Bill Gates takes part in Reddit's Secret Santa

http://redditgifts.com/gallery/gift/spoiler-alert-bill-gates-did-not-get-you/

by rb2e • 13 years ago

745 226 13 years ago

talon883• 13 years ago

I think this is really cool, though the cynical part of me thinks that so will the social media strategists of quite a few celebrities out there, looking to promote things around Christmas...

d0m• 13 years ago

Maybe.. but Bill Gates..? He doesn't have to use social media strategies, he won the game already!

loceng• 13 years ago

There is a lot of unimportant noise out there, and a lot of education and awareness holding needed to keep moving the world towards the better.. everything counts.

tnkd• 13 years ago

If throughout the unwrapping of the gifts, there was a Microsoft Surface, then I'd agree with you but for the most part I believe this reads as genuine.

goldenkey• 13 years ago

Microsoft was a means to a beginning for Gates. Some CEOs die with their product, not Gates.

talon883• 13 years ago

I think I was misunderstood — he's very genuine, and has always been. The copycats, though, are more unlikely to be.

bdcravens• 13 years ago

Bill Gates has been aggressively giving for several years now, and he's quite consistent with his messaging regarding the need to give to and enable the quality of life in the third world. If anything, the strategy is to put a spotlight on those causes, rather than himself.

commandar5• 13 years ago

The fact that your parent poster is apparently unaware of the fact that the work done by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had a huge hand in eliminating polio in India would be a good example. The country just marked two years without a new reported case.

meowface3• 13 years ago

I think you get somewhat of a free pass if what you're promoting is purely a charity.

sethbannon• 13 years ago

Things like this are neat because they remind folks that tech titans, billionaires, celebrities, and the like are, at the end of the day, people too -- not that dissimilar from everyone else. It's so easy to forget that.

Laremere• 13 years ago

It's always easy to forget how ordinary extraordinary people are, and likewise how extraordinary ordinary people are.

onedev• 13 years ago

This is so true. It's a shame really.

knowtheory2• 13 years ago

It's awesome that Bill Gates decided to participate in the gift exchange.

This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International.

So, yeah, he's a regular dude in a lot of ways. He's also still a ruthless billionaire who created a company that was known for crushing its competitors.

People are complicated, and just because he can be nice doesn't mean that he's not other things too.

commandar5• 13 years ago

I really can't think of another person that I've had to reevaluate my opinion of as drastically as Gates.

In the 90s he was widely seen as the face of the evil empire of Microsoft by the technorati, completely cutthroat and unfairly crushing anyone that stood in his way.

But over the past decade, he's arguably been one of the single greatest contributors to good in the world. He's been a staunch and consistent advocate for the overall betterment of humanity. He's put his wealth and influence to use in beneficial, high-impact ways. He's directed his ruthlessness away from business and toward hunger, poverty, and disease. And it's making a very real difference in the lives of people around the world.

He's gone from somebody I viewed as a reviled caricature of a man to one I can't help but profoundly respect.

Yeah, people are complicated. In the Mr. Gates' case, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

melling• 13 years ago

Not trying to defend the couple of illegal things that Microsoft did, but Microsoft was never the most agile company. There was plenty of opportunity for Lotus, Word Perfect, and Borland to get their acts together, for example. Apple always sold expensive computers so they were never a threat. Linux has been around 20 years and it comes in over 200 flavors. The reason we never had "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" isn't Microsoft's fault. Sun is gone because they tried to protect the past, and commodity hardware took them out. Google could probably do some serious damage with a Chrome/Android solution. At this point it looks like Microsoft is going to finally take a hit as mobile evolves into a real desktop replacement.

meowface3• 13 years ago

Advertising for a charity is quite different from advertising for a for-profit corporation...

Regardless of Microsoft's numerous past and current transgressions, I don't think Gates has any ulterior motives with his current work and philanthropy.

andrewfong• 13 years ago

Even if we take an uncharitable view of Bill's time at Microsoft, the harm is fairly limited. Some companies went out of business, computers are slightly more expensive, things crashed quite a bit, IE6 is still mucking things up, and really old bugs in Microsoft Office occasionally make life miserable. You know, first world problems.

