Bill Gates

[DaveJ]

First of all, I will admit that this post is mainly a result of personal experience with I.T., the workforce that IMO was hardest hit over the past 5 years. Despite the fact that it was hardest hit, though, computer technology and I.T. professionals are integral to a successful business. Most are very highly educated and technically minded yet still often make less than many people working in jobs that require no skill or education.

Regarding Gates, I used to have respect for him, but the more I find out, the more I realize that he is a scam artist somewhere on the level of someone you might run into selling perfume or jewelry on the street.

The fact that he is against foreign visa caps is bad enough. But that's not really the heart of the matter. I don't think he really gives a damn about foreign visas even if they do effect the level of market wages a bit.

The reason I consider him a scam artist is linked to his comments regarding I.T. jobs. Gates is telling the pubilc that there are "plenty" of computer jobs available, "high paying ones," but there aren't enough qualified people in the U.S. to fill them. This obviously is bullshit. The I.T. industry probably will never recover. A computer science degree is worth little more than a degree in basket weaving today, maybe less.

What do I think the richest man in the world is doing to advance civilization, and promote progress on the planet earth? As you'd expect in our age of economic cannibalism, he's looking out for #1. The reason Gates is making remarks about visas and job surplus is, plain, simple, and stupid, to sell Microsoft certifications.

Sound crazy? He has a right to make money, sure, and he even has a right to lie to the public in order to make a profit. Lots of people are lying sleazbags in order to make money. But Gates takes sleaze a step beyond the norm by misleading the public, and insulting his own customers, potential job seekers for his company, and everyone who works and wants to work in the industry he represents. Not only that but he's making a mockery of an economic policy decision.

Maybe I could be proved wrong, but it makes perfect sense. MS certifications really are not that useful, nothing that can't be self-learned, especially be a college grad, but not only does MS make big profit from these classes, but graduates will go on to use mainly MS products, and work essentially as sales agents for the corporation. Gates wants to be the supreme force controlling computer science education, because there's big money behind it, for him.

Again, there is a lot of self interest behind my concern for this. I've been told many times to give up my desire to work with computer technology, but I refuse. Anyway I'm simply admitting that I do have some personal interest behind this matter, which happens to also coexist with the intersts of thousands of others who have also been put out.

[acmejack]

1. No IT expertise in this country!

Yup, Yup. Michael Dell wholeheartedly agrees. Has nothing to do with the fact H-1Bs will work for nothing, I suppose. I'm not bitter, really!

[DaveJ]

2. I like Dell's rationale better

At least he doesn't mock I.T. professionals like Gates by saying there are plenty of high paying jobs available but nobody to fill them, like Gates does. Dell has a "build it and they will come" mentality, saying we need more technology experts in order to attract businesses to this country. Whether or not one agrees with that, at least it's speculation and not just an outright lie.

[lvx35]

3. C'mon! That's not true!

Microsoft needs help now, writing regular expressions to match anything chinese say about human rights or democracy, so it can be censored! Hey, that's a lot of work!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,14024,1506602,00.html

if regex.match("human *rights|democracy", chinese_blog_post) {
delete_immediately();
} #Microsoft. What do you want to have censored today?

[rurallib]

4. didn't he basically rip off others to get to the top?

MSDOS and gui's?
Gates is worth what? $50 billion? if he lost 99% he'd still have $500,000,000. if he lost 99% of that he'd still have 5 million. Rich beyod belief and yet so petty.

[sendero]

5. I worked as a programmer..

... from 1985 until 2001. I knew by 1990 that Bill Gates is a joke.

PC computing would be 10 years ahead of where it is right now if he'd gone into the pizza business.

[unblock]

6. wow, i could have written the exact same post.

although i was wise to microswift as soon as 'dos' came out. WORST OPERATING SYSTEM EVER.

seriously. wouldn't pass as a junior independent project.

in the 80's, and well into the 90's, gates destroyed competition by leveraging off his o.s. monopoly to either incorporate other systems software or to push his own version of the same applications.

microswift has invented basically NOTHING, every product the have, as far as i know, has been bought, stolen, or copied from a competitor, and invariably, the result has been an inferior and delayed product at a higher price with less competition.

they are a case study in the adverse consequences of unrestrained monopoly. and yet, everyone seems to love them for the exact reasons that monopolies are bad.

