world is home computers do not wind up in important decision-making roles. And I think we should all be very grateful.

Re:We still hate him

"There Gates will be, deciding who lives and who dies and charging everybody 50 cents to breathe"

Don't forget giving out free vacinations, building schools, improveing healthcare, researching technology, paying taxes and employing people. How darstedly evil!

Oh and between you and me, he plans to be both Evil Overlord and Good guy between loving and raising his children and being a good husband to his wife.

You might think im missing the point here, that his business tactics are evil. Well i agree, they were and still are. But thats not the point you raised, you implied that he has some kind of 1000 year fourth Richt plan for the human race. What im pointing out here is that he is a business man, living in the US, mainly concenred with technology, who has done some bad business things in the past, he has a loving wife and some beautiful kids. His investments do cover alot of fields yes, but so does any investors. Oh and he is the most charitable person in our generation.

Before you go and spend your time photoshoping hate images of Bill Gates for his most evil business moves read up on companies like Texaco, ExxonMobil, Amgen, The US Government, Shell, BP, Disney and Nike.

For all that is good and evil in this world, if Bill Gates and Microsoft is the worse we can do in the industry most of make a living from then we could ALOT worse. Now grow up and place your activism somewhere where it counts, say maybe worrying less about IT business and worrying more about the education and health tomorrows children. And in case your wondering where to start, heres a good charity: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm [gatesfoundation.org]

Re:

Well I will just touch on a few things. Melinda Gates was the one responsible for Microsoft Bob which eventually became clippy. He married an employee, which while there is nothing inherently wrong with it, given his past behaviors it certainly looks fun

Man am I going to get flamed for this

I think you're resorting to some inverse megalomania.

Bill Gates has never shown any inclination to reach beyond the electronic realm with evil inclinations.

Quite to the contrary, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given so much money away that I'm willing to bet that if they hadn't, Bill would still be on the top of the list.

You can pooh-pooh Microsoft for giving away computers loaded with Microsoft software to indoctrinate the next generation into their cult, but you can not fault Bill Gates for his charitable donations, because he gives large cash donations and other useful things as well.

I really don't think Bill is evil. Ruthless with his business yea, but not evil. And yea, I envy the money the guy has, but in the same situation, I'm not sure i could have accumulated it the same way, but since he did, I'm glad he's giving it away.

breathe in UAC breathe out UAC

and you had better press "allow" really quick...

Be honest with yourself

"We hate him because he produces crappy software and uses unethical techniques to promote it."

There are lots of guys out there running software companies that produce crappier software than MS and are less ethical. Since they aren't rich, however, nobody gives a shit.

Re:

Nonono, people don't give a turd because they don't have to suffer from it. I don't have to suffer from Syman... I mean, a crappy AV tool. I simply choose another one. I don't have to suffer a bad game, I simply play another one. I don't have to eat crappy

Re:Be honest with yourself

It's just that Gates happens to be responsible for a poorly-made piece of software that everyone uses.

Apple took the word "Computer" out of its name.

The Mac is built using generic Windows PC parts. "Boot Camp" becomes a core marketing tool. In damn near thirty years of competition Apple remains a - very - distant second to Microsoft, in Microsoft's core markets.

The Geek trots out the "poorly-made" argument at every opportunity.

It is guaranteed a +4, +5 mod-up, Insightful, on Slashdot. But the fact remains that something like 500 million desktop-laptop users world-wide have found that Windows does what they want it to do.

Re:Be honest with yourself

The strength of Microsoft's software isn't in its quality. It is in it's compatibility with existing infrastructure. If you want to play most games, you need a PC. If you want to reach an audience, you need to program for a PC. If you want to communicate with the world, you need Word. Many places won't even accept Resumes that aren't in Word format. Lots of VPN software is only written for Windows, because customers are on windows, because the VPN software is written for it. And when one business manager in an office decides that you should be on outlook, everyone has to go to outlook.

Thankfully websites have more or less broken the Internet Explorer requirement, but those seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Secondary platform support is always that... secondary. Unless you're working in a back-end capacity, the software that you use, and write, is expected to be written on Windows first and foremost.

