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03-09-2007, 03:51 PM
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 Is Bill Gates a lightworker or a darkworker? I find the latest blog entries on Polarity to be very interesting. Certainly, it is a very accurate model for fictional characters in the fantasy and cartoon genres, where every leading character is strongly polarised. I wonder though; does the polarity theory match our experience of the real world, in particular, Bill Gates? According to the theory he must be highly polarised one way or the other, or he could not have become so successful. One might assume he is a darkworker, having become the world's richest man as founder of a monopolist company, crushing all competition with ethically dubious actions and retarding the development of the computing industry. On the other hand, one could argue that he is a lightworker, as his foundation is doing some excellent work improving people's lives in parts of the world where computers are irrelevant compared to basic needs like food, clean water, and medicine. What are your thoughts?      |
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03-09-2007, 04:55 PM
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 I think that he started as a darkworker and recently polarized to the light side. AFAIK he wasn't doing the charity stuff the whole time. Nonetheless, I love Microsