Bill Gates

[BOB W]

Love Him or Hate Him – Bill Gates


To anyone with kids of any age, here’s some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how “feel good” and “politically correct” teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get use to it.

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for flipping burgers – they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it is not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. That doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. – Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this- Thank a teacher
If you are reading this in English- Thank a soldier.

[abby]

from an Urban Legends website:

Comments: Whether the above strikes you as a clever, much-needed dose of realism for today's youth or an unnecessarily vituperative browbeating, one thing you ought to be aware of is that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates neither wrote the words nor delivered them in a speech to high school students or anyone else. As happens with alarming frequency online, a text written by one person came to be falsely attributed to another and due to endless repetition the attribution stuck and became accepted as fact.

The text itself a pared-down version of an op-ed piece that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune on September 19, 1996. It was written by Charles J. Sykes, best known as the author of "Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add." Drastically edited by person(s) unknown, it began making the email rounds under Bill Gates' name in February 2000 and is still, as of this writing in 2005, far more often attributed to Gates than to Sykes — which is unfortunate, but, like the man said: Life isn't fair; get used to it.

[Bees Knees]

There are of course numerous email stories making there way around the internet as people read something that they agree with and then forward them on to the next group. Other web sites such as

http://www.snopes.com/

and

http://www.truthorfiction.com/

also give background information on where some of this stuff comes from. Of course, how do we know the information from these sites are accurate? Is there anything on the web you can believe?

[jainen]

Yep

Yep, you can believe me!

[abby]

often benign, sometimes not

These types of emails are often benign - and often enjoyable to read - I look them up to attempt to find out who I'm really reading.

There was one attributed to Kurt Vonnegut (incorrectly) -something about sunscreen - a few years back that was good.

The ones I won't abide are the ones that try to pass on gentle wisdom and then end up threatening you with bad luck if you don't forward it to however many others.

I'll respond to my 'friends' in these cases requesting they not send me threats under cover of friendship.

[Roberts]

irregardless of who wrote it - it's interesting. Thanks for posting it.

[BOB W]

Gates

I'm sorry I was mis-informed as to the author... but I thought it would breakup the pre tax season gitters with something I found interesting to me. I (my ex wife) raised 4 children and could see the reality of this article. I am now raising my 7 year old son (I'm 63) and could use some of the wisdom in the piece written to help steer him back to reality, if he gets away from himself.

Doing the children thing all over again is so much different the second time around, I'm looking forward to it.

[John of PA]

two more cents

I don't think I would want such a person teaching my children. Perhaps there really is only 2 items on the list, if it was really written from such a person.
1) Reap more than what you sow (unjust competitive moves is open game).
2) Spend the rest of your life trying to convince the world that your really a nice guy.

[Roberts]

Are you implying Bill Gates is a villian? Please explain.

[John of PA]

You decide

I and millions of other Americans were victims of Microsoft's anti-trust actions of which they were taken to court over. I don't appreicate having downloaded an innocent trial of a Microsoft product just to have them change the configuration settings on my PC to their products. They unfairly blew Lotus and Wordperfect and Apple out of the marked by not sharing certain operating system configurations with competitiors, of which a court later ruled they must. MS would not sell their operating system (DOS, then Windows) to a PC maker unless the maker used thier system on every machine they sell. Again ruled as an anit-trust violation. Had the US Govt. not stepped in here, they would control everything, from our tax prep software (they tried to buy Intiut, the Govt. stopped them), to our Quickbooks software, to our electronic banking transactions. No Bill Gates is not a villian. He is just too agressive a business man for my taste, and personally I'm not interest in anything he has to say.

[BOB W]

On the other hand...

... you have Bill Gates to thank for the wonderful operating system you are now using. I remember back in the early '80s when computers had nothing but problems.. it sure has come a long way since then. Thanks to Bill Gates and his team.