Again, Windows' strength lies not in its so-so quality (look at the backlash against Vista), but in its slew of indespensible 3rd party applications all written for the platform. Applications that are unavailable elsewhere simply because everyone is locked into Windows. It doesn't help that Microsoft goes out of their way at every available opportunity to make Windows software incompatible with other platforms, pushing incompatible APIs such as DirectX and ActiveX.

Re:

Bill Gates? He hasn't really being doing that all so much recently. Seriously, the Microsoft hate is still valid, but Gates himself really ain't doing much of the evil, screwed up practices.

You seriously want a list?

Windows ME
Windows 2000 pre-SP3
XP pre-SP1
Most of the first-party XBox 1 titles save for Halo, which wasn't really first-party
MS SQL Server
Internet Explorer 5
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 7
Frontpage
Microsoft Messenger
Windows Messenger
Live Messenger
Off

Re:You seriously want a list?

Why Virtual PC? It beats VMWare Player and is the same price, i.e. free.

I'll forgive you. You must not read Slashdot, or you would have seen this article.

[techtarget.com]

"IT managers gathered in New York City earlier this week to get advice from experts on when, why, and how to virtualize their server environments. The takeaway from the conference: if you want to run an enterprise-class virtualization platform in production today, stick with VMware."

And in the Linux world, you're seeing all kinds of nifty new virtualization technologies as well. Don't count out Xen.

And some of us prefer IE to other browsers.

You are entitled to your opinion sir, but I'm guessing the vast majority of the Slashdot crowd will disagree with you. In fact, I think most web designers will disagree with you. You don't see tons of websites dedicated to saying exactly how much Firefox is the worst piece of software ever created, but there and tons, and tons of such sites dedicated to explaining exactly how horrible IE is. The moment you attempt to tell me that IE is a good piece of software, you lose all credibility with me and come across as a troll. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and we'll continue.

Lastly if XP and 2000 sucked at one point, but they were fixed, for free, then they shouldn't be included. OS X sucked and then you got charged for 10.1, bitch about that.

Well, the parent asked for a list of Microsoft products, so mentioning OS X really has no place in the discussion. I specified 2000 pre-SP2 and XP pre-SP1 because I am not this huge hater. I dislike Microsoft as a company, and most of their products. But often I defend XP as being a pretty good OS in the end. I prefer XP with SP1, and not SP2 personally. SP2 added nag screens and bloat without really fixing security problems so much. However, when XP first launched, it broke apps, broke drivers, ran slow, and was extremely buggy. SP1 improved the OS in all those areas.

Also how do you knock a free email service? What did any other free service do that was so much better.

Because Hotmail is absolutely horrid. Slow, insecure, and they sell your email address out so you get spam. They try to sign you up for various newsletters, tons of people have complained about entire accounts and all their email magically vanishing, slow service, and not very feature rich. GMail destroys Hotmail. The new Yahoo-beta destroys Hotmail. Hell, SquirrelMail destroys Hotmail. Note, defending IE and now Hotmail? You have to be kidding me, right?

Same with Messenger, what does anyone else do that takes it out back behind the shed and beats it with a stick?

I would urge you to look at Gaim/Pidgin, Kopete, Trillian, etc. How about the fact that Messenger would put itself back in the startup group repeatedly when it was removed? That alone makes it crappy and annoying software. What about the fact that you could be blasted with unsolicited spam via Messenger, and many people had no way or clue to get rid of it? So you're defending IE, Hotmail, and Messenger, three of the most hated things on the planet. Are you sure you're not trolling.

Works may suck but how many options were there for you if you didn't want to spend a ton of money on an office suite 10 years ago? Or even 5? Works and...? And oo.o wasn't really an option unless you had high speed, or wanted to spend $40 on a cd version of free software. Plus you had to go to compusa or some other store full of untrained morons who either don't know what you're looking for or spend the whole time trying to talk you into ms office (quick rant, I went into a compusa to buy a tv, pre massive shutdown, and I had to tell the guy 5 times I didn't want the extended warranty, I finally had to tell him that if he didn't shut the fuck up I was going

Re:

I use SQL server everyday. I have to write custom functions in MS SQL Server to pump into Crystal Reports, and I loathe it.

