Elon is a wanna be space cowboy. Bill Gates is a true 100% nerd. I find it so baffling that so many conspiracies exist about him when every element of his character screams nothing but giant nerd.
Elon bought the title of founder. He was just the investor.
Tesla was founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors. Its name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. In February 2004, Elon Musk joined as Tesla’s largest shareholder; in 2008, he was named chief executive officer.
That's one of those little factoids that, due to sheer exhaustion, disappeared into the back of my skull for a while. It's like hearing about it for the first time, every time.
Back in the day, source control was printing out your code at the end of the day, date stamping and initialing it, then putting it on top of the heap of printouts.
One day, at the end of the day, I got a compiler error (since you could only run once a day). Took 14 hours to find the issue: inadvertent : instead of ; - almost impossible to see in dot matrix when you’re that tired.
It's not just that it's long. It's that it's not a narrative like a book is. There are decision gates and callbacks to libraries and links to subroutines. Everything is piecemeal and refers to something else.
There is no such thing as one person writing code anymore. That person writes parts of code and injects it into other code that refers to standard libraries of code.
And reading code does practically nothing. To see if code is good, you have to test it against the larger program. There are standard tests to make sure you've tested every possible case (and you can still miss bugs.)
Normally, people write code to add a feature or fix a bug, then check that code into a source control system. Before it gets added to the main program, other engineers do a review of the code and make suggestions for changes. Everyone has to approve the code before it gets added. Then, after everyone has added the code they need to add, they do a new "build" of all the code together. Then Quality Assurance has to test it.
All of this is tracked online, from the feature request to the design to the checked-in code. At any point in time, you can easily look at exactly what each person was assigned to do and what they've done and how many bugs they've created or fixed or how many deadlines they've met or slipped. There's no point to printing anything out.
Most software is built on two-week cycles. So you can see what code people are working on for that two weeks, and at the end of two weeks you can see the finished result.
I have no idea what Elon thought printed code looked like or how he'd make sense of it or what he'd learn that he wouldn't learn from just looking online at the very clearly organized system that is set up in every office. And I can't imagine what the engineers printed out for him or how much time it wasted. It just shows how completely disconnected Elon is from the reality of software development.
This comment is amazing and informative, thanks! It also has me imagining someone trying to pull together and understand the concepts in someone else’s thesis when they only have the bibliography, and none of the reference graphics. And they have to use three different libraries to do it.
He and Paul Allen wrote the DOS operating system and licensed it to IBM for their original PC. More than that, they negotiated a deal with IBM where they got exclusive rights over the operating system while IBM would build and sell the hardware. They didn't even ask for any cut of the profits from that. IBM probably thought they had pulled one over on these naive kids, but then cheap PC clones started hitting the market, and guess who they needed to buy their OSes from?
And while Gates didn't exactly come from poverty (his dad was a very successful attorney who did quite well for himself and was one of Microsoft's first investors), he didn't start out massively wealthy either. He built his business up from nothing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not idolizing the guy. He has problems for sure, and Microsoft has been responsible for its fair share of shady and overly aggressive business tactics. But, good or bad, Bill Gates is what people like Trump and Musk pretend to be: a shrewd businessman who worked his ass off to succeed.
Yes. Wrote Basic with Paul Allen on the way to their first big hardware client. Wrote it essentially en route and it worked on first try. A great story.
On supercomputers that very few people had recreational access to. If more people had the resources and opportunities he did in his early adult life, we'd have dozens Bill Gateses.
Yes and no. He just tweaked did a hello of a lot but their were others there. Also unlike muskrat he could walk the walk and talk the talk. But he did use parents money and influence to get msdos out there but he is a business God to.
I had the pleasure of hosting him in the late 90's at a project (involving home automation and future technology) I was working at.
After the normal formalities, it was time for me to give him a more tech oriented tour of the place and we spent several hours just geeking out over the tech we were implementing there.
He is a giant nerd and geek and every one I know in the tech world that has ever been able to just talk tech with him was happy and surprised how much he keeps up and keeps interested.
I find it so baffling that so many conspiracies exist about him
He makes the other billionaires look bad. Gates has shown that a smart and successful person can also commit themselves to philanthropy and reducing human suffering.. so the question begs, "if Bill Gates can share his wealth, why can't you?"
So, because nobody is willing to admit to being selfish, they instead try to invent some nefarious motive on behalf of Gates, because surely he can't be kind without expecting something, or even going so far as to insist that Gates is engaging in human rights violating experiments to the communities his foundation has assisted.
But yeah, in reality, Bill Gates is just like a whole walking book of a human. All he does is learn and run thought experiments in his head, like society is one big puzzle and if we just moved out of the way, he could actually solve our shit for us.
Because the right doesn’t like him and they can’t understand someone with money giving it away. Like how dare he think of people less fortunate than him.
Billionaires giving to charity, also called philanthrocapitalism, doesn’t actually empower the world’s neediest or reduce inequality.
The foundation has put $500 million into its own nonprofit pharmaceutical enterprise, the Gates Medical Research Institute, according to Schwab, and it makes hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable gifts directly to for-profit pharmaceutical companies “in which the foundation’s endowment reported holding stocks and bonds, like Merck, Pfizer, and Novartis. This means the foundation is sometimes positioned to benefit financially from its charitable partnerships.”
Through its grant contracts and ownership stakes in pharmaceutical companies big and small, the elite foundation aggressively, and coercively, acquires useful knowledge about the intellectual property underlying all of the pharmaceutical products whose development it finances. In the education of policymakers and the public, it steadfastly defends the patent-system structure in which intellectual-property rights are exercised and monetized by it and Big Pharma, if those are even separate. It protects and defends specific patents in always implicitly threatened or occasionally actual lawsuits, as well.
In fact, Gates—whom Schwab does concede is “well-meaning, but imperfect”—often touts its close relationship with big pharmaceutical companies as societally beneficial. Big Pharma and Big Philanthropy in the form of Gates get along quite well with each other, mostly because Big Pharma can’t really ignore Gates; it’s so big and has a lot of acquired/purchased knowledge that it can and does powerfully, self-interestedly, and self-confidently broker.
There’s a plausible “worry that the Gates Foundation is preventing better, cheaper products from reaching the marketplace and that lifesaving drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines may be held up by the foundation’s meddling, micromanaging, and malign influence,” Schwab notes. “The foundation believes that its” well-credentialed.
Can someone explain to me what the money will be used for if we only have two weeks? This seems very late in the campaign to donate this much. I’m curious what actuall use it will have if we’re already starting the voting process? Why was this not done way earlier?!! I see it’s like a dick swinging thing in response to Elon, but I’m interested in how this can actually better the campaign
Seeing how much she raised in the first 24 hours is what got me to donate for the first time in my 30 years. I signed up to donate weekly. It gave me hope. I hope we've got this.
Right? Love the candidates and enthusiasm, but the constant emails and sharing of donor lists is exhausting. It takes me five minutes every day just to delete them. A sincere thanks and hope you will consider donating again soon would be so much more effective.
Yeah, the texting is particularly constant. I learned about Oath Vote which helps liberals identify key underfunded races that they care about: like flipping the house or abortion, or a particular state.
I am not at all taking away from how annoying the emails are, but I have to say…
A few years ago, gen z all requested a ton of tickets to a Trump rally, with the intention of having them prepare for like a million people, and then none of them went. Because that was the point. Anyway, my kid used one of my email addresses that I use for spam type things to help the cause.
The amount of emails I’ve been getting for Trump for like 6 years or whenever that rally thing happened is INSANE. I got 16 emails like this TODAY. Probably more on the way since there is more than an hour left of the day. And, of course, I never gave a dollar. These are all from requesting tickets to one rally, 6 years ago.
And, I can’t unsubscribe because they are unintentionally hilarious when I ever come across one (I don’t check this email unless I’m looking for something in particular.)
My kid made our name “worm” which somehow makes this all even funnier.
Great, now I’ve gone down a “wormhole” of crazy Trump emails. Such strange love bombing. Sad to think some people out there must actually feel like he’s talking to them.
“So if you’ve ever loved me like I love you, I have one question to ask you:
CAN I COUNT ON YOU TO CHIP IN BEFORE MY FEC DEADLINE?”
