Bill Gates did something cool

[geerussell]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10286732-56.html

In between trying to eradicate polio, tame malaria, and fix the broken U.S. education system, Gates has managed to fulfill a dream of taking some classic physics lectures and making them available free over the Web. The lectures, done in 1964 by noted scientist (and Manhattan Project collaborator) Richard Feynman, take notions such as gravity and explains how they work and the broad implications they have in understanding the ways of the universe.

Gates first saw the series of lectures 20 years ago on vacation and dreamed of being able to make them broadly available. After spending years tracking down the rights--and spending some of his personal fortune--Gates has done just that. Tapping his colleagues in Redmond to create interactive software to accompany the videos, Gates is making the collection available free from the Microsoft Research Web site.

Gates said that he hoped his action would serve as a model for taking great educational content and making it broadly available for free.

If there were a Mt. Rushmore of genius, Feynman's face would be right up there next to Einstein and he had a gift for teaching not only mind-bending concepts but how to think about the questions without getting locked into doctrine or dogma. Putting those lectures out there free with all the bells and whistles really is a service.

[Big Swami]

Feynman was also into LSD and sensory deprivation tanks, which makes him not only awesome but interesting.

But leaving that aside for a moment, Bill Gates has actually done a lot of wonderful things in the world with his philanthropic efforts. It has more than made up for the horrible things he did to Paul Allen.

[Uncle Mxy]

It has more than made up for the horrible things he did to Paul Allen.

You referring to this?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2...30_000890.html

[Big Swami]

Yes.

So DOS 2.0 was the most important Microsoft product to date and vital to cementing the company's relationship with its biggest customer, IBM. It was also by far the most complex product in Microsoft's young history, which again is why Paul Allen was put in charge. As development continued, Allen's health began to deteriorate, so much so that the IBM team was worried that Allen might not survive. "He looked like death," Sams told me. "But still they pushed him."

In the Boys' Club that was Microsoft in those days, maybe the concept of mortality was too abstract, maybe Allen's poor health wasn't as obvious to those around him every day as it was to the IBM team that visited from time to time. To his credit, Allen stayed long enough to finish the job, delivering DOS 2.0 then leaving the company forever, eventually to have a bone marrow transplant that cured him completely.

But during one of those last long nights of working to finish-up DOS 2.0, something happened. I have heard this story from two people, each of whom was a friend of Allen's and in a position to know. Each told me the same story the same way. I am not staking my reputation on the accuracy of the story, but I am saying I have it from two good sources. Paul Allen certainly won't confirm or deny it, so I'll just throw it out for you to consider.

During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.

[Uncle Mxy]

I guess I have some sympathy for the devil, here.

Speaking as someone with first-hand experience involving a business partner dying after a protracted illness, I have a strong appreciation of how awkward and fucked-up the situation can become. You forgot the start of the next paragraph, which in my experience is dead-on, if not understated:

Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have

In my case, I wasn't a close friend with the dying business partner like some of the others were, so I was put in the middle of things as unlikely to burst into tears or to avoid dealing with it for "emo" reasons. Nothing makes you feel like an asshole like asking a dying person "do you have a will" for the purpose of sorting out what happens to their share of the business. I doubt a couple socially-awkward world-conquering technocratic twentysomethings had the soft skills needed to handle such things. I doubt they planned the business structure to account for that. Business relationships among your partners stop being simple when death and divorce come into the picture.