Bill Gates: 11 Rules for Being a Jackass

[Truth2Tell]

So I read this speech by Bill Gates and my reaction is: What an arrogant, elitist, self-entitled jackass. But maybe that's just my distorted view. What y'all think?

Bill Gates speech: 11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn'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 burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's 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 parent's 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 have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This 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.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=131190066891088&id=513625075&ref=mf

Seems like crazy words from a guy who inhereted or stole everything he has. But whatev.

[trotsky]

1. Snopes says: FALSE.

Bill Gates never said those things.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Rule 12: Have rich parents & a mom who knows the CEO of IBM.

[Hannah Bell]

9. +100. and a great & grand who worked for the rockefellers' city bank.

[Ignis]

29. Heh. Have you read Gladwell's Outliers?

He makes this point rather clearly in that book.

[The_Casual_Observer]

31. I first heard the facts about Gates greatness sometime in the early

80's. It was later covered in a documentary that was called "Triumph of the Nerds".

[Ignis]

32. Sorry, I hope you don't think I was implying you stole the idea from Gladwell.

I'm just saying it's a kick-ass book, with Gates as one of the prime examples of how most "self-made men" had Connections, Connections, Connections in addition to being smart.

:D

[Hannah Bell]

3. much as i despise bg, i don't think that's his work. i've heard it before.

[Common Sense Party]

4. First of all, it WASN'T written by Bill Gates.

Secondly, there is a great deal of helpful and accurate advice in there, which I have tried to impart to my children.

[meegbear]

5. I went to the Facebook page and see no links to where this originally came from ...

Anybody have any sunscreen?

[CBGLuthier]

6. Rule Number 12 Check Snopes First

So you won't look foolish posting falsehoods.

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/liferule.asp

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Which of these do you disagree with?

[liberalmuse]

18. All of it.

First of all, the title. Then the body of it, which is anecdotal, shallow, obvious crap any idiot should be able to figure out, disguised as 'wisdom'. FAIL.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. You think that life is fair and that we shouldn't get used to it?

[lpbk2713]

8. George Carlin didn't say it either.

:eyes:

[BadgerKid]

10. They sound largely true, though

#5 seems like how an elitist who has been handed everything would say it.

[Warpy]

11. Poor Carlin got robbed

I guess since he's dead, they had to find a live guy to hang this rubbish on.

The truth is that it's some bitter old Generation Suck retiree sitting at his computer after spending the day filling his empty head with Limbaugh and Beck who came up with this total horseshit.

Always check Snopes first. This garbage has been around for years.

[Cid_B]

13. Which part was "horseshit",,,

in your opinion?

[JuniperLea]

14. Uh... the main part... the author is NOT Gates...

I thought that was clear to all... I guess not.

[Ikonoklast]

16. All of it.

An entire 'bootstraps' bullshit polemic.


Stuff you like, I'm sure.

[Nye Bevan]

23. You disagree with *all* of it? So you think television *is* real life? (nt)

[Ikonoklast]

25. Entire premise is flawed.

And reality depends on your vantage point.

[Warpy]

26. No, the premise that we're all stupid enough to think it is

is the flawed premise inherent in the statement.

Get real, man, this whole thing is insulting as hell.

[Warpy]

17. The general tone of superiority is the problem, along with

Rule #1: the implication is clear not to waste your time trying to make the world a fairer place, just hunker down, shut up, and do what you're told. Don't even think about forming a union.

Rule #2: Hunker down, shut up, and do what you're told. If your boss makes you feel like shit he scraped off his shoe, that's because you are shit he scraped off his shoe. Way to go, asshole.

Rule #3: True, unless you are the scion of one of the rich and famous, then your starting salary at Daddy's foundation will be will within the 6 figures and yes, you will have that limo because Daddy wants to keep you safe. Car phones went the way of the buggy whip and that really dates this list.

Rule #4: There's a difference between tough and sociopathic. The latter should never be accepted under any circumstances.

Rule #5: Flipping burgers is in no way any sort of an opportunity to do anything but pay the bills. Sometimes that's the best you can hope for, see Rule #1.

