“I always thought of Silicon Valley as being left of center,” Mr. Gates said. “The fact that now there is a significant right-of-center group is a surprise to me.”
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was the original template for today’s tech billionaires, built a dominating monopolistic business with frequent run-ins with anti-trust regulators,
“Thirty years ago, Mr. Gates created the model for the in-your-face tech billionaire. Microsoft in the 1990s supplied the operating system for the personal computers that were increasingly in every home and office, and the company had big plans for this new thing called the web. Mr. Gates and his company were perceived as powerful, ruthless and ubiquitous. Silicon Valley was terrified and even regulators were alarmed, suing Microsoft.
The anti-Microsoft sentiment in popular culture peaked with the 2001 movie “Antitrust,” about a tech chief executive who murders people in his quest for world domination. Reviewers underlined the allusions to Mr. Gates, although they largely panned the film
…If Mr. Gates is on the spectrum, he now thinks it gave Microsoft an edge. “I didn’t believe in weekends; I didn’t believe in vacations,” he once said. He knew the license plate numbers of his employees so he could check if they tried to go home. It was a model for thousands of tech start-ups to come.”
Ahead of his new book Source Code releasing this month, he speaks to the NYT suggesting he couldn’t be any different now. And not just because he hasn’t shown his unequivocal support for Trump.
“….The ire is long gone and Mr. Gates has no recollection of “Antitrust.” Among billionaires who generate strong emotions, he said with a hint of relief, “I’m not at the top of the list. The current tech titans would elicit a stronger negative reaction.”
…Despite giving many billions of dollars to the Gates Foundation, his philanthropic juggernaut, Mr. Gates remains the 12th-richest person in the world, with personal wealth of over $100 billion, according to Forbes. But his physique isn’t jacked, he does not have his own rocket fleet, and he seems eager to point out that he does not have all the answers.”
On the ills of social media:
““Incredible things happened because of sharing information on the internet,” Mr. Gates said. That much he anticipated. But once social media companies like Facebook and Twitter came along, “you see ills that I have to say I did not predict.”
Political divisiveness accelerated by technology? “I didn’t predict that would happen,” he said. Technology being used as a weapon against the broader public interests? “I didn’t predict that,” he said.”
On cryptocurrencies:
“Mr. Gates is a techno-optimist but he has limits, like cryptocurrency. Does it have any use?
“None,” he said. “There are people with high I.Q.s who have fooled themselves on that one.””
On wealth inequalities:
““Should we outlaw billionaires?” Mr. Gates asked. “My answer to that, and you can say I’m biased, is no.”
But he supports a tax system that is more progressive. Every year, he adds up the taxes he has paid over his lifetime. He figures he has paid $14 billion, “not counting sales tax.”
Under a better system, he calculates, he would have paid $40 billion.”
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