Time Is Money

Cover of 'Time' Magazine January 2005  'Persons Of TheYear' Bill Gates, Paul Hewson 'Bono', Melinda Gates

This cover has caused an uproar within the Blogosphere, partly because some feel that neither Bono nor Mr. and Mrs. Bill Gates deserve to be chosen as Time's Persons of The Year, and partly as some feel that whilst perhaps at a stretch, they can accept Bono and Bill Gates, why Mrs. Gates?

My opinion, is that Melinda Gates has done more for The Gates Foundation philanthropy than Bill would ever have been able to imagine, and using his billions in a way his narrow minded attitude could never fathom. The MSM always talk about their efforts as a couple, but for those in the know, her efforts are what gets things done. She just lets him sit in the big chair and feel that he's the one making the decisions. Well he is, when decisions are made regarding amounts. But who do you think gets the ideas to him in the first place, and pushes like there is no tomorrow to get those ideas realized. Melinda is the one with the true commitment and drive, steerig the philanthropic vision for The Gates Foundation.

So me, I feel why Bill Gates?

I would go as far as to say that his business ethics are in direct opposition to those moral and ethical qualities which are being celebrated as a standard amongst those singled out by Time for being 'Persons of The Year'.

Why do I hate Bill "The Predator of The Internet" Gates, and what do I mean by hate?

I am carefully choosing the word hate as it best describes my feeling of intense and passionate dislike for mediocrity; for "That will do for the moment" attitude. Especially when mixed with: "They won't know any better anyway".

Bill Gates' Microsoft epitomizes the rise to success of such half-measure mentalities, and, worst of all, the distilled essence of the success has since been enshrined as a gilt-edged case study in all business schools around the world: If you can, put out a new product, no matter how incomplete and badly designed, wrap it in marketing hype and hyperbole and muscle out any competition by all and any means possible. DO NOT worry about the enduser, because if you have played your cards right, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO.

I have such a strong aversion against Bill Gates and the culture he instilled in Microsoft, because instead of its success, it should be a case study for 'missed opportunities'. All the charitable 'Billions' pale into utter insignificance if compared with the 'Trillions' of lost productivity around the globe caused singularly because of the "This will do" mentality instead of passion for quality and for "Making things better".

I was not at all surprised to learn that Microsoft has agreed to block Chinese blog entries that use words like 'democracy,' 'freedom,' 'human rights,' and 'demonstration.'" In a blog entry, EC vice president Margot Wallstroem said Microsoft, Yahoo and Google were matching their morals to suit new markets. In particular she said the firms seemed to have deleted words such as "ethics" and "corporate social responsibility" from their codes of conduct.

Perhaps when Bill Gates stops having flexible ethical standards depending on where he operates and what furthers his own agenda, he might indeed be worthy of consideration, but until then he does not get my vote.

Some, like Ed Morrissey @ Captain's Quarters feel that there are more deserved individuals out there who should have been given the honor instead:

"The true newsmakers this year, as Michelle Malkin notes in photos, were the people who went into the streets and overthrew dictators and autocracies in order to gain freedom for their nations -- in most cases, through non-violence. Ukrainians had their Orange Revolution; the Lebanese forced the Syrians to beat a hasty retreat across the Bekaa Valley after 29 years of military occupation following the murder of a pro-freedom statesman; and Iraqis faces bombs and death threats three times to in voting for a democracy and a new constitution to replace a genocidal tyrant in the heart of the Middle East, the first time that has ever occurred in an Arab nation.

Pick any of those examples, or roll them up into one pro-democracy movement that has tyranny on its heels throughout Southwest Asia and North Africa. Those were the real newsmakers this year. Instead, Time decided to go as obscure as it possibly could and picked three fine people whose impact on 2005 will have us all wondering what the hell they did to deserve the cover of Time by 2007."

And some like Michelle Malikin, simply call Time Magazine's choices "lame", and provide ample solid evidence as to why.

More @ Ed Driscoll and Betsy Newmark.

Comments

[weekenderman]

As an ibook G4 user myself (and an Apple owner since Adam and Eve took the first bite of one), I must say that Alexandra's admitted use of a Mac causes me to be even more infatuated with her . . . :)

[Stefan]

Great idea RC,
The "Persons of the Year" should have been the men and women of the United States Military. Like the war or not everyone should respect what they have put up with and what they have accomplished this year. The current line-up is fluff. I'm surprised it wasn't Joe Wilson and "Top-Secret Agent" Plame.

[RC]

the real person(people) of the year ought to have been,

Americasupportsyou.mil

overworked & under-appreciated.

[Alexandra]

David,

I will never forget going onto your site for the first time and seeing a big sign saying: "If you are using Internet Explorer STOP IT NOW! Use a real browser like...
That was really funny, I remember laughing and thinking, this guy is cool.
I am of course an ardent Apple Mac girl myself. LOL!

[David]

*sigh*

Gates (either of 'em) for "man of the year"? (yeh, yeh, I know "person" is the PC phrase. I do not care. :-) Bono?!?!?

Gee. None of them are even on my radar for people making a significant _positive_ difference in the world. OK, maybe a blip or two.