On the flip side, thanks to Bill's philanthropy, there are now billions of dollars flowing towards vaccines, mosquito nets, life-saving research, and other undeniably Good Things.

It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, but if you could quantify and compare the impact of old Bill and new Bill, I'd say he's a net positive.

yuhong3• 13 years ago

My favorite is actually the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco. Did you know that Win9x's dependence on DOS helped Caldera to continue suing MS?

hershel• 13 years ago

Is crushing your competitors something unique to bill gates ? Or any successful operating systems company would have done similar things ?

So it's hard to tell how much of MS's monopolistic behavior should be assigned to gates.

mathattack• 13 years ago

This is also quite assuredly one of the best ways he could have possibly advertised for Heifer International.

Indeed he used his reputation for something that would go viral, and in the end helped that charity quite a bit.

It also suggests to me that he's not above having a little bit of fun too. I'm sure the gift took some thought, and this was more than "I'll have my admin think about it."

heed• 13 years ago

I used to see him at Shaky's pizza in Bellevue, WA on occasion as a kid during the 90s. There I was playing on a Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinet and Gates is chomping on a slice of pepperoni 5 feet away.

transitionality• 13 years ago

He most certainly did not do this because he wanted to be nice. It was a carefully calculated PR stunt.

Your reality check is much appreciated.

CurtMonash5• 13 years ago

One long weekend in the mid-1980s, two of Bill's girlfriends spent several hours each venting to me about their relationship with him.

It was a good wake-up call for me; I'd been pulling some of the same BS he had. I like to think I've treated my romantic partners better ever since.

ximeng• 13 years ago

More details?

downandout• 13 years ago

During his tenure at Microsoft, I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times. He crushed competitors into the ground and punished his enemies with reckless abandon.

He now seems like a nice guy, in large part because he can afford to be. He has no competitors, and his only agenda is to give away his billions. If I had that much money and was retired, you would rarely find me in a bad mood either.

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

I think Bill could be fairly judged as evil and maniacal at times.

I hear this a lot and I think it is grossly unfair. I lived through those times, and my company (Zortech) competed directly with Microsoft.

Microsoft is one tough competitor, no doubt about it. But evil and maniacal is frankly ridiculous. MicroPro, Novell, Lotus, etc., all failed due to their own decisions.

For in-depth information, see the book "In Search of Stupidity".

justin66• 13 years ago

He crushed competitors into the ground and punished his enemies with reckless abandon.

He was a big softie! For example, if you think what he did to Netscape was bad, you ought to hear what users of Netscape 4 wanted to do to Netscape...

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

We can call him "ruthless", but "evil"?

pablovidal85• 13 years ago

True, but don't forget people can also act egoistically or produce harm to others completely on purpose too, just to say that this gift doesn't automatically makes Bill a good person in average, nor his bad actions from the past make this gift dishonest.

kro0ub2• 13 years ago

If by "people" you merely mean "member of the homo sapiens species", then sure. But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed.

onebaddude• 13 years ago

But it doesn't change the fact that he deserves to be executed.

If this comment doesn't earn a ban, there's something wrong with this community. Unbelievable.

jellicle• 13 years ago

Well, maybe it reminds you of that. As for myself, it reminds me that Bill Gates has a PR agency working for him that engages in stuff like this as a way to "relate to the community".

As a different way of expressing the same thought: Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now.

I'm sure he's a nice guy, likes puppies, Mom, and apple pie, but you need to be aware how public relations works if you're going to have any hope of mentally combating its power.

chez17• 13 years ago

You're argument is that it's literally impossible that Bill does something like this just for fun. Yes, PR is a real thing, but lighten up. You have no idea if what you just said was true.

RexRollman• 13 years ago

You are assuming a lot.

jwcrux• 13 years ago

Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did. Or more probably, is entirely unaware of his participation even now.

...Did you even read the post? It had a picture of Bill standing and holding the gifts, one of which was a note mentioning his participation in the gift exchange.

drzaiusapelord2• 13 years ago

Bill Gates found out that Bill Gates was participating in the reddit gift exchange at the same time you did.

Come on, did you even see his AMA? Its pretty clear he's invested in reddit and online culture pretty deeply.

While I'm certain he has some level of image consulting done, I find it hard to believe that he's on the level of Woody Harrelson and other stars who use places like reddit as a quick promotional stunt that they're forced to do by the studios.

I'm glad I'm not as cynical as you. I'm not much of a Gates fan, but he's always been a manboy and nerd at heart. Now that he's semi-retired, I imagine he dicks around on the internet quite a bit. It would be crazy to be culture blind to places like reddit and still think you have your finger on the pulse of technology.

kylelibra• 13 years ago

How celebrities behave on reddit seems to be a good indication of how they actually are in real life.

matthudson2• 13 years ago

How can you possibly know that without knowing one of the celebrities personally, and then extend that as a general rule?

dsl• 13 years ago

I know celebrities with have done AMAs, and I can say with the exception of proxy PR people coaching (usually when they have a movie coming out soon or something), you end up getting pretty honest and direct responses on reddit from them.

kreeben• 13 years ago

Exactly how many would he need to know to be able to safely make that statement?

krrishd• 13 years ago

I think he intended to add a /s at the end

chippy2• 13 years ago

I think Reddit is no longer the preserve of the geek - it's a playground of modern public relations companies

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

Someone in the reddit thread asked a good question, what would you give to Bill Gates if you are his Secret Santa?

endgame• 13 years ago

I'd give him my framed MS-DOS 6.22 certificate of authenticity.

jacalata• 13 years ago

Don't you think he has one?

jevinskie• 13 years ago

A donation to his foundation.

ChikkaChiChi• 13 years ago

This.

stevenj• 13 years ago

I'd give him a few of my favorite books, with the hope that there'd be at least one that he hadn't read yet.

I'd also include a personal write-up as to why I enjoyed each, without giving away any important details.

fekberg• 13 years ago

An invitation to my wedding, he'd get to meet me and I'd get to meet him. It's a win - win!

meowface3• 13 years ago

Books probably. And maybe if I had some spare time, an MS-DOS screenshot with "echo Hi Bill!" on it, or something.

sliverstorm4• 13 years ago

Why a screenshot? Why not a floppy with runme.bat?

tjmc• 13 years ago

641K of RAM. More than anyone deserves!

BillyMaize• 13 years ago

There is no documented proof he ever said this. I'm sure he is sick of hearing it repeated when he has had to tell everyone how he didn't say it and no one listens.

kamaal• 13 years ago

A note, which will attempt to explain him how his 'Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help'[1] and Open source movement are basically one and the same.

[1] http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bill-gates-wired-essay...

sriramk• 13 years ago

When I was at Microsoft, I actually remember Bill talking about how he's a hard person to buy gifts for. I think he said (I could be misremembering this) that he doesn't watch certain TV shows he really enjoys because he wants to be gifted the DVDs. He specifically mentioned 24.

I know he also really enjoys DVDs from the Teaching Company and has a pretty extensive collection.

cLeEOGPw• 13 years ago

50$ so he can buy himself what he wants.

girvo2• 13 years ago

A gift card would be pretty fun, too. To like, Target or something.

chippy2• 13 years ago

a Linux live CD

swalsh• 13 years ago

A book, he's constantly reading.

dublinben• 13 years ago

Free Software, Free Society by Stallman would be a good choice.

jlees• 13 years ago

His recent Wired guest-editor issue talked about his passion for books, I'd look through the books he has and pick out a couple of my favourites that he hopefully hasn't read yet.

vacri• 13 years ago

Great story with a fun typo - "Exactly just what kind of charity is Heifner International?"

mynameishere• 13 years ago

That's a fun gift. I used to get solicitations from Heifer international years ago, and the sad thing is that they advertise themselves such that if you donate 50 dollars, a family will get a flock of chickens; if you donate 100 dollars, a family will get a baby goat. Etc, etc. But all the money goes into a common fund.

I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it. On the other hand, I suppose Bill's underlings conduct proper due diligence.

monksy2• 13 years ago

You learned how the sausage is made.

qq662• 13 years ago

Your complaint is why Watsi (and Kiva before it) exist.

