Gates, Bill

Born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955, William Henry Gates III, founder of the Microsoft computer empire, is, in the year 2003, the world's wealthiestperson, as well as the founder of the world's largest philanthropic foundation. Superlatives and paradoxes stick to Gates. Having scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the Standard Aptitude Test (SAT), he later dropped out of college. Praising technology for "enhancing our leisure time" (Gates 1996, p. 284), his idea of a slow week (after marrying Melinda French in 1994) was to cut his workday to twelve hours a day during the week and eight hours a day on weekends.

Paradoxes also demarcate his ethical stances, both in business and technology. In 1975 he caused a stir among libertarian computer hackers by arguing in a letter to Computer Notes that software programs were "intellectual property" and should be legally protected through copyrights (Lowe 1998, pp. 86–87). As a result of his efforts, copying computer programs became illegal. However over the years a host of other computer companies have complained that he freely borrows their ideas.

A fierce competitor, Gates has said that "business is a good game [with] lots of competition and a minimum of rules" (Lowe 1998, p. 156), yet has been criticized for monopolistic practices. His competitors argue that he "cuts off the oxygen of the competition" (Lowe 1998, p. xiii). In 1998 the U.S. Justice Department sued Microsoft, alleging that the company had forced computer makers to sell its Internet Explorer browser as part of the licensing agreement for its Windows 95 software. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared Microsoft a monopoly a year later. While accused of hardball tactics, it is important to note that Gates votes Democratic (i.e., more rules) more often than Republican and he vows to give away 95 percent of his wealth to charity (Lowe 1998, p. 178)

An unabashed optimist about the future, Gates believes technological "doomsayers vastly underestimate the potential of technology to help us overcome problems" caused by technology (Gates 1996, p. 291). Problems he considers self-correcting with the help of technology include unemployment, overpopulation, environmental dangers, globalization, and virtual reality, as well as privacy and security issues. Quoting H. G. Wells's belief that "human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe" (Gates 1996, p. 293), Gates's foundation invests billions of dollars in the areas of education and global health issues.

Two problems he is less sanguine about include terrorism and artificial intelligence. In the short run terrorism worries him because of the inability of defensive weaponry to keep pace with advances in offensive developments. In the long run he is also concerned that "computers and software could achieve true intelligence" (Gates 1996, p. 290).

But, as a gambler, Gates clearly bets education will trump catastrophe, unlike, for example, Jacques Ellul's dire predictions in his La technique ou l'enjeu du siecle [Technology or the Bet of the Century] (Paris: Colin, 1954). The secret to Gates's worldview is poker. Part of Microsoft's startup costs came from Gates's poker winnings at Harvard. As he says, "In poker, a player collects different pieces of information ... and then crunches all that data together to devise a plan for his own hand. I got pretty good at this kind of information processing" (Gates 1996, p. 43). A extraordinary understatement from a superlative intellect.

Business Ethics;; Computer Ethics.

Gates, Bill. (1996). The Road Ahead. New York: Penguin.

Gates, Bill. (1999). Business @ The Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System. New York: Warner Books.

Lesinksi, Jeanne. (2000). Bill Gates. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications Company.

Lowe, Janet. (1998). Bill Gates Speaks: Insight from the World's Greatest Entrepreneur. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Website of the Microsoft Corporation. Available from http://microsoft.com.

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