"they're the best because they're big and they offer so much." no kidding, they unfairly eliminated the competition, so of course they're the only ones remaining. that's bad, not good.

"they keep improving their product." no kidding, that's because (a) they suck and (b) they improve MARKET far slower than the MARKET would improve had there been genuine competition. note in particular that they could go straight from the typical version 1.0 to the typical version 8.0, but they do things far more slowly in order to get you to buy 7 upgrades instead of one. competition would have prevented this crap.

"gates deserves his riches, he provide a great product, software is wonderful". no kidding, oil was wonderful when standard oil was the only supplier. but that didn't mean he wasn't able to overcharge due to the lack of competition, crushed by his unfair practices.

"destroying microsoft would hurt the consumer." pure grade 'a' 100% bullshit. anti-trust actions do not destroy companies and they do not hurt consumers. at their most drastic, they force a monopoly to split up into multiple companies. you can't tell me that having microsoft operating systems, inc. (providing windows products) and microsoft applications, inc. (providing applications software) would destory bill gates or microsoft or their investor or their consumers or their products, without pushing the idea that their applications business takes unfair advantage of their operating systems business. tell me, who exactly lost out when at&t split up??

[sendero]

7. Most people..

... (including some who think they know something) are not aware that Microsoft has innovated NOTHING. Virtually every major paradigm in PC computing was invented by someone else and stolen or co-opted by Microsoft, including GUI, networking, file compression, the spreadsheet, the word processor, the browser, you name it.

I defy anyone here to name one signicant advance in PC computing initiated by Microsoft.

Also, what REALLY gets me going is the idea that Gates is some kind of programming genius. He's a ruthless businessman and competitor without any scruples at all, but he is no technology wizard in any sense of the word.

What I learned after talking to defenders of Microsoft (mostly young folks) is that THEY'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING ELSE so they have no frame for comparison. They think that all computer software is buggy crashy crap. It's really sad.

Trust me, one day a foreign competitor is going to trounce MS because MS will not be able to use their dirty tricks in countries with real ant-trust laws.

[DaveJ]

8. But I'm not really talking about product quality....

I mean, if he wants to create trashy products (and that's what they are) that's his right. But when he starts giving false testimonies in order to influence the law, that's another story. His false statement that there are plenty of jobs but not enough qualified people to fill them is an insult to America, and the world really, since those fictitious jobs really are not available to the world either.

If these jobs were actually available, employers would be willing to do some teaching on the job (or allowing employees to learn), instead of requiring MS Certifications ahead of time. Instead he's helped contribute to the atmosphere of economic cannibalism, making employers feel it's alright in saying, "there will be no learning on the job" in their want ads. No learning on the job???? What kind of pathetic sleazy job would not want their employees to learn. But Gates doesn't care. He just wants to sell his certifications at the expense of showing respect for other types of education, such as university education which helps develop students' ability to learn new things.

It's most upsetting to me, personally, because people like him could be forces of good in the world (I know I'm naive), but instead they contribute to humanity's moral decline.

[unblock]

9. in my hiring experience, microswift certifications are a negative

usually it indicates a weenie who is more interested in padding his resume than in making a contribution to the team.

moreover, the certifications stress detailed knowledge of specific microswift features across a broad range of the product or topic. total crap such as, 'which menu is this menuitem on'. i mean really! do you really think that i, as an employer, am going to give a rat's ass if someone who KNOWS how to program can't remember if it's under 'file' or 'edit' or 'tools'???

mostly, people get certifications to cover for their lack of genuine understanding of the product area. at least, that's been my experience. people who really know how to use a product don't necessarily remember the order of arguments for specific functions. but they know how to USE that function, which is vastly more important.

i guess what i mean is, that knowledge represented by a certification is easily replaced by the 'help' facility for most microswift products.

[sendero]

10. He he...

.... my wife manages a mid-sized (150 workstations) help desk, and she'd agree with you 100%.