Yes, the govn't did have to step in and we are all glad they did. But it appears that his need to grow has not stopped, he now has an accounting program which is full blown. Let's see where that goes....................You may like it John.............

[JON]

Compnay has to share-Coca Cola

I think Gates is a genius and the federal government enjoyed punishing him for being far in front in software development. Does Coca Cola have to disclose there trade secret??? Apple, Lotus and whoever can form their own compnay to compete.. I have a relative who was having lunch with some college buddies-two of which worked for the US Attorney General and were really proud of the success they had against Micro. That is where this country has gotten to- people whose only job is working for the government controlling what happens in the ever shrinking free enterprise sector. No one is forced to download or purchase any of Micro's products, but the federal government will spend millions to help you protect yourself. Why did not Clinton go after Sun Micro? Look at the contibutions...

We should hope all Gates and crew do is create others better than Gates and crew. As they said it is easier to pay penalties than pay the attorneys. Have your children grow up to be cowboys-I mean attorneys...

[Roberts]

I would agree, this country needs another 1,000 Bill Gates. For every product MS produces and sells, there is a comparable or cheaper alternative on the market at this time. Don't like Office, just go get Open Office and it's yours - FREE. Don't like Windows - go buy an Apple or but a cheap version of Linxus.

DOS, Windows, Office... have revolutionized the personal computer. If you don't like Gates and his products, there are options to avoid them - just search for them. If he didn't make a superior product line at a reasonable price, he wouldn't be in business and the success he is today. He's aggressive yes but that doesn't make him a bad guy.

[John of PA]

Gates, the whole truth

... you have Bill Gates to thank for the wonderful operating system you are now using. I remember back in the early '80s when computers had nothing but problems.. it sure has come a long way since then. Thanks to Bill Gates and his team.

Yes, the govn't did have to step in and we are all glad they did. But it appears that his need to grow has not stopped, he now has an accounting program which is full blown. Let's see where that goes....................You may like it John.............

We do not have Bill Gates to thank for the Windows operating system, we have Apple to thank. Back when everyone used DOS, before MS Windows was introducted; the Apple system had mouses clicking icons for years. It was a far superior system. MS copied it (within the law I presume) and blew Apple out of the market, which MS later gave Apple money to keep them going to prop us MS's image as a good guy. We would be better off today, with a more stable operating system if we all used Apples, but in all fairness, Apples loss of the PC software market was also thier own fault for trying to bundle the hardware with the software and not allowing others to clone the Apple hardware, which backfired. Ask any software developer, Windows is still loaded with bugs and problems. The new accounting program being offered by MS, in my humble opinion, will fail just as their last attempt at this did (Microsoft Profit). I'am not sure why MS is doing this, they don't stand a chance penetrating Quickbooks market share, that is unless they use the fact that they make the operating system to compete unfairly with Quickbooks by not sharing the needed codes for the brand new MS operating system coming out next fall. But who does that? Gates? Nah!!! He's our hero. Well wouldn't be lovey if Gates did pull this off. After masterring Quickbooks, and having MS blow them out of the market, we all would then have to learn a new accounting package. One more point to update my earlier post, check today's business news, top stories and you will see yet another fine to Microsoft (33 million) by South Korea, who is not amused by Gates trying to control the Media Player market by requireing PC hardware Mfgs. (Samsung?) to use Media Player only on thier machines and not a competing product. (sort of "either use our Media Player product, or we won't sell you the Windows Operating System") So on and on, the same old story with Microsoft. My point that started all this is: my children will be just fine, not learning Busines 101 according to Bill Gates.

[taxmandan]

Gates and Microsoft

We do not have Bill Gates to thank for the Windows operating system, we have Apple to thank. (snip) My point that started all this is: my children will be just fine, not learning Busines 101 according to Bill Gates.

I don't think the world would be any better off if Steve Jobs had become the richest guy in the world either! Gates not only helped himself to alot of computer stuff from Apple, he also learned his attitude from Jobs!