MS SQL Server sucks for the following three reasons, among many others:

1 - MySQL is more ANSI SQL compliant and MS has no respect fo

Re:You seriously want a list?

MSFT has made some stupid software. One need only point to IE6 and Frontpage, and playsforsure nails it.

Putting SQL Server on your list is stupid, and I call you on that. I use MS SQL every day, as well as Oracle. I prefer Oracle (Oracle kicks everyones' butt, including MySQL's), but MSSQL isn't bad. A lot of it has to do with your configuration, and your database design. I have developed many websites and applications that use MSSQL, and every performance problem I have had has been due to bad indexing, design flaws caused by cruft, etc. That said, a site running on a well design Oracle database is noticeably faster than one running on a well design MSSQL database.

Yes, I see your benchmarks. I hate benchmarks. Virtually any Vendor can point to a benchmark in which his product excels. Software benchmarks are a bit like EPA mileage on your car; highly theoretical and totally unrelated to the real world. Come on now.

Not trying to create a flamewar over databases here. Which database you prefer is highly subjective. If I were to set up my own web server, though, I would use MySQL ONLY because it's free. From my *real world* experience, MySQL and MS SQL are quite similar in terms of performance. No benchmarks, just real world experience. And there is nothing like real world experience to tell you how something performs in the real world.

Saying MySQL is leaps and bound better than MSSQL is subjective at best. Putting MSSQL on a list of crappy software is a bit irresponsible.

Re:We still hate him

I envy him a little less.

But his wealth didn't change; it grows every day. All that's changed is a meaningless position relative to other rich men.

Re:Bill Gates. Bankrupt? When?

led here I did think,
believing a haiku here,
i was badly wrong

Re:We still hate him

I was working as a server in a restaurant, and when my brother let it leak that I was a computer geek

A geek working in a restaurant... as a *server*

How poetic!

But For How Long?

I thought I had heard that Ingvar Kamprad [wikipedia.org], the Swedish owner of Ikea, had surpassed Gates due to the slide in world markets of the American dollar versus the Swedish crown.

Of course, Forbes never registered that because, I believe, the slide was temporary and the dollar rebounded somewhat and some reports put Kamprad in front of Gates and some didn't.

It's kind of funny when your ranking in the world's richest raises and falls with small market fluctuations. Regardless, I'll throw out the idea that it is extremely likely that Slim's net worth will be 'adjusted' by the stock market in the coming days when his stock is re-evaluated. I could be wrong but Kamprad saw his worth rise on something that is (usually) much more stable than the stock market--his country's currency.

Placing an unprecedented 27% increase in his stocks makes his position as the world's richest man all that much more volatile to me. Then again, I'm not an economist or finance specialist so I could be wrong. How the stock market index seems to consistently return 11% on investments baffles my simple computer scientist mind.

I would also like to point out a few things relating to this #1 position of world's richest man. It's obvious in (at least America) you often need money to make money. More money you have, the easier it seems to be to make money.

I've half a mind to go on a rant about the questionable business model that Gates employed to gain his position as world's richest and keep it ... but I'm too tired and it's obvious [wikipedia.org] by now [wikipedia.org] that some people agree. Though I'm sure there won't be a lack of posts on that topic for this particular news story.

Reason Gates won't care that he's not #1 is probably because he's giving a lot of it away anyway in the end. That and he's made his mark on history ... will we remember Kamprad or Slim? Highly unlikely. But Gates has touched entire generations with software we been forced to and have chosen to use for better or for worse.

Re:

He did pass Bill for a day at most, but then Bill passed him again on the same day.

Re:But For How Long?

Meh, let me know when someone surpasses Rockefeller. In today's dollars, he would have been worth around $200 billion [askmen.com]. And you wanna talk about monopolies, predatory pricing, and anti-trust? The Sherman Antitrust Act [wikipedia.org] was DIRECTED at Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

Oh, I guess since it was over 100 years ago, no one cares anymore.

