June 25, 2008

Bill Gates' last day on the job

Bill Gates is now working full time at his foundation, helping his wife make sure that every child in America gets a college education.

Of course, Bill, himself, didn't bother getting a college education. He dropped out of Harvard.

Indeed, his generational peers -- Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Michael Dell -- all dropped out of college, too.

So, if there are people who are so smart that college is a waste of their time, couldn't it possibly be that there are a lot of people who are so not smart that college is a waste of their time, too?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps getting in to Harvard made his point; no need to waste four years just emphasising it.

Anonymous said...

Steve Ballmer graduated from college.

Anonymous said...

Gates longs to be seen as one of the great and good - the sort of progressive businessman that will make his liberal underlings look up to him.

Microsoft has extended health benefits to same-sex partners since the early 90's. And Microsoft's health plan will now even pay for a sex-change operation.

How can Bill afford this? Well, gouging people for inferior software is one way (thanks to Vista, my web-browser has hung up three times in the last 30 minutes).

Another way is this: at the same time Patron Bill is extending the gold-plated benefits to his American workers with the left hand, with the right hand he has been outsourcing their jobs to India. And you can bet that microsoft India won't pay for a sex-change operation.

But Bill has seemingly been swimming in this liberal pond long enough to have been absorbed. He wants to spend untold millions from his own fortune to make every kid above average? Well knock yourself out, pal.

Liberals are so easy to fool - they do most of the work themselves.

mnuez said...

Wow, picking on Bill and Melinda Gates for trying to get kids to go to college... here's really a new low.

Look, they're obviously wrong about people's mental capacities and all that bullshit but here we've got a couple of billionaires who spend as much time trying to help other human beings as they do having fun with their cash. Methinks that's something to celebrate rather than excoriate.

Do we really have to be cynical about everything and to consider do-gooders of all forms our enemies? Yes, the people who run our world won't let us talk about race and still be considered Good People. That pisses me off too, but, honest to God, headlining a blog post about Melinda Gates "The Most Dangerous Woman in America" is kinda overdoing it, wouldn't you say?

Anonymous said...

So IQ and educational attainment is not correlated? Maybe it's not amongst entrepreneurs anyways....

Unknown said...

Do as I say, not as I do.

Anonymous said...

"Wow, picking on Bill and Melinda Gates for trying to get kids to go to college... here's really a new low."

Exactly. The point is they are misguided. They will do more harm than good

Sriram said...

gates is supporting charter schools in inner cities.. these schools emphasize long hours, homework etc. students are selected by lottery from minority applicants (admission rates are around 30 percent or less)..and these tend to be single gender; all boys or all girls

some of these schools (in chicago and NY) have got some press.

even if one cant change iq, such schools could increase conscientiousness and pro-social behavior.. but its not clear how scalable this model is.

Anonymous said...

Sow's ears and silk purses spring to mind.

C. Van Carter said...

He also intends to nag the Chinese about smoking. How does that even occur to someone?

Anonymous said...

you have to be really intelligent to be very successful without completing a college education

but, hey, we're all equally intelligent, so scrub that comment

Anonymous said...

Look, they're obviously wrong about people's mental capacities and all that bullshit but here we've got a couple of billionaires who spend as much time trying to help other human beings as they do having fun with their cash. Methinks that's something to celebrate rather than excoriate.

No, they're not trying to help other humans, as Steve has already pointed out. They merely *think* they're trying to help, while in reality they're taking $10 billion of resources and destroying them so they *can't* be used for philanthropic purposes.

Anonymous said...

Martin said...
How can Bill afford this? Well, gouging people for inferior software is one way (thanks to Vista, my web-browser has hung up three times in the last 30 minutes).

And that is why I am using Windows 98SE right now. I sure am glad that the people at Mozilla make a modern browser that I can run on a ten year old machine.

Anonymous said...

No, everybody needs to go to college. And once standards have been lowered to the point where a Bachelor's is meaningless, we can set the goal that everybody gets a Master's. And when that becomes worthless, we can set a goal that everybody should get a PhD. And then, when that becomes merely a prerequisite to starting work in a call center at 35 with $100K of student loans, we can push everybody to be a postdoc... rinse lather repeat.

Anonymous said...

ben tillman said

in reality they're taking $10 billion of resources and destroying them so they *can't* be used for philanthropic purposes.

Exactly.

Anonymous said...

Don't you get it, Steve?

People get all their mental equipment from school. The more schooling they have, the smarter they will be.

According to the education industry/establishment, that is...

The ostensible and implied project of the educrats is to transform dumb people into smart people. This process has no upward bound. See: year-round education. If anyone could stay in school 24/7/365 for, say, 60 or 70 years, that person would become as smart as Einstein or Gauss!

Anonymous said...

In my circle of friends the only people who can be said to have really benefited from a degree were those who became teachers. The rest did not get graduate positions but entry level positions that didn't require a degree and so had to work their way up the old fashioned way. Although they were generally more motivated than the others who never went to University and progressed faster they were still behind in terms of wealth than those who didn't because there colleagues had spent 3-4 years earning money rather than getting into debt.

Higher Education for most is an expensive luxury good not a passport to a better job.