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Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates Meet for the First Time Ever
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Gates retired? And I have no idea if Torvalds is still active.
But historical photo aside, isn't this meeting a bunch of nothing?
Torvalds is still very active on the Linux kernel. As far as I know, he's in charge of it and makes major decisions about its direction.
Bill Gates retired from Microsoft in 2008.
Gates is still very active in his charity organization
Making money/influence. It's such a scam his "Bill and Melinda Charity" (no taxes on charities).
Their pr firm seems to function very well at least.
Guess you're going to whitewash bezos, musk and zuckerberg next?
Edit: lot of free work done for the magnificent mr Gates and his tax avoiding fundation. Do you think you'll get some crumbles from the rich mans table?
Every dictator did "some good work", are you thinking they are good people?
IMO your moral compass need maintenance.
spoiler
sdfsafsafsdafIt capitalized Wash because spell checker is the leaf on the wind.
I hate billionaires as much as the next gal, but I think comparing Bill Gates to Hitler is a bit extreme
Welcome to Lemmy, heh.
You're being obtuse. The nuance here is that Bill Gates being.a bad person and his charity org having done some good in the world are facts that are not necessarily dependent or correlated with each other. That's all. The fact that Gates might be using his org to prop his image is also a consequence of his character, and doesn't take away from the good the charity has done. Or would you rather the charity didn't exist at all just so your thirst for consistency would be appeased, all the while people would be dying?
Forget it, they're out there thinking they'll be the next one to "benefit" some million dollars from the billionaire table
Name one bad historical person that didn't do at least some good.
Your moral compass is broken.
The charity did more than some good though.
Also, name one good historical person that didn't do at least some bad.
It is almost like things aren't black and white but more like Yin and Yang.
That's not how it works, it's not like "I do some good, now I can do some bad". It does not even out.
Bad people doesn't become good because "some good things came out of it".
If you do bad, then you are bad.
I answered Honytawk 🤷🏼♀️?
You seems to be up in arms defending a shitty billionaire and his shitty charity, repeating over and over again that they did "some good", what kind of argument even is that? Dictators do "some good" too you know.
It's still giving money away though? Why would you want there to be taxes on charity?
It's more nuanced though. Here's how rich people use charities to gain wealth:
Rich person has tons of money that would be taxed if bill Y passes. Rich person creates a charity and donated 20% of what they would had to pay to the IRS to the charity, with that money the charity uses half for good causes and half is given to X lobby company, which then lobbies politicians to avoid passing that bill.
In the end, the rich person saved 80% of what they would had to pay.
Yeah, 10% went to good causes but imagine what the society could afford if 100% went through instead of 0.
This is a very rough outline of how they do it, but the summary is that they use charities to donate to lobbies while skipping taxes on the donation itself.
The point here is that in many jurisdictions doing charity exempts you from certain taxes, and it is possible to shuffle money around under the disguise of philanthropy while still getting all the financial benefits like an actual charity
Giving away money? You sweet summer child.
Research don't want "his" (the foundations) money, it comes with so many strings attached all your lives work now belongs to the B&M foundation.
Alright dude, I don't know much about the foundation, sorry. 🤷♂️
Search the web for “polio”
Google en passant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Polio_Eradication_Initiative
What type of taxes are you talking about?
Linus still approves the changes in the kernel. His main baby for the past 15 years or so has been GIT.
I think he maintained git at its inception for like 6 months and then passed it off to someone else, but I could be completely mistaken.
That means there are highschool seniors who weren't even alive while Bill Gates was at Microsoft. Interns might not even know who he is.
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS 👏🎸
That was balmer though, IIRC. Crazy times
I recently learned that Steve Ballmer is a director of and major donor to the Jewish National Fund, which supports the Israeli military and the settlers in the West Bank and around Gaza. This made me like Steve Ballmer slightly less.
https://shopisrael.com/blogs/support/does-steve-ballmer-support-israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_National_Fund
I'm sure if they work there they know who he is though lol but possibly I suppose
without checking, Gates’ wealth is probably tied up in a lot of MS stock, and he could probably walk into the office and ask the intern to get him a coffee. but yeah i think mostly retired.
Linus is still active is maintaining the Linux kernel.
and yes, this is fluff, not some kind of summit
Gates could probably walk into most offices and get a free coffee and an impromptu meeting with the CEO if he wants to.
Still cool though. Also I think Bill has more money.
Than the intern? I mean...yeah. probably.