Saturday, September 09, 2006

Overly Soft

People often mention the irony that one of the most "successful" men in America is a college dropout. But is it possible that there is a relationship between his scorn for established institutions, his relentless agression against our society, and the fact that he refused to allow himself to be judged by his betters when he was young? Would Microsoft produce better software if he had learned the follow-through of sticking with a subject until it was actually mastered, rather than imagining that what grownups do is over-promise and under-deliver?

Yes, I know that, in the long-run, Gates will use his capital-accumulation to cure AIDS, while someone like Larry Ellison will use his capital-accumulation with about as imagination as Adnan Kashoghi used, but, in the short run, it is astonishing to think the amount of human suffering that Gates has imposed on the race by selling C work at A prices.

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