The fact is, techies are born, not made. I've seen example after example of folks trying to become programmers or techs who simply don't have the aptitude - they can get the certifications because it's merely a matter of learning to answer canned questions.

When it comes time to actually bring up a network, a lot of these folks are clueless.

[GracieM]

17. Half the certified people I've hired

didn't know Word from Excel. I don't trust anybody to do a job they learned how to do in a class.

[dArKeR]

11. Gates spits on the graves of dead American Soldiers

I heard from Limbaugh to Bush to Novak to O'Rielly... say we should be proud to be Americans and stand up for Democracy and Freedom. I heard them all say how each of our soldiers are heros because they are going to stand up and possibly die for "Freedom and Democracy". So our children are expect to die for "Freedom and Democracy" but Gates is too much of a coward and/or money hungry and bows to murderous Communist Chinese and forbids "Freedom" and "Democracy" topics from being listed in Gates MS system.

In conclusion. Our children are brave enough to be dying by the thousands and being amputated by the tens of thousands for two PRINCIPLES, "FREEDOM" and "DEMOCRACY' and Gates is too much of a sleazy, corrupt, PIMP to back up our dead, dying and amputees!

God made Hell especially for sleaze like you Gates!

[DaveJ]

12. Apt that you should mention communism and censorship

Maybe it's fate or just sheer prevalence, but I just happened to be browsing this thread and a technical discussion forum at the same time, and happened on some interesting remarks made by a MS employee. I hope I do not get this individual in any kind of trouble by reposting his comments, but I just found them interesting.

http://www.usb.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6526


It seems they are all required to post to discussion groups while they are at work, and there they are required to identify themselves as MS employees, and since they are being monitored, of course, they are required not to goof off in their discussions.

On the surface it seems nice, that MS has a policy to reach out to the public. But that's about all that's nice about it. It's obviously done for marketing purposes. Notice the stiff, robotic, and IMO almost frightened tone of this guy:

Prior to the push by my employer to reach out to the industry (now it is a requirement that all employees work/assist in some way with people outside of the company), I too did not reveal my employer information. Since it is now a requirement, I simply include the requirement information. I'm glad that helping others with technical issues isn't viewed as goofing off. Hopefully I do an acceptable job as an ambassador for my employer as well.

"Ambassador for my employer"? Apparently everyone at MS has to be ambassadors, thus turning every techie into part time PR and sales agents. God forbid they could just be techies, or in this case, Bill Gates forbids....


I also have some free consulting advice for Gates... how about instead of making your frightened employees 'reach out' by posting to discussion forums, why not actually make your employees less frightened, let them goof off a little instead of intentionally burning them out, and stop supporting censorship in Communist nations.

[idlisambar]

13. nothing really sinister here

It is what it looks like. A few years ago microsoft higher-ups started a push to get its employees involved in the trenches to get "a feel for the customer". This is one of the efforts on that front.

When posting on groups you are supposed to be professional and make sure that the post is not misleading or incorrect -- the idea is not to look foolish to the customers as they expect you to be an expert on the product.

[sendero]

14. Oh really?

How does that work if you are not required to identify yourself as a MS employee?

I've watched this company for years, they NEVER get the benefit of the doubt from me any more, and they well earned that mistrust.

[DaveJ]

15. It just seems kind of wierd....

Maybe I'm old school and defy change, but requiring employees to mingle with the public... I dunno. Just seems odd. I've been of the thinking that when you are employed for someone, they should give you work to do and you should get it done. This kind of 'reaching out' requirement seems not so much like they are invading their employees' personal lives, but that they are brining their personal/public lives into the company.

Yes I'm probably making a big thing out of nothing.

[idlisambar]

16. it is not as bad as that

Employees aren't required to mingle with the "public" per se, they are just encouraged take a look at and to post of the microsoft helpgroups when they see a question isn't being answered. Different workgroups have different policies and habits, but usually this type of stuff is considered low priority for the employee. It is better to think of it as participating in "product support" than a requirement to "mingle".

[AX10]

18. Gates is a scam artist.

There are no IT jobs in America anymore.