A lot has been said about Steve Jobs. Indeed, he was a fighter and his success story is most inspiring. His biography ‘The journey is the reward’, written years ago, inspired me personally to try and achieve more. And since Steve Jobs was the creative wild and hippie underdog during the same era as Gates, perhaps he overshadowed Gates largely during our times. Yet, I have always maintained that Bill Gates is the man who is the real visionary. Far beyond any businessman the world has seen in our times. For who is a greater business icon? The man who makes billions and keeps them as reserves or the man who makes billions and then uses that money to change the world into a better place to live in?
Yes, that’s what differentiates Bill Gates from all his contemporaries. Greatly inspired by the Rockefeller family, Bill Gates, in the year 2000, by combining three of his and his wife’s charities, decided to do what no one could ever imagine. He decided to give away 95% of his wealth to charity. As of today, he has given away more than 28 billion dollars in charity. In 2010, he along with Warren Buffett, inspired even Mark Zuckerberg to pledge away half of his wealth over his lifetime by making him sign the “Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge”. Yet, what really differentiates Bill Gates’ charitable initiatives from others is his clear-cut focus on the real and biggest problem that the world faces. Yes, the problem of poverty. The problem that 85 top, rich people own wealth that’s more than the total wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion. The problem that while the rich are rich like never before and while science has advanced humongously and soon humans may even dream of living forever, there are millions dying of curable diseases in Africa and other parts of the world. There is nothing fashionable in the work of Bill Gates. He doesn’t believe in having fashionable fights and dinners for animal rights etcetera while human beings live like street dogs and die like them. His is a clear cut and sharp focus on humanity. To be more precise, a focuse on the genuinely poorest of poor and unhealthiest of unhealthy (thus, obviously, a large part of his work happens in Africa).
Read more
Read more
Comments