You may well laugh at his appalling dress sense, whilst his ears must be perpetually burning from the millions of people who curse him every time they experience the infamous BSOD (blue screen of death), but if it wasn’t for the nerdy Bill Gates you’d probably not be reading this.
Not only did I draft this blog entry using Microsoft Word, but I dare say you’re most likely reading this via his company’s Internet Explorer. In fact, I’ve just checked my e-mails using Microsoft Outlook, scanned my computer for spyware using Windows Defender whilst running it all on Microsoft Windows XP.
I even have to thank Bill Gates for my gainful employment as I use his Visual Basic, Visual C, Visual Studio, and FrontPage products on a daily basis. Love him or loathe him, be in no doubt, Bill Gates is the father of the modern computer.
So when Bill Gates informed the world of his retirement from his day-to-day running of Microsoft – and announcing his intention to become the greatest philanthropist in history – you had to wonder whether he’d finally had one BSOD too many.
As a ruthless business man, he made himself arguably the richest man in the world (during the dot.com boom his total wealth reached an amazing $100 billion dollars) whilst Microsoft became a hugely successful company with more wealth and power than half a dozen countries.
But his huge wealth has not been frittered away on ridiculous palaces or gold plated yachts and planes, because he has already spent nearly a third of his total income – that’s a mind boggling $13 billion dollars – helping the less fortunate in the world.
Formed in 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided billions of dollars for research into AIDS and malaria plus funds for various libraries and education for ethnic minorities in America. The foundation is also currently providing 17 percent of world budget (that’s $46 million dollars to you and me) in a valiant attempt to eradicate the scourge of polio.
So the next time you stop and curse Bill Gates and his evil empire, just remember that he is single handily doing more to help the world than the combined efforts of half the global community.
Not bad for a nerd eh?
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