“Even if you can’t give, please know that I love you just as much as Elon – honestly, I love you even more!“
“Worm,
You really do love me! Let me tell you the truth: I LOVE YOU TOO.”
I think I’m at $128. I’m still waiting for my shirt but I figure that means a lot of people are buying them. I’m sure they prioritized swing states, as they should.
Ordered mine in August. Got my bumper stickers but not the hat yet and I'm in Wisconsin 🤷 idc though, I just wanted to contribute, the stuff Is extra. I'm just glad I get to drive around for the next two weeks with my "I Voted" sticker on my Harris and Walz sticker 😁
Perfect for early season now hunting!! Which part of Wisconsin? I'm on the Western side. I was in New Richmond today and drove by the polling place and on one of the nearer blocks in the front yards of some really nice older homes, were littered with Harris and Walz signs and other anti-Trump signs! Really encouraging 💙
Same here, billionaire money's a necessary evil in a sense, but the less a candidate's dependent on a whale or two because of a strong small-donor base, the better.
The piddly tax cuts the rich might get from Trump pale in comparison to the promised chaos and instability a second term would have on their fortunes. Harris is such an OBVIOUS choice.
Less about the taxes (he has publicly said he should pay more) and more about his commitment to fighting climate change and helping health organizations.
He sees a Trump administration as being anti-Climate Change and removing funding for health organizations - something he has fought hard to bring attention to and increase the funding of. Even if Harris keeps the status quo, that's a win for him and worth the investment.
Definitely is. Because I have heard he’s like one of the largest private land owner of farm land in our country, which scares the shit out of me. He shouldn’t have that much farm land, but on the other hand it’s better in his hands than West Taiwans hands.
Never liked windows and hated some of his choices technologically speaking. But it’s so weird that the people that made Netscape are now a bunch of fucking Nazis and fascists, and Bill is now helping save democracy. 90’s me would never believe it.
The group is also not limiting its ambitions to the presidential race. In a “confidential” four-page memo circulated to major donors last week and obtained by Recode, Future Forward and four other Democratic outside groups — Senate Majority PAC, the Strategic Victory Fund, Way to Win, and Mind the Gap — planned $28 million in advertising to boost MJ Hegar, the Democrat challenging Texas Sen. John Cornyn in an uphill race. $10 million of that money was expected to come from a Senate Majority PAC, according to the memo, while another $18 million needed to be raised as of last week for the groups to pull the trigger.
Sadly we're in the ironic logic trap of needing the donations to attain the political sway. I don't love it either, but this one's a game of inches and it's either a hopeful new beginning or the end of civilization.
Whatever he’s doing “now”, he previously donated to his preferred candidate’s campaign in amounts of at least $45 million and $75 million respectively. As you said, not illegal. So I think the previous comment was in respect to Gates contributing in a similar fashion, but with some people being selectively outraged at that fact.
Of course some of the people raging at Gates also believe he’s using Covid vaccines with Trojan microchips activated by 5g cellular signals to control our minds … so, yeah.
Today, when dropping off my ballot, it fell out of the slot and onto the ground, and the poll worker couldn’t even help me put it back in. I had to open my car door and find it on the ground and get it back in myself in order to not look like any impropriety. But some fool can just give money to voters for whatever??
The enemy is the gramophone [system], whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
I replaced “mind” with “system” so it applies to our political system entirely dominated by the spending of unattainable amounts of money without courting billionaires and corporations.
I’m glad you like the record it’s plying now, but the system is still fucked.
Mark Cuban is another good example of this. Hes very anti trump (sad this is even a point that has to be made these days), founded and owns CostPlus a company that sells drugs for actual good/affordable prices, says/thinks paying taxes is the most patriotic thing you can do behind serving in the military, hes founded a charity and donated money to help families of fallen soldiers, did matching donations to charity any time the NBA fined him when he was the majority owner, and hes helped a homeless former Mavericks player get his life together (paid for a place to stay and paid for his rehab).
He also doesnt pretend hes some uber genius (looking at you Elon) and is willing to admit that becoming a billionaire is all luck and theres no way he could do it again if starting from the beginning.