Re:

How the stock market index seems to consistently return 11% on investments baffles my simple computer scientist mind.

That one is quite simple to explain: it doesn't. Did you really miss the bubble burst six years ago?

And in Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 peaked

Re:

Thankfully, my Microsoft salary has long since enabled me to replace my Ikea furniture ;-) The meatballs are excellent, though, I must say, as are the lingenberries.

Re:

It's lingOnberries [wikipedia.org], even though Wikipedia strangely calls the article Vaccinium vitis-idaea. Strange; blueberries are found under "Blueberry"

Re:But For How Long?

LOSE!! It's LOSE! The only way you could 'loose' money is by untying it, or making it less tight.

Gah. Other than that your post is correct.

Re:

This is bullshit. People who make the loose/lose mistake are overwhelmingly native speakers. As someone who has spent most of his life living in countries where English was not the local language, I can attest that I have never seen this mistake made by

Don't worry. Slim is not very different from Bill

Telmex and Microsoft use the same monopolistic practices, Gates and Slim are not very different. They both apply the same practices in different markets. The interesting part is that we will get to see both of them competing in a few years, since POTS is disappearing and the fight will be on VoIP, that's a market both of them will be into.

I Hope we see them fighting each other for control, because if they reach an agreement, for example, m$ makes voip software, and Telmex provides the service, we are really screwed up.

Telmex got here [Argentina] only a few years ago, they acquired CTI (Biggest mobile telco), Techtel (at the time one of the 5 top players in the carrier and corporate market), Ertach (Biggest Wifi ISP), and lots of kilometers of fiber that interconnects the main cities in Argentina from other companies (metrored, etc.). They also are betting money into Telecom. So, in just a few years they become the third biggest player in Argentina (In this order: 1 - Telefonica, 2 - Telecom, 3 - Telmex), But they have a pretty tight relationship with Telecom Argentina (Read: They are buying stock, big time), And Telefonica has a policy of being friendly with the 5 biggest players, and screwing the rest, So they are now the second bigger in Argentina, and the first one keeps them safe.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

You sure?

Telmex and Microsoft use the same monopolistic practices, Gates and Slim are not very different.
They both may be monopolies, but there IS quite a difference. The difference is that Telmex *IS* a competitive and efficient company. If it wasn't for Slim's investment in telecom infrastructure, we mexicans would still be calling the state-driven phone company to complain that our 24K modems disconnect too often. I do remember those times... Slim practically saved the country from stagnating in the information era.

Microsoft is an artificial monopoly, reeking with planned obsolescence and lack of innovation. In contrast, Telmex already gives us the videophone [telmex.com] service.

Re:

"They both may be monopolies, but there IS quite a difference. The difference is that Telmex *IS* a competitive and efficient company."

If Telemx is really competitive compared to MS, then there must be stronger telecom competitors in Mexico than MS had in

Logic fallacy

The difference is that Telmex *IS* a competitive and efficient company. If it wasn't for Slim's investment in telecom infrastructure, we mexicans would still be calling the state-driven phone company to complain that our 24K modems disconnect too often. I do remember those times...

There's a logic fallacy in your argument. I could just as easily say: "The difference is that Microsoft *IS* a competitive and efficient company. If it wasn't for Gate's investment in GUI-based operating systems for personal computers, we Americans would

Re:

Just to put a bit of perspective on that. The reason why Mr. Slim got Telmex and in great degree, all the money he has is because a very well known (and hated) Mexican corrupt ex-president (Mr. Carlos Salinas de Gortari) privatized the then state-controlle

Does Bill get an eyepatch?

I just watched the 'complimentary' download from Xbox Live Marketplace of Austin Powers. It looks like Bill is now on par with Robert Wagner as 'Number 2'. Coincidence? I think not.

In other news, Slim is now (apparently) Dr. Evil. Go figure.

As Q Would Say...

"Well, well. If it isn't number 2..."

Carlos Slim Fortune

Slim was one of the first traders in mexican stock market (before he was stock operator in usa) but really become mega-rich after getting TelMex from the goverment (at that time the monopolic, state owned telephony company) from former mexican presindent Carlos Salinas (due to corruption)

Talk about, how not to sell a state monopoly: just making it private, instead of dividing it to form a competitive market. To this day méxico suffers from that.

America-Movil its the celular telephony company from Grupo CarSO (Carlos Slim keiretsu that started with TelMex)

Today CarSO participates in the telephony of most countries in latinamerica, and soon also in spain

Both Gates and Slim are unfair market monopolist... because the ones in power dont care

Too Much Garbage

After listening to the link provided, I can't help but think that Gates is just like the rest of us normal humans - far too much noise coming into the inbox as compared to the signal.

oh, drops TO number two!

At first I thought it read "Bill Gates drops A number two".

I though "man, is this a slow news day or what?!" and "Did he flush?"

I guess it's time to get some sleep. Or stop smoking crack. Either way.

The real point

Either one of them could take every breathing person to MacDonalds. The only difference is one could super size it and still have money left over. Both would actually still be billionaires.

Bill Gates Gives His Money Away

But isn't part of the reason why Bill Gates isn't so rich anymore because he's giving his money away [go.com]? He's given away more money than anyone I can think of.

How much has Carlos Slim given away to help fight AIDS? How much has he given away for education?

It's not how much money you have that's important, but what you do with it and the impact it has on others.

Re:

Because the tax system is not as simple as that.

For example, giving away x would "reduce" my taxable income. If that means it goes below a certain value, the tax percentage on my total income goes down. I might very well end up with a net profit. e.g. if

QUICK !

Quick, let's all buy an overpriced vista ... we can still push him to #1

Re:

Luckily he does not need to rely on Vista sales. He just needs to dig the loose change out of the couch and he would be #1 again.

How much cash... ?

has Slim put into philanthropy? To anyone who found this question relevant (I was almost expecting "none" - and thus making the Gates foundation a very easy explanation on the #1 move), Forbes says the following [forbes.com] (plus a lot of other interesting stuff) of the man's new project:

"Lately Carlos Slim has taken up a particular interest in philanthropy, a pursuit he had neglected for most of the years he was building his businesses. He formed a foundation 23 years ago and funded it with a few million, and it has done little since then. A year ago Slim infused it with $1.8 billion; in the fall he pledged to donate up to $10 billion to the foundation in the next four years to fund health and education programs."

It is somehow good to see the world's richest doing this kind of stuff. Of course, it's not like they couldn't afford it, but still.

Give it Away

Carlos Slim should use his money to build schools in Mexico and pay adults as well as children to attend.

I'm quite sure Bill doesn't give a "number 2"

Basically, why bother trying? Imagine you're rich. Not just rich, but super-duper rich. More money than you can sensibly spend in a lifetime. Would you care if there was someone richer by a few billion bucks? I wouldn't.

At some point, money ceases to matter. When you have more than you can spend, there's a dividing point for people. Either they stop caring, and I think Bill did. Why else would he start a charity fund? Or they get even greedier and want MOAAAAAAR, with "getting money" becoming a reason to exist all by itself. Which is kinda sad (I've seen it in a few friends in the dot.com time).

I doubt Bill falls in the latter category. I'm fairly sure he read it, shrugged and went on with his life. Being rich is not a matter of having more than the other rich guy. Just more than most others, so your money actually has some value. If everyone was rich, money would be useless.

He might be on top now...

But, he could be destroyed. The 31st richest person has done it before, and he will do it again.

Not really rich

People who can count their money are not really rich. There are several people in Europe who cannot realistically count their wealth. The British Queen for example owns enormous tracts of land, the value of which can only be guessed.

I, for one...

... have always considered him number 2.

*bows*

Re:VIVA MEXICO CA....

:D Feels glad to be mexican.... *sigh* :)

Why? Are you sharing in his success?

Re:So...

This is a race where coming second or third (or even a hundred and third) is still winning.