MarkTee2• 13 years ago

Kiva's no different.

xhrpost3• 13 years ago

Looks like they've had a drastic drop in rating from Charity Navigator, from 4/4 stars to 2. Apparently due to them spending 22% of their income on fund raising [1]. This is the first I've heard of them and I may still give just because I like the idea.

[1] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

albedo2• 13 years ago

The overhead ratio is a pretty poor indicator of a charity's effectiveness. http://overheadmyth.com/

acheron• 13 years ago

It would be ridiculously inefficient to literally use your money to buy the chickens or whatever. So yes, it's abstracted a bit, but so is every charity.

michaelt• 13 years ago

Why would that be inefficient?

They just need to count the number of donors who have selected 'baby goat', count the number of baby goats you've distributed, and make sure they're equal. Charge enough per goat to cover some reasonable management overheads. If donors are supplying more goats than you need, stop accepting the donations and ask them to choose chickens instead.

Organisations do things like this all the time. Orders are placed, orders are paid for, orders are fulfilled. Internet retailers manage this millions of times a day with very low overheads. What's the problem?

If a charity wants donations to a general fund rather than a specific use, they should be honest about that in their marketing materials.

qohen• 13 years ago

I know charities have to use modern marketing, but that left a sour taste when I found out about it.

Amusingly, this exact issue, of Heifer International putting money into a common fund vs. buying a water buffalo as expected, led Philip Greenspun to make a blog post on Dec. 26, 2006 (which I just stumbled on yesterday) wherein he wrote, "We are trying to decide if this is the crummiest possible Christmas present."

Then he went on to he ask what it would mean to actually buy water buffaloes for poor families. It turns out, a guy named Robert Thompson, an American living with his Chinese wife in China, left an informed answer in the comments and, long story short, Greenspun and his business partner put up the money and Thompson, with the help of his wife and her family, bought a deserving family a real live water buffalo.

You can read about it (be sure to read comment #1, which is from Thompson) and/or watch the short film Thompson made of the buying and presenting of the animal to a Chinese family, which shows the impact such a gift can have:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2006/12/26/water-buffalo-...

mooreds• 13 years ago

Or just watch the movie: http://www.t2.com/waterbuffalo/watch/water_buffalo_flash_hi....

mhb• 13 years ago

I'm sure they are doing good, but I was a lot less enthusiastic about Heifer International after hearing their responses on a This American Life show about the best way to help people through charity:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/23/214875696/cash-cow...

monksy2• 13 years ago

Hes bill g, I call him money for short... he even does my tech support. [Something something white and nerdy]

ByronT• 13 years ago

Wrong song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos

elmodoll45fo2• 13 years ago

I was at ACE computer camp when this song came out.

bambax• 13 years ago

The last line is so funny:

ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward.

CurtMonash5• 13 years ago

Bill gets it from his mother. I only met her once, yet she fell all over herself to be gracious, try to do me favors, etc.

shdon• 13 years ago

Not just his mother. It was his father who instilled in Bill the need to do something good for the world. Bill Gates Sr. was also in charge of the charitable giving when Bill Gates Jr. (fun little piece of trivia: nicknamed "Trey" in his family to avoid confusion) was still very much involved in the day to day running of Microsoft.

CurtMonash5• 13 years ago

But this is a story about pleasant personality and small gestures. As noted in http://www.softwarememories.com/2009/04/25/wsj-article-on-bi..., I got that vibe from Bill's mother but not his father.

Tossrock• 13 years ago

reminds me of this... http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...

rschmitty• 13 years ago

The thing I was most impressed with is Bills ability to write a cursive capital G.

mrmondo• 13 years ago

Can anyone say... Publicity stunt?

Dirlewanger• 13 years ago

Whenever one finds themselves in the position of asking "Was money a motivating factor?" the answer is always yes.

smackfu2• 13 years ago

Publicity stunt for charity? How dare he.

TallGuyShort• 13 years ago

Yeah - it's not like he does much charity the rest of the year... Oh wait.

gadders3• 13 years ago

I wonder if there is a generational difference between people, say, 30+ and the under 30's of their view of Bill Gates?

