Comments on: On 'creative capitalism,' Gates gets it

perspective More people should follow the lead of Microsoft's co-founder in freeing up innovative thinkers to help the developing world, and not just cause it feels good.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Slight critism here

On this he gets it bit your boasting about how an Engineer distributes a glorified wood burning barbicue to poor people in Latin America.
Oh how the world needs western innovation like it needs a whole in the head.
If you'd said that some engineer had developed cheap technology for breaking down more food sources for poor latin americans to eat or how some engineer had worked out a way to maintain from humid air a cheap and effective space saving meal worm farm now i'd have appaulded and seen your point about the concept being sound but wow there you go mr poor latin american man heres a glorified barbicue.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Umm year

How very creative Capitilism is.
I wonder did this world class engineer come up with the idea before or after he had cooked his 3rd burger.

[Mendz]

Gates Needs Help

Gates has always been a visionary with Microsoft -- where he has the R&D and laboratory resources to back his "vision" even years ahead before his own company delivers the same.

Outside Microsoft, however, he has no such R&D. He has visions. He has plans. And he needs help. This is his way of asking for help. I believe that the stir he's made with the idea of doing "creative capitalism" is a successful start. Reading between the lines... Gates is calling for as many people as possible to be and to get involved.

You see, that's the point: the mission needs help.

[davemesaaz]

I don't see this as an either or you can Profits and eliminate Poverty.

I don't see What Gates is doing as an either or statement. Either you help the poor or you make money.
The great industrialists such as Ford Carnegie Sam Walton have succeed by not just catering to those who could afford their products. But the made billions by making their products cheaper for the poor and middle classes.

When Henry Ford started producing cars they were more expensive then homes and were an item only available to the rich. Ford found a way to make cheap cars for the poor and middle classes and made billions by doing so.

Right now corporations make products for the 2 billion of the worlds rich. But there is a "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" and the individual that solves that problem will reap billions.

[Tui Pohutukawa]

Ivory tower BS

Gates: "Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in
developing countries not because there's no demand, or even
because money is lacking, but because we don't spend enough
time studying the needs and requirements of that market."

What a load of nonsense. I have travelled developing countries.
Many people there haven't got enough money to buy something
to eat, never mind afford permanent housing. Gates should
leave the air-conditioned conference halls for a while, get on a
bus in India, for example, and take a look around. Millions of
people own next to nothing. Armies of unemployed and
homeless. Thousands who literally live off the refuse that gets
imported from the west.

Gates et al: Stop the whining and the posing. Learn to share.
Use your billions, don't lock them away in foundations that only
feed your ego.

[Dachi]

What?

"I have travelled developing countries. Many people there haven't got enough money to buy something to eat, never mind afford permanent housing."

This is not everybody. Also, do you propose that instead of trying to help them prop up a self sustaining economy, that we simply build huge homeless shelters that hold millions and millions of people and feed them all with our endless wealth?

Shipping in food is a /very/ short term solution.

Welfare creates welfare dependency. Instead of teaching them to farm, trade, build, and invent, we are teaching them how to stand in line waiting for handouts.

>"Use your billions, don't lock them away in foundations that only feed your ego."

Many many billions of dollars worth of consumables and foreign aid has already been shipped into some of the poorest regions of the world. The end result is that they are now highly dependent on this aid.

(ie, farming is difficult enough in these regions, try competing against free foreign aid)

Also, instead of developing cheap generic medications, foreign aid has made doing this difficult by granting billion dollar contracts for treatment to some of the biggest medical companies in the world. Companies who's patents, trade secrets, and litigation seek to make it /more/ difficult to have inexpensive readily available generic drugs.

I could tell you how to solve many of the poverty problems in these nations and I am sure many others could as well.

It would not be that hard to have them compete in the global economy, but it would cost American, European, and Asian jobs/wages.

Since people don't want them competing for their own jobs, they would rather hand them crippling foreign aid. If you want to do this fine, just don't walk around looking down your nose at the rest of us.

PS. Throwing free/cheap copies of Windows at these regions is also a convenient way to fight Linux. Again leaving them dependent on another billion dollar US based company.

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.

- Sridhar Gurivireddy

[sgurivir]

What about responsibility?

The responsibility of CEO is to make profits for their
shareholders.The philanthroiphic or the resulting PR efforts
should lead to benefits for the company. Unless Shareholders
approve the board/CEO to allocate finances for philanthrophc
efforts, it's cheating on part of the CEO. He's doing it for his
own altruisitc/ personal reasons.

The corporations should concentrate on paying dividends for
shareholders. If a company really wants to tie itself to
altruistic efforts, it should form a seperate sister organization
with it's own account and let interested shareholders invest in
it.