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I.S.119 Nicola Zabiega Class 803 November 1st, 2012 BILL GATES OUR MODERN DAY ROBBER BARON
You cannot live on past applause'
Ever since the industrial revolution in the 19th century the business men of America have tested to the limits of how far you can go to produce a product at a quick pace, and a cheap price. The start of this came many methods and new strategies to help earn the most money possible from the consumers. They worked off on the backs of the common workers and showed little sensitivity towards them. The industrial boom of the 19th century but the practices, morals, and ideas of many of those businessmen are shared with the ones who are our new modern robber barons. Introducing the man who in many ways may just be a rerun of the practice that has been thought to had long disappeared. Bill Gates, who has gotten himself to high places on the backs of others. Businessmen were often powerful which made it challenging to overthrow them, and they often had different ways of earning their money, or getting their products made that didn’t appeal to most workers. Many company owners had their workers under control, and no matter how respectable they looked in their suits, the money they used to buy those suits was made off workers with low wages, long hours, and bad working conditions. Industrializing America was just a historical process of which has seemed to have repeated itself once again. It’s unsuspected that in such a modern time that there is still unfairness, and broken law. These men don’t have to even hide it that well, because it’s hard to realize that it is not lined up with what real business practice should be.
Bill Gates is the typical robber baron, making a lot of money through unfair strategy, blocking competition and other questionable practices. Once he has finally found himself in a good position he suddenly starts onto getting redeemed through his philanthropy. As written in “Bill Gates: The Robber Baron of Computerdom” “Bill Gates has “retired” to devote the rest of his life to giving our money away.” It is the perfect solution; earn a lot of money by doing almost nothing, and then giving it away. Him giving away so much shouldn’t have a lot of meaning because, he never actually earned it fairly. It’s as if doing whatever you find excusable until you have the right amount of money to regain reputation. When this happens giving back is not causing him a great deal of trouble anyway. Other philanthropists in the past include Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, who all have their pasts of being robber barons. Soon enough bill Gates will be remembered more for his philanthropy more than for Microsoft. That includes not having to be remembered for all the bad that Microsoft has caused. It’s important to assess how much good someone does, and how much damage they cause. Gates plans on giving away 95% of his money, and that may seem like a very impressive amount. Remember how he earned this money, it won’t be as if he was giving away hard earn money. In fact the money probably shouldn’t even belong to him entirely.
Microsoft could easily be replaced after some times, and Gates was aware if this. To prevent loss of the control they are stifling competition and software. Certain companies cannot launch or start out because Microsoft. These companies could improve our software and computers, but aren’t given a chance. Microsoft can be found on almost all PCs. The users don’t even have any part in deciding this because every computer requires a copy of Microsoft’s operating system, licensed directly from Microsoft. They are also known for their antitrust violations, and handful of law suits. As it was written in a biography on Gates it is pointed out that “U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled in June 2000 that Microsoft was a monopoly which had illegally exploited the dominance of Windows, at that point installed on over 95 percent of the world's personal computers.” Not only does Microsoft have enormous control over personal computers it is known to have had a history of blocking competition. If you ever get the chance to ask a young adult, or student if they know what Netscape is, you most likely will get a result of no. That it self is proof of how well of a job Microsoft did in burying such a company in history, that could have had its chance to rise just as Microsoft did.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Microsoft's plot to kill Netscape by weaving it into Windows and calling it part of the operating system was the single biggest factor in the decade of embarrassing security vulnerabilities that plagued computers running Windows, giving rise to spam spewing bot-nets and the frightening modern landscape of cybercrime. Why? In the rush to crush Netscape by obviating all non-Microsoft browsers using IE as an extension of the OS, Microsoft inadvertently elevated the boat-load of Internet Explorer's security vulnerabilities into operating system vulnerabilities. Who here remembers the countless times some new virus was reportedly taking over entire computers by exploiting yet another browser vulnerability in IE?

