So I just read Bill Gates' 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.

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[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 46 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

His mother was an influential person on the board of directors of several firms. She met with John Opel, who was the IBM chairman, and secured her son's Microsoft contract with IBM in the 1980s, where it then became dominant and made her a ton of money.

It's vested interests, and who you know.

[–] Maerman@lemmy.world 27 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I read that he was a nepo baby. Also, people say "But he dropped out of university to start Microsoft."

He dropped out of fucking Harvard. His life was easy as piss from the get-go.

[–] HarneyToker@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Is everyone at Harvard a nepo baby or has definitely had an easy life? I don’t understand your argument.

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 weeks ago

It's a reasonable assumption that a family that could send their child to Harvard in the 70s was very well off already.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

Yes, aside from a few scholarship kids, the Ivy League schools, and especially Harvard and Yale, were specifically built and continue to this day to be schools for the children of the elite.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

His mother came from money, being the daughter of a banker, and the granddaughter of a banker. His father was a lawyer who founded a law firm focused on corporate law and technology law. Given that his mom knew Opel personally, and his dad was a technology lawyer, is it any surprise that Gates' first contract with IBM was so incredibly friendly to Microsoft's interests?

In addition, IBM was under pressure at that point because it was being sued for antitrust violations by the US government. That limited how aggressive it could be in new contracts without drawing extra attention. In other words, the antitrust effort from the US government took power away from IBM and allowed for new companies to flourish. Then about 20 years later, Microsoft was sued for its own illegal use of its monopoly (a trial at which Bill Gates lied on the stand, and where Microsoft falsified evidence), and this work to limit the reach of Microsoft allowed for the Internet to flourish and led directly to the rise of companies like Google and Amazon. It's now time for another round of antitrust to allow more companies to flourish -- only hopefully this time the antitrust efforts don't fade out and are aggressively pursued year after year so we don't get more shitty monopolies making things awful.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Hear hear. I had real hopes for Lina Khan during Biden's term, but that seemed to have petered out to nothing. Let's see if something happens once the monster is out of power

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Lina Khan is now co-chair of Zohran Mamdani's transition team!

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 3 points 3 weeks ago

I've got my fingers crossed