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Comment by jkndrkn | Hacker News Reader

> Now he works full time spending his fortune on making the world a better place. Truly a great man.

Remember, he amassed his fortune through monopolistic practices that valued control and subjugation of competition over product innovation and creation of value.

Is it possible to both be a notable philanthropist and also not engage in business practices that perhaps run counter to the generous philosophy of philanthropism?

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"he amassed his fortune through monopolistic practices "

Big fucking deal, welcome to business. Jobs/Apple would/is doing the same thing every chance they have. When Jobs starts to spend his billions for charity (yes Steve you will be obligated some day) are we going to complain because he threw his weight around ala MS in the industries Apple dominated? No, we'll hopefully be able to thank him for his huge gift to humanity just like we should be doing to Gates right now. I'm sorry but whether or not Flash is allowed on the iPhone doesn't mean a a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

When you're saving lives around the world by the millions suddenly what browser shipped with your OS back in the 90's looks like a whole lot less important.

This is the kind of reasoning that rationalizes all sorts of terrible behaviour after the fact. If saving lives around the world is that important, instead of stealing his fortune through illegal business practices, Gates should have simply established his foundation back in the day and told people that by choosing Windows they were helping to save lives.

p.s. Apple has been investigated for improper options grants. That is a far cry from breaking monopoly rules.

What Apple is doing with their App store policies is far worse than packaging IE with windows or using proprietary .doc format by default for word files.

It would be hard for Apple to reach market shares as great as MS, if they do you will see them hit equally hard for breaking monopoly rules.

The thing people forget is that Apple is not a monopoly in the smartphone market, not by a long shot. Hence you cannot apply the same anti-competitive reasoning. Sure, what they do sucks for the people who have adopted their platform (both users and developers), but it's not anti-competitive (if it was, Android would be dead in the water). If you want an analogy, Apple's pissing in their own walled garden which is surrounded by a nice big open field (Android). You are always free to leave the garden through the big open gate (well, excepting the contract termination fees, but those aren't due to Apple). In contrast, Microsoft was equivalent to a feudal lord who owns the right of commerce over the local market (MSDOS) and comes by and destroys your little shop (Dr. DOS). OK, that last analogy is a little strained.

>It would be hard for Apple to reach market shares as great as MS, if they do you will see them hit equally hard for breaking monopoly rules.

By which you mean, not at all (US government dropped the ball on the case against Microsoft)..

EU didn't. Microsoft had to add the stupid browser select screen. Support odf in Office. And do a lot more documentation work on all their API that few people outside Microsoft use. Plus the fines. And while Microsoft was dealing saving its arse err... Windows and Office, they dropped the ball in the online and mobile markets

The two aren't really related. It's not like Microsoft was Walmart, coming into towns and destroying mom and pop drugstores that had been in business 50 years and whose owners were barely making it. Microsoft engaged in business practices and tried to drive their competitors out of business. This isn't 'evil', it's just business. And they did some illegal things, but that's also not 'evil', and they also got caught and paid the price, both with their reputation and in the penalties that were assessed. Contrast that with the philanthropic work that the Gates Foundation has done and it's not. Even. Close. To call him 'evil' is just ignorant.

Walmart: "coming into towns and destroying mom and pop drugstores" = evil but Microsoft: "tried to drive their competitors out of business" = not evil ?

"Is it possible to both be a notable philanthropist and also not engage in business practices that perhaps run counter to the generous philosophy of philanthropism?"

It seems common among the extremely wealthy, actually. I live in a city where the names Carnegie and Mellon are plastered over all kinds of public resources.

I think it's a general tendency of people. Look at Luke, his name is on freaking everything; it's not like he's made any meaningful contributions.

People love seeing their name. It's just the way it is.

As far as ruthlessness, he's certainly not out of line with the early 20th century industrialist-philanthropists, though probably fewer people died because of Microsoft practices than industry strike-breaking and labor conditions.

Exactly, like Capone killing half of chicago to amass his fortune, then giving it away to aww-so-poor orphan kids (the same kids he killed their parents) to clean his face from blood stains?

Yes, because bundling a web browser with an OS is exactly like killing people.

Just curious, how different is IE in Windows versus Safari on OSX? (or iPhone)

Coz OSX doesn't run >90% of world's computer. Else it would have been same

If Apple were intentionally altering web standards for their benefit and controlled 90% of the browser market, it would be exactly the same.

In other words, completely different...

Safari is pushing the Web forward, and IE is still to this day holding the web back.

It's not that IE is preinstalled that's the issue, it's that after IE beat Netscape (by being awesome) it was stagnant for years, and lack of standards support has caused developers tons of headaches over the years.

Safari, on the other hand, has excellent standards support, thanks to WebKit.

Ridiculous analogy.

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