For people my age he was "evil" personified during the Netscape/IE/Anti-Trust era. I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist?

As for me, if he keeps this up I'm going to have to start liking the guy :-)

James_Duval• 13 years ago

I wonder if people who came of age after that period see him more as a global good guy and philanthropist

From personal experience, almost exclusively.

The difference is more marked outside the tech sector, too. None of my acquaintances in the 19-30 age range outside the tech industry consider Gates evil, and many love him.

Within the tech industry, I can think of one acquaintance within that age range who considers Gates evil -- and he is exactly 30.

It's difficult for people of my generation to quite understand Microsoft's wrongdoing during that period, when now the company's not nearly so powerful. The 'evil' all seems quite abstract and far away, while the Gates foundation seems to have much more direct results.

My results are skewed because I know an awful lot of people who work for charities and non-profits, who'll naturally have a better opinion of someone who works in the same (ish) sector.

silverlake• 13 years ago

I'm way over 30 and I've always had a positive view of Gates. That's largely because I don't view business competition as a gentlemen's duel. It really is cutthroat as hell. In my early 20s I found the strategy docs for my mega-tech corp on an insecure network drive. Spent the weekend learning about how companies really compete: backroom deals, legal maneuvers, strange contracts, and even political pressure. Very few companies can be the Ghandi of the Fortune 500.

Everytime Gates is mentioned on HN we get the exact same 200 comments detailing his alleged crimes. Gates bought a cow? Sure, but he killed Netscape. Gates built an AIDS research center? Sure, but he added the Office ribbon. Can't we all calm the fuck down and just appreciate 1 rich dude trying to do some good his own way?

gadders3• 13 years ago

I remember reading about one of the robber barons in the gilded age - a Rockefeller or similar - and it was along the lines of (forgive any misquoting):

"People always commented that although he was a ruthless businessman, how kind and considerate he was in his private life. But isn't that the same as most sportsmen? They are determined to win when competing in their sport, but once off the field are not expected to be the same."

ZoFreX• 13 years ago

In my experience non-techy people of any age think he still heads up Microsoft, and blame him when Word crashes.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

After a gushing review of how great Bill was and what a wonderful experience. "...ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward..."

This was a great article, and a reminder that the internet allows us to make a difference in people's lives in ways we never could before.

csmuk• 13 years ago

I love Reddit Secret Santa for the comedy value. So far I've seen this year people have been given:

1. A pig foetus preserved in alcohol.

2. A selection of root vegetables, petroleum jelly and gloves.

ck2• 13 years ago

What a great guy Bill Gates turned out to be and he didn't do it only on his deathbed like some billionaires.

sifarat• 13 years ago

Bill Gates: when you reach your first billion dollar, you are back to cheese burger.

Point. He is just being what everyone else us are here. a normal human being.

_wp3r2• 13 years ago

The vitriol in this thread is astounding.

socalnate1• 13 years ago

Hacker News is really good at finding something wrong with anything good. Reminds me of my grandmother...

_wp3r2• 13 years ago

I have been on the fence for a couple months. I am moving to a post only reader.

joshaidan• 13 years ago

Now, I wonder what Bill received. Bill should make a similar post about his gift, would be cool.

mburst• 13 years ago

Reddit Secret Santa is definitely a very cool project. Kudos to Bill and all the others for participating. Though as other people have mentioned Heifer spends quite a bit of money on advertising, like most other charities I suppose. My roommate donated $10 about a year or 2 ago for a contest and every other week we receive letters, magazines, and photos asking for more money (way more than $10 worth of material). It would be sweet to see a charity spend their money on the actual cause rather than just promotional material.

Julianhearn• 13 years ago

ggg

gnator• 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN0K58EfJSg

kimonos• 13 years ago

Two thumbs up! A great inspiration for everyone!

davidgerard• 13 years ago

That's ridiculously heartwarming.

GEEKS! When you're rich and famous, REMEMBER TO STILL DO COOL STUFF!

Bill Gates takes part in Reddit's Secret Santa

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