"Bill and I talk about this with our kids at the dinner table. Bill worked incredibly hard and took risks and made sacrifices for success. But there is another essential ingredient of success, and that ingredient is luck – absolute and total luck.<p>When were you born? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? None of us earned these things. They were given to us."<p>Totally true, and very important to remember, especially for the HN crowd.
Reminder: you aren't Bill or Melinda Gates, but you are still rich from software. Maybe you could spend some of your funny money on someone else's healthcare?<p>I just sponsored a hysterectomy for $180 (1 year of Netflix) in 3 clicks on Watsi. That's <i>crazy</i>.<p>Maybe you can sponsor someone too:
<a href="https://watsi.org/fund-treatments" rel="nofollow">https://watsi.org/fund-treatments</a>
I've long guessed, and this OP reinforces that, that
much of what Bill and Melinda are doing now was
driven by Melinda 'selling' Bill on some
values that Melinda deeply held and got from
her nuns and the Catholic church. But, yes, the
story of Bill's visit to Soweto showed that
some of Bill's own experiences made him fertile
ground for Melinda's values and goals.<p>I may be underestimating Bill's initial drive
for their work now, but generally I have to
guess that Melinda is the main hero here.
Oh, not to forget, one little thing Melinda did:
She talked both Bill and Warren into handing over,
what, ballpark $100 billion? Then for her second
day, the set up a value that all wealthy people
should give about 50% of their wealth to
philanthropy and got, apparently, quite a list
of wealthy people to do just that.<p>Another good thing to respect about them clearly
seems to be their marriage; it looks like
on of their beet examples. Perhaps not just
coincidentally, their love and relationship,
if more widely followed, would have helped
those woman and children abandoned in South Asia.
My view is that their example of a good marriage
is huge not just for themselves but for
their goals of curing poverty, that is, it is
easy to see that letting marriage break is one
of the biggest wastes in civilization, in particular,
leading to poverty and the problems they are now
trying to solve.<p>Why so many people are so eager
to bust up their marriages, or just not be very
devoted to each other at all, seems to be a
grand determination to extract miserable defeat from
the voracious jaws of magnificent victory and just
inexplicable.<p>Congratulations to them both.
This is so, so good. An upvote alone is not enough to get across how much I appreciate this. These are the principles I've built the plans for my entire life around, these principles are at the core of who I am as a person. Seeing such an eloquently put and important message like this appreciated by so many people is absolutely incredible. Huge, huge respect for bill and melinda gates for the work that they have done and the good message they are spreading.
Here's the video:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wug9n5Atk8c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wug9n5Atk8c</a>
I know it's cliche to have the founder of Microsoft be your idol person when going into software development, but Bill Gates is certainly worthy of that position. We at HN (an overwhelming portion, anyway) are so comfortable in our lives. Even little sacrifices could change the world for some of those less fortunate. Imagine what big sacrifices could do - they could change entire villages, countries, even continents. Think big. Even if you aim to help millions and only affect a few, your work was not in vain.<p>This was a really inspiring read, thanks OP.
Incredibly introspective and appropriate coming from one of the most successful people on earth.<p><a href="http://youtu.be/wug9n5Atk8c?t=22m00s" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/wug9n5Atk8c?t=22m00s</a>
This was truly phenomenal. I grew up in some of the poorest places, went through a lot of shit before things got better. It is really really hard to go through all that and come out with optimism and hope for the world, or even think you can make a difference as one human. Good on the Gates for believing that and having the resources to push this forward.
Here are some of the highlights of the speech on Youtube tagged by time: <a href="http://www.deebrief.com/#!/consume/53a37a3ba109a8020091e663" rel="nofollow">http://www.deebrief.com/#!/consume/53a37a3ba109a8020091e663</a>
> "If we have optimism, but we don't have empathy – then it doesn't matter how much we master the secrets of science, we're not really solving problems; we're just working on puzzles." Brilliant and moving!
I wonder why these scumbags choose my country ( India ) for painting poor life conditions always ? Agreed, there are cases of extreme poverty, but so in US, Africa, Brazil ( yeah, hosting world cup !) , Eastern Europe etc.
Why pick India for prostitution ? As if in US there is no prostitution.
Why not pick on own country. Just look at backpage.com thousands and thousands of girls doing open prostitution. How is that good thing ? or not a poor thing ?
I wonder if there was political agenda for picking India ( since we are good friends with Russia ).
Bill Gates is not a hero. Did you read stories from Paul Allen ( another co-founder those who don't know )?<p>here is the link :
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2011/04/15/microsoft-billionaire-paul-allen-talks-bill-gates-revenge-and-cancer-video/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2011/04/15/microsof...</a><p>Why Stanford , a prestigious university, would invite such scumbags ?<p>If Gates favors so much of charity why not donate everything except $1 Billion ? Are $1 billion not sufficient to live for rest of the life ?<p>Is his charity ( which comes to around 30 %) a simply proxy for tax saving ??<p>Whatever may be reason , please stop painting India a bad country.<p>I am from India , lived in America for 10 yrs before returning , travelled all over US and I can tell you there are classes, hungry people, children / women related crimes all over the place. So first look at your own country, how they are killing people in other countries and then lecture others.<p>Worst commencement speech in history of Stanford I would say.
hmm, that's interesting. I posted this last week, but no bites...maybe because I'm a newbie.<p>Anyway, a great duo-commencement speech, which inspires and provides some real-world advice
Im going to be down voted for this.<p>To me, the speech was fairly embarrassing. Its as though some rich people saw some poor people on a poor person safari. Now they come back to tell of what they saw, as if everyone in their audience would be just as amazed at such things as they were.<p>Perhaps for a stanford graduate audience that is true?<p>Theres suffering in the world!? :O<p>Thats what I was left with. No-one rational could disagree with their points, the validity of the foundations purpose, etc etc and all of that.<p>But the speech made me cringe a little.
Bill Gates has good intentions and in some cases is doing well.<p>If only he wasn't so swayed by the likes of Geoffrey Sachs and Bono.
There is a great book written by Nina Munk about Sachs, if only Gates could try and change his mind and look at it a little differently.<p><a href="http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Idealist-A-Cautionary-Tale-From-Africa" rel="nofollow">http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Idealist-A-Cautionary-Ta...</a>