Rule #6: You get to whine until you turn 25. After that, it's your stuff, not theirs. Some families are dysfunctional and it takes some time to process that and work past it.

Rule #7: Some were, some weren't.

Rule #8: Oh, come off it. This was horseshit before NCLB and it's ten times the amount of horseshit now.

Rule #9: Mostly true, but that shouldn't keep you from joining a union and trying to get that miserly 2 weeks of vacation time a year increased to a point that you can actually rest and recharge your batteries.

Rule #10: No shit, Sherlock. Even now, after inheriting, I can't afford that Manhattan lifestyle of a 1 bedroom flat, let alone on an entry level wage just out of college. Get real, producers. Most of us are Roseanne, not Friends. If I'd worked my first nursing job there instead of in Boston, I'd have been commuting from Queens or Jersey.

Rule #11: Hey, it pays to be nice to everyone. You never know when or where they'll pop up again in your life.

OK, did that clear a few things up?

[NC_Nurse]

12. I'm not surprised that this is false. It doesn't sound like stuff he would say...

Granted, I've him speak a few times on TV, but still.

[liberalmuse]

15. I knew right off Gate's didn't write these because...

this sounds like the right wing shit that ends up in my email box every once in awhile.

[HughBeaumont]

19. Sounds like angry "bootstraps", "don't blame us" and anti-liberal shite.

It's funny, because the last president (who the REAL author of this text likely voted for) didn't follow ANY of these rules. Especially not #11.

[SheilaT]

20. The amazing part is how many people

will blindly reprint something without bothering to source it.

Snopes is always your friend.

[slackmaster]

21. First reply nailed it

As usual.

[Redstone]

22. Listen to "trotsky" (reply #1). Snopes is your friend, and checking this kind

of stuff at their website will save you some embarrassment.

Redstone

[comtec]

24. Actually it's good advice

Say what Ill you will about it, but it is all true.

The basic message is you have to work for success, no matter what that work entails.

The problem conservatives have with liberals (REAL conservatives), and rightly so, is that we see ANY job a beneath us.

Granted when parents and teachers were dispensing this kind of advice the world was different - you COULD find work out of college.

However people DO have unrealistic expectations about the kind of work they're going to find outside of university, and people DO have a sense of entitlement (rule #7)

The world is exponentially harder to succeed in - let alone survive - than when I was in college.
They may be snarky, and possibly overly harsh in some wording... but this IS reality!
Reality is HARSH!

and candy coating it helps NO ONE!
I'm unemployed in a VERY vicious, and competitive market. My tech skills alone won't get me work. Having raw, or even refined skill and talent doesn't count for shit anymore (at MAX 25%)

People need to get used to having to learn to schmooze, and coral their way into higher positions, if not, then to be ready to work your asses off, because the golden age of mediocrity surviving is long dead!

[Fumesucker]

28. That depends on whether the mediocrity is connected or not..

Connections count for far more in life than ability or hard work.

[JerseygirlCT]

36. I don't agree about the "see any job as beneath us" part at all

From my experience, there's a lot of liberals in the non-profit sector. And believe me, no matter how important your title may be, you'd better be prepared to stuff envelopes! (And work for less pay than your skills might fetch in the private sector).

[Drale]

30. When we this said

because first the only people that I know at least that dont have cell phones dont have them because they choose not to have them and second I know a bunch of people who never leave the coffee shop lol

[DainBramaged]

33. "Seems like crazy words from a guy who inherited or stole everything he has"

But whatev, he's GIVEN away more money than the COMBINED WEALTH OF EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF DU SINCE 2001.


I think he is worth listening to.

But, this is DU. Piss on everyone unless they are wearing potato sacks and scrubbing toilets.


oh AND ASK STEVIE JOBS ABOUT THE SLAVE WAGES HE PAYS FOR HAVING HIS PRODUCTS ASEMBLED. I think that is criminal.

[Fumesucker]

34. You didn't read the thread..

Gates didn't write this.

:hi:

[JerseygirlCT]

35. I've seen this before

and whoever wrote it, I think there's a lot of good stuff in there.

Maybe I'm just a parent.