How to … Change the World Twice
On Friday Bill Gates passed off day-to-day responsibilities for Microsoft to Steve Ballmer and walked out of the software giant’s Redmond office and into his new life as a philanthropist.
With an endowment approaching $40 billion, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s largest. Here’s how it describes its mission:
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.
An ambitious agenda, to be sure, but would you bet against a Harvard drop-out who became a worldwide technology mogul? Complain all you want about Microsoft, and there’s plenty to complain about, but Gates built an awfully big something out of nothing. Would the PC revolution have happened without him and his colleagues with the bad haircuts in that late-’70s photo?
And now, 30 years after launching Microsoft, Gates has his eyes on something even grander. He could have stayed at his company for another 20 or 30 years, tinkering around until he retired. Or, with the vast wealth he’s earned, he could have invested in any number of socially irrelevant personal interests, could have bought art or a baseball team, could have gone on the worldwide lecture circuit. Instead, he’s trying not merely to change the world, again, but to save it.
Go ahead and make fun of Bill Gates; he does it himself. Just be sure to offer a nod of admiration at the same time. | 501(c)
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Foundations, Technology
0 opinions for How to … Change the World Twice
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: