Most people of my generation would be aware of Bill Gates and why he is so popular – perhaps less so these days after he has stepped back from the limelight – only vaguely. He is that Scrooge-McDuck-ian level rich guy, isn’t he? Within the tech community there is a lot of hate for Bill Gates and Microsoft, especially among free/open source software supporters.
Yet, it struck me that I hardly know anything about Gates as a person. From my previous years I know of what he wrote in his books The Road Ahead and Business @ The Speed of Thought – without ever having read the books; I know about his temper tantrum; stories about speeding violations and dates that went downhill. I have seen countless documentaries about him and the tech industry, not counting the ‘faction’ film Pirates of The Silicon Valley.
![The Plot to Get Bill Gates by Gary Rivlin](http://www.ankurb.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/The-Plot-to-Get-Bill-Gates-by-Gary-Rivlin.jpg)
Rivlin, for sure, is a technology-beat journalist who may not understand the intricacies of software development but to his credit – beyond the perfunctory introductions to any technical topic – he politely steps aside and lets people who do understand express their opinion. This approach might appear biased to you, depending on whose Kool-Aid you have drunk; ultimately though you have to admit that he does a good job of balancing stories from highly polarised camps. Those who demonize Bill Gates will cry out that this book borders on trying hard to restrain itself from fawning over him – but then I think it’s a carefully calculated result arising out how people envied and hated Gates (and still do). In that sense, the tone of the book mirrors reality a lot.
The amount of research put into the book clearly shows. I have heard many wildly unbelievable tales over the years – so has Gary Rivlin, of course, and he tackles this by chasing down the ‘original’ source of each apocryphal story, often with results that tend to indicate that they were manufactured. Again, Rivlin shows great restraint in hardly ever calling anyone a liar outright, preferring to let the reader draw his own conclusions based on the evidence presented.
Over the years, I personally have come to admire and respect him a lot more, moving away from Stallman-esque rhetoric. He is prominent philanthropist and whatever he may have done in the past, he is doing so much more for disadvantaged people in developing countries. I am saddened these days, thus, when I came across the same attacks against him (again, especially in the FOSS community) that should have gone out of fashion a decade ago. The Plot to Get Bill Gates reveals the flaws in his character, but so does it also trace the journey of an incredibly intelligent person who matured over the ages. By comparing his contemporaries with him, it highlights how they probably wouldn’t have acted much differently, had they been in Gates’ position instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment