Ben Carson: Bungling Surgeon

So it's not true that he thinks his daughter is hot? I gotta tell you, keeping track of all this without ready access to TWATS* is hard.


*The Word According To Starman

 

Even if you don't think he's worth as much money as he says he is, he clearly owns (or has investments in) the companies he listed on his disclosure form.

 

That's a great answer isn't it?

I mean, even if he's looking at a hard work to wealth ration, he picked two of the richest guys on the planet -- especially Gates. So, I guess they must have been the hardest working guys ever.

And, while I'm not here to criticize either, Gates has been accused of monopolistic behavior, that held back innovation, and his greatest deal was getting the deal to develop IBM's operating system. It's a deal his mom helped him get, and it was worth billions:

She had been a regent at the University of Washington since 1975, the same year she became the first woman to serve as a director of First Interstate Bank and the first to serve as the president of the King County's United Way. She was later appointed to the board of the United Way of America; in 1983, she became the first woman to lead it. Right Time, Right Place

Her tenure on the national board's executive committee is believed to have helped Microsoft, based in Seattle, at a crucial time. In 1980, she discussed with John R. Opel, a fellow committee member who was the chairman of the International Business Machines Corporation, the business that I.B.M. was doing with Microsoft.

Mr. Opel, by some accounts, mentioned Mrs. Gates to other I.B.M. executives. A few weeks later, I.B.M. took a chance by hiring Microsoft, then a small software firm, to develop an operating system for its first personal computer.

The success of the I.B.M. P C gave Microsoft and its MS-DOS (for Microsoft Disk Operating System) a lift that eventually made it the world's largest software company for personal computers. Sales now exceed $3 billion.

Mary Gates, 64; Helped Her Son Start Microsoft

 

Gates' mother did provide a valuable bridge to IBM, but IBM went to Microsoft looking for computer languages, not an operating system.

IBM wanted Gary Kildall's CP/M as its PC operating system, but: 1) his company wouldn't agree to some of the ways IBM had to do business as a result of the consent decree it had entered into in the 1950s; and 2) the version of CP/M that would have been for the original PC wasn't ready until six months after the PC was launched.

Also ... Microsoft didn't actually write DOS 1.0, it bought the rights to a clone of CP/M and then gussied it up for the PC. In reality, Microsoft wasn't all that interested in the operating systems business.

 

Yeah, but how much work was involved, was it hard, and ultimately, did he earn the billions he has?

 

Isn't Steve Jobs widely regarded as one of the biggest pricks to ever walk the earth?

 

Yes. But, he earned his billions!

 

SmallPotatoes misspelled "Wozniak."

 

Steve Jobs was one of the good guys who insisted he pay his "fair share" in taxes and didn't use the existing tax code to keep Apple's profits offshore. Plus, he definitely didn't play a part offshoring American jobs.

-- Sample from Smallpotatoes' "Heroes among the Rich" course.

 

Jobs is also famous for not donating heavily to charity, as Gates, among others has.

 

There's some HOF Uncle Tommin' right there.

 

He lied on the part when he said he didn't screw her.