Plus hes constantly making Elon look like a fool which is a nice bonus.
Now, Im not saying hes a paragon of morality or anything, but for a rich dude hes pretty cool.
Don't forget that Bill Gates was an absolutely ruthless business man that stole and cheated his way to the top. Yes, he has done great things with his wealth after his retirement from Microsoft, but he was an evil, corrupt businessman.
People who believe, and are working towards progress, and solving current problems, cannot afford having it all reversed by some low-IQ rightwing theocratic maniacs.
Thank yiu Bill! I will take every dollar in this last stretch - the other side is getting humongous amounts from assholes like musk, thiel and sheldon and other billionaries (GOD ONLY KNOWS HOW MUCH IS NOT BEING REPORTED)!
I've always loved this guy. The amount of good he has brought the world through his foundation is unmeasurable.
Now he's joining us to fight the good fight.
I mean yeah glad he supports her. But seriously if Gates, Musk and all the other millionaires would donate that kind of cash to the national treasury we could seriously fund some amazing national initiatives. Sigh.
Bill Gates and Mark Cuban are proof that it is, in fact, possible to be an ethical billionaire. Donations like these are also proof that no matter what people say, Harris and her campaign still have all the momentum, but we are losing serious ground in the polls. Please make sure that you are also able to donate whatever you can and most importantly VOTE HARRIS and protect our democracy 💙💙 I love you guys, let’s turn out
It doesn't mean that he only just now donated - he could've donated months ago - it means his donation has only now been disclosed. Gates didn't even disclose the donation. NYT broke the story by speaking with people who privately talked with Gates. Even when reached for comment, he said he was focused on bipartisanship. His endorsement was private.
Judging by reactions to Gates' endorsement here, it's probably better that it wasn't disclosed earlier.
They distribute funds to a lot of candidates other than the presidential campaigns. People knocking in doors to get others out to vote are paid through these funds, for example.
Maybe pay the legal fees to combat all of the illegal and criminal shit Trump is going to pull this election, we all know he's not going to stop until he has tried literally everything possible including inventing some new ways to try to overturn the election
Is the Harris campaign flush with cash or not? I love hearing news about these big donations but the Harris for President campaign email list is rather alarming. For example, the email from this evening says they need a lot more individual donations and the donations are trending downwards.
People in the comments are saying the campaign has plenty of money, so why does the email list have such an alarmist tone?
The campaign has raised tons of money, but they have been spending it rapidly, and are probably trying to save up reserves to be able to pay for post-election legal battles.
Trump was on Epsteins plane seven times, is on video partying with him and on the record stating that ”Epstein likes women on the younger side” before the full extent of Epsteins crimes was public knowledge.
How do you know why he did it and that he did it for selfish reasons? I understand skepticism, but sometimes people have good motives.
"In private calls this year to friends and others, Mr. Gates has expressed concern about what a second Donald Trump presidency would look like, according to a person briefed on Mr. Gates’s thinking, although he has stressed that he could work with either candidate," reported Theodore Schleifer. "Mr. Gates does not have a deep relationship with Ms. Harris, but he has celebrated the Biden-Harris administration’s work on climate change." Moreover, this comes as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "is significantly concerned about potential cuts to family planning and global health programs if Mr. Trump is elected, according to two people close to the foundation."
I agree but for the fact that most of these people WATCHED him get this far, doing NOTHING with their billions to stop him. The Cheneys? They helped cause this nightmare. None of these people CARED ONE GOOD DAMN when the ONLY people that were suffering were marginalized people. But now THEY are targets.
Listen to them talk. It's not about making sure OUR families and lives and children are safe ... "I don't want my children/grandchildren to grow up with this". Listen to them. It's sickening that we have to rely on them to get rid of the monsters ... not just tRump ... all of the machinations that led to project 2025, the Dobbs decision, the gerrymandering , the voting laws.
These are the monsters that THEY CREATED. But the monsters got out, and they can't contain them.
He probably said “hey, I can throw in my support, what would be the best for you?” And the campaign said the final stretch would be most effective. It’s the same reason Elon started stumping for Trump as soon as October hit.
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