Back in my day....nothing ever good comes from starting that way. Hmm, well when I was on the come up everyone hated Bill Gates. I remember going to the Institute of Audio Research here in NYC on University Place and having a teacher that spent an entire lesson teaching us to hate Bill Gates. It was the first time I had ever heard about the stories of when Gates, Steve Jobs, Paul Allen and that 4th guy that no one remembers "invented the Personal Computer in a garage". I'm sure that part of the story is primarily true. It was good to hear, being that I was in school for Recording and needed to know computers, the history mattered and the teacher was our "Digital Recording" teacher. Yes, back in the stone age we had a "Digital" and "Analog" Recording class.

As teach told it, the 4 geniuses worked together until the evil Bill Gates (and Paul Allen) stabbed Steve Jobs in the back. It was said that they stole Jobs' ideas and rushed them into a crap system called Windows. Windows was the "VHS" of Computing. The comparison being that "Beta" (know not websites in development, Beta Video Tapes) were always a better product, it's just that VHS had better marketing and price points.

Macs were said to be far superior machines and Bill Gates was turned into a Bogeyman by my teacher, the head of an evil, ruthless empire. He even referred to him as "Bill Gates of Hell" on a regular basis.

I've recently remembered this when accessing the recent "Financial Crisis". There's alot of talk about all the high risk investments that were made on the backs of the working poor and middle class. They basically took our money, used the clout of their name to build trust, and then spent that money on risky investments. They swooped in like vultures buying debt out from under fragile businesses and gambled on futures that only made sense to people in Wall Street circles.

I recently heard this style of investing compared to the "Vulture-Like" tactics that have been profiled by Greg Palast where corporations have been buying up African Debt and abusing these nations. He said that the banks learned this practice in Africa and then brought it here to the States. It's fury being taken out on those with High Risk Mortgages.

Then we get to Bernie Madoff. The posterboy for our bad economic times. Our very own "Man behind the Mask". There's one problem with that. He has nothing to do with the financial crisis overall and the crimes he committed could never have been done alone. We're talking about 90 Billion Dollars here. There were likely Hundreds if not Thousands of accountants, brokers and attorneys complicit in this. Where are their perp walks?

These perps like Bernie Madoff, and those who abused the law instead of breaking it like those at AIG, Citi and Bank of America are all filthy rich.

What have they done to earn that money?

Have they given anything back to the world? Or have they just taken? Hard work is not only defined by how many hours you spend at the office and how much stress you take on. It's measured by your results and what you give to the world. These people in the banking industry give us nothing. By that measurement, they are the poorest amongst us.

So, the next time your hating on Bill Gates, remember this, he gave us something. He may be a rich and ruthless businessmen, but we have something we use everyday, in part, because of his work. The fact that he is still the largest philantropist in the world despite no longer being the richest person in the world (to my knowledge) should also count in his favor.

Consider how much the Walmart heir's, the Walton's reportedly give to charity. It's peanuts.

So with that said, I apologise to you Bill Gates. I have hated you for years and not realized that my hatred was just plain old American envy. I now know what true hatred feels like and it is reserved for those that enrich themselves while leaving nothing for anyone else to benefit from.



(Thanks to "Like It Is'" recent panel discussion for inspiring this piece)