MS Office itself was cobbled together from other people's innovations. Lotus 1-2-3 was the first really good modern spreadsheet, and Word Perfect was the first really good modern word processor. Excel and Word dominated the office suite wars, if I remember correctly, in part because MS used hidden APIs in Windows to give themselves an advantage, and because they were so good at integrating MS products so they work best with other MS products.
BAD CHARACTER HERE Bill Gates is also widely known for his explosive attitude towards people/workers.
As written in “Strategic Mumblespeak” By Siva Vaidhyanathan “At some point in recent American history, we started assuming that if people are rich enough, they must be experts in all things. That’s why we trust Mark Zuckerberg to save Newark schools and Bill Gates to rid the world of malaria. Expertise is so 20th century.” People claim that he’s not just throwing money at the problems, but he’s dedicating the second act of his life to it. Does the act of Mr. Gates donating automatically conclude he must suddenly be of expertise in the area towards where he’s donating? About ten years ago, he took on the challenge of trying to improve education in the US. His take on the cause of bad performance was the size of schools; that had impact on class size. Gates “proceeded to spend $2 billion to persuade school districts to downsize their high schools.” In the end it has resulted with even his own researchers settled on the fact that the students in large schools got better test scores than those in his new small schools. In 2008 Gates walked away from everything, which at one point was his major focus point. This shows how he made this huge problem and walked away because his ideas weren’t effective.

Another way he fulfills his philosophy is by donating to causes such as malaria. Melinda (his wife) and Gates created the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. It donates towards and supports finding a cure for malaria. They have donated $750 million to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The foundation focuses on diseases that are found everywhere but some (like malaria) which are diseases that have a huge impact on Africa. Africa is the continent first associated with poverty, sickness, and need of help. It’s wonderful that Gates is donating towards it, but despite it all you can’t overlook that this definitively helps his self-image. His charity did not extend to most of the people who were responsible for making gates very rich. Why not donate to problems in the US? Are there not poverty problems in many parts of the US? Don’t 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year? In an interview when asked if he wanted to be remembered for everything he has done. He responded that it wasn’t his priority and has little importance to him, and when in the truth, he was just trying to appear modest. Gates wants to be remembered for what he did with his money; not how he got it. Remember a cure for malaria would be save millions of lives daily, and with that happening Gates would always have an important place in history.

"To some, Bill Gates has become the robber baron of the late 20th century (2) who engages in the classical monopolist behavior that the anti-trust legislation of the United States is specifically designed to prevent. In this view, Microsoft is gouging virtually everyone on the planet through artificially high software prices that it can enforce by intimidating peers and competitors alike.

Bill Gates, well known for his competitiveness, has simply let success go to his head. His fears about non-existent competitive forces have made him paranoid. To protect its dominant position and to maximize revenue and net income, Microsoft is stifling competition and software innovation.

“Interesting theory: ‘Buy Windows Vista. Do It for the Children,’”
. But as time marches on corporate arrogance grows, technology changes and opportunities arise for competitors to the point where even the future of the once dominant player is cast into doubt. I see every reason to believe that history will repeat itself in the Microsoft case
Bill Gates does not have any scientific degrees, he’s a businessman, not a scientist. I don’t know how you came up with scientist.
Bill Gates is the classic robber baron. Makes a lot of money, sometimes through questionable practices or on the backs of others and then “redeems” himself through philanthrophy. Bill Gates as Andrew Carnegie, or John D. Rockefeller. much like when people think of the software industry, they think of Bill Gates," said Brands. Bill Gates realized the true power was not in making computers, but in controlling the operating system.
"They feel they're much smarter than the government,"
"One has to assess how much good that company does and how much damage."
In 25-30 years from now Bill Gates will be remembered more for his philanthropy than for Microsoft. THAT’S WHAT HE PLANS ON
STEAL BILLIONS FROM OPEN SOURCE then spend a few hundred million and become your new HERO… http://setandbma.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/netscape-usage.png?w=225&h=114 Gates cornered the market for his software by orchestrating a marketing plan that would require computer companies to pay him X amount of dollars for every computer they sold, whether or not the computer had his software on it or not. Now if you think about it, the computer companies had no choice but to put his software on the computers they sold.
Eliminating malaria will rate as an achievement on par with the development as the printing press.

"To some, Bill Gates has become the robber baron of the late 20th century (2) who engages in the classical monopolist behavior that the anti-trust legislation of the United States is specifically designed to prevent. In this view, Microsoft is gouging virtually everyone on the planet through artificially high software prices that it can enforce by intimidating peers and competitors alike.

Bill Gates, well known for his competitiveness, has simply let success go to his head. His fears about non-existent competitive forces have made him paranoid. To protect its dominant position and to maximize revenue and net income, Microsoft is stifling competition and software innovation.