And, Alexandra, your reference to the Mediocrity of M$ products? Talk about ambivalence... Most of the $$ I make is through fixing problems people create for themselves by using MS products. heh (Just today, I was too late with a freebie for a blogger I respect: she had already started re-installing Win2K, over a format/psrtitioning, when all she needed was a coupla lil Linux tricks to get her Admin password back...)

I use modern M$ OSes on most of my comps for three reasons: Familiarity with the OSes so I can support clients easily, the recent Windows OSes are generally Good Enough (if you install and maintain them properly—and arguably as secure as other OSes if those two criteria are met) and a very few pieces of NON-MS software that I really need are really only available for Windows *sigh*.

But other M$ software? No thank you. My office-type apps: not M$. Grphics, music production, etc.: NOT M$. Browser, email, etc.? Definitely NOT M$. System utilities: NOTHING M.$. Just basic OS functionality, pared down to the minimum.

But back on point: Time (the weekly fiction magazine) deserves a rest. An eternal one. This is just the latest example of its disconnect from reality, a good argument for viewing the so-called "MSM" as Mass Media Podpeople, controlled by some alien Mothership on the dark side of the Moon...

It's more plausible than thinking of the MSM as rational humans who gather and disseminate news.

[Michael Stickings]

There are so many problems with this award. First, the Gateses and Bono don't do the same thing. The Gateses are billionaire philanthropists, Bono is an advocate. If you want to reward Bono for his anti-poverty efforts, fine, but then thrown in Bob Geldof and other advocates. Did Bono really do so much this year to distinguish himself? And, if you want to reward the Gateses, well, why? So they have billions of dollars. So they hand out a lot of money. Good for them.

Anyway, I've got more here:

http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2005/12/times-underwhelming-people-of-year.html

My pick: Ariel Sharon. (Or the Iraqi voter. Or The Unknown Samaritan, the volunteer in Southeast Asia, Pakistan, and along the Gulf Coast. Or the Cedar/Orange revolutionary.)

[weekenderman]

Wow, Joseph, are you actually defining Capitalism as "putting out a product, no matter how incomplete and badly designed, wrapping it in marketing hype and hyperbole and muscling out any competition by all and any means possible"???

Are you really a liberal, or just a Marxist-Leninist?

What Alexendra was criticizing in her opening comments was not Capitalism, but rather the perversion of our free markets by Mr. Gates (and how TIME is lauding him for such):

"I am carefully choosing the word hate as it best describes my feeling of intense and passionate dislike for MEDIOCRITY [my emphasis]; for "That will do for the moment" attitude. Especially when mixed with: "They won't know any better anyway".

America was not made great by marketing gimmicks of weasals like Bill Gates, but rather through the work of millions of Americans who create superb PRODUCTS through hard work and ingenuity.

THAT is Capitalism, the greatest economic policy the world has ever experienced. If you don't like it, try living in Cuba.

[Joseph Marshall]

If you can, put out a new product, no matter how incomplete and badly designed, wrap it in marketing hype and hyperbole and muscle out any competition by all and any means possible.
My word, Alexandra! There are hidden and profoundly liberal deeps in you. Ralph Nader could not have said this better. You actually perceive how Capitalism really works, rather than subscribing to the usual Milton Friedman fantasies about the "freedom" of the market.

You'll be advocating government intervention in the marketplace next! Or perhaps even leading a consumer revolt!

And then what will we do with you?

[David Steinman]

TIME will tell....

[RC]

bloodwatermission.org

[Patrick O'Hannigan]

Great points you make in defense of Melinda Gates, but while her influence on Bill has heretofore been underrated, I'm not sure I'd hold her up as significantly less narrowminded than her husband. He made a fortune because he was smart enough to see an operating system opportunity and to face down the assembled IBM brass in Armonk, NY for what became MS-DOS. Neither of those things suggests he's a visionary. And Melinda's solution to AIDS in Africa relies overmuch on Planned Parenthood talking points.

I wouldn't be surprised if her foundation has warehouses stocked to the rafters with condoms even while malaria cases in sub-Saharan Africa spike for want of clean water wells and the the pennies-per-dose chloroquinine that could vaccinate at-risk populations.

[Huan]

Foreign aid to any third world government that is corrupt and opaque only serves to perpetuate the conditions for which the aid seeks to alleviate. The third world suffers most from (at best) bad political choices or (at least) governmental corruption. The solution resides in transforming the political climates of the third world and does not reside in more funds.

[RC]

Darrell, you forgot to mention: Fidel Castro,
president ahmaghinejad, and the kooky & mystical
leader of North Korea(you know, the dude that
wears five-inch booster heels).

Charles Krauthammer's column from last Friday
(posted at townhall.com) is a must read for
learning more interesting & disturbing facts about
the kooky-lunatic who is the current (and likely,
temporary) president of the IRI.
don't read this column at bedtime.

: )

[Darrell]

I like to reflect and count my Blessings. Time's first choice was probably Cindy Sheehan, Hugo Chavez, and Former President Jimmy Carter.

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

Seems to me this years Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, chemistry, bioligy and physics, should have been shoo-ins.

It was a bumper crop year for the sciences.

[RC]

worldmag.com

an excellent alternative to "lame" rag.

[weekenderman]

Now I'm reminded of why I don't subscribe to TIME Magazine.