Gates to join Simonyi in Space? 208
gadgetopia writes "On Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin tells journalists in a live video interview from the ISS that "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"." Gotta wonder what that insurance premium is going to look like.
Yeah, quadruple indirection! (Score:5, Insightful)
Insurance (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod this up! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Insurance (Score:1, Insightful)
And generally one doesn't need insurance money once dead anyway, it's for the people left behind.
Re:Lots of jokes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Andrew Carnegie, Gates is like a bear who went over the mountain, saw another mountain, and being somewhat smarter than the average bear had a shrewd guess about what he'd find on the other side of that mountain.
We're in the post-Gates era of Microsoft now. If he wanted to be back in charge, he could be, but he's onto phase II of his career, which is not about Microsoft. There'd be no ego gratification, no fun in maintaining the status quo. So he's on to changing the world. It's not an unheard of late career move for the evil genius who has no Sherlock Holmes against whom he can test his mettle. If Spassky hit his mid career, and found the only people left to challenge him played chess like me, he'd have taken up crochet instead.
What would you do if you had to be Bill Gates, not for day, but every day for, say, the next forty or fifty years? You'd want to do something pretty damned amazing with your life, not only amazing, but amazing compared to what you did with the first half of your life.
Now you have Microsoft, which is built around Bill Gates ego, except Bill Gates' ego is on to bigger and better things. They're a ghost of their former selves. Seriously, the old Microsoft would not have been humiliated by a startup whose motto was "do no evil". Google would have been crushed or coopted. Crushed and coopted more likely, in whatever order suited Bill Gates master plan best.
I think we can expect better things from both Gates and Microsoft in the coming years than we've seen from them yet, but the transition is going to be painful for people who are overinvested in Microsoft. Overinvested in more ways than money.
So, overall, I think people, even Microsoft haters, ought to be rooting for Gates to make it back to the Earth.
Re:Lots of jokes, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'm saying is that MS is in the position that the Armies of Darkness at the end of a cliche high fantasy novel: once welded into a mighty instrument of hellish terror by the diabolical iron will of the Dark Lord, now bereft of that will they have fallen into pitiable disarray.
Only in this case the Dark Lord hasn't been banished into the nether dimensions, he's just decided that Evil is no fun if the Forces of Light don't but up a decent fight. You have to pour the bulk of your power into a vulnerable MacGuffin or put a direct line to the core reactor where any half assed hero with an ounce of derring do can torpedo it, just to keep things mildly interesting. Then it turns out nobody has the balls to carry the Ring to the Cracks of Doom; it's like getting dressed for the prom and being stood up by your date.
There's always the old standby of designing the Lair of Evil with a conveniently navigated man sized ventilation system. Sure you can put devilish traps in it or infest it with revolting guardians, but the wise Demiurge knows that when you stoop that low your heart isn't really in the game anymore.
With respect to how things would have fared if various technologies put up a better fight while Gates was in his prime, I think it would have made no difference. Gates strength as a leader is discernment: separating the things that matter from the things that don't and finding the right place to throw his force against. Utter ruthlessness was just the icing on the cake, the twirl on the villain's mustache. There are plenty of ruthless people in the world. There are plenty of bright people. Ruthless and bright, that's a rare combination.
Gates is showing that discernment now by going after Malaria. Malaria is the one vexing, persistent problem in the world that can be solved with determination and vision. There is a massive multiplier effect to money well spent, and the elimination of Malaria will in turn have a multiplier effect on many other problems. So finacally, he's found the place that has not a multiplier effect, but an exponentiation effect.