In the robber baron view, the Department of Justice is right on target in its efforts to clip the wings of Microsoft and allow more competition into the world of operating systems and application software.
"Law? Who cares about the law. Hain't I got the power?"
—Comment alleged to have been made by Cornelius Vanderbilt, when warned that he might be violating the law
Nothing would stand between them and their goals of dominating their industries. some people won’t be happy no matter what Mr. Gates does. They say he made the decision for P.R. value, or even as a plot to boost Microsoft’s software sales. “Interesting theory: ‘Buy Windows Vista. Do It for the Children,’” writes one critic online. “Ah, Bill, you are a shrewd weasel indeed.”) or if he were using it to buy football teams or political candidates. not just throwing money at the problems, either–he’s also dedicating the second act of his life to making sure it’s done right.
ROBBER BARON OR Productivity Saviour But as time marches on corporate arrogance grows, technology changes and opportunities arise for competitors to the point where even the future of the once dominant player is cast into doubt. I see every reason to believe that history will repeat itself in the Microsoft case
Bill Gates does not have any scientific degrees, he’s a businessman, not a scientist. I don’t know how you came up with scientist.
Bill Gates is the classic robber baron. Makes a lot of money, sometimes through questionable practices or on the backs of others and then “redeems” himself through philanthrophy. Bill Gates as Andrew Carnegie, or John D. Rockefeller. much like when people think of the software industry, they think of Bill Gates," said Brands. Bill Gates realized the true power was not in making computers, but in controlling the operating system.
"They feel they're much smarter than the government,"
"One has to assess how much good that company does and how much damage." he’s going to give away 95% of his money. As for why he hasn’t given away more yet
In 25-30 years from now Bill Gates will be remembered more for his philanthropy than for Microsoft. THAT’S WHAT HE PLANS ON
STEAL BILLIONS FROM OPEN SOURCE then spend a few hundred million and become your new HERO…

Gates cornered the market for his software by orchestrating a marketing plan that would require computer companies to pay him X amount of dollars for every computer they sold, whether or not the computer had his software on it or not. Now if you think about it, the computer companies had no choice but to put his software on the computers they sold.

I.S.119 NICOLA ZABIEGA CLASS 803 NOVEMBER 19
THE HAYMARKET RIOT
On the date of May 4th, 1886 a group of workers gathered up in Haymarket square to protest against not being given certain rights. The rights that they were fighting for were long awaited. The major amount of attention was going towards the right of a 8 hour workday. This was supposed to be a peaceful protest, but the turnout was just a violent event of gunshots, wounds, and deaths.
The protest even though advertised as peaceful at times, they were also some other posters that gave the wrong idea. They thought they should come prepared to physically fight for their rights. Towards the ending of the protest an anonymous person in the crowd threw a bomb. This had caused panic and created a hectic atmosphere. The police officers then started shooting indiscriminately towards the entire panicking crowd. Some protesters had come armed and had returned the fire. These actions had resulted with a total of seven officers’ dead along with an undefined amount of protester and with more than 200 were wounded. Authorities arrested 8 people who they had suspected on the charge of urged murder which “under Illinois law, that was the same as committing murder.” The 8 men were all convicted with unfair dis-advantage to them which included a biased jury. They didn’t have any precise proof that linked them to the bombing. On posters of the convicted men, they brought out features of the men that made them resemble the typical workers. They were immigrants from east and middle Europe. This showed how they were all stereotyped, and how they most likely didn’t distinguish the difference between them and any other worker. As written in the article “They Haymarket Affair” “only one of them had been at the Haymarket square. But a jury found all eight guilty and seven were sentenced to death. (Four were hanged, one killed himself before he could be executed and released.) “This pointed out the fact that there was a big chance that they weren’t guilty of what they were accused of. The protests were aiming at gaining the rights they thought that the deserved. Many workers, including children had 12, 14, and even 16 hour work days. Having to work for such extended amount of time could lead to trouble and dangerous conditions for the workers. Imagine having to work continuously for hours without getting drowsy or distracted. Sometimes the hours were extremely long so they hardly even got a decent amount of sleep and only to have to return to work again. If they work while tired this makes it more likely that they’ll mess up and not produce what they were making correctly, or they can get themselves into danger. Didn’t the protesters have the right to ask for time with their families? The workers low wages weren’t usually equivalent to the amount of the work they do. They couldn’t have good working conditions which could have an effect on their work performance. In 1850, half of Chicago’s residents were foreign-born. The protest was needed as rude awakening for the business/company owners. They didn’t understand how serious the workers were, and this shows that the things could go badly if they didn’t finally compromise. No matter how bad it seemed it taught everyone a lesson. It was necessary because it taught us how important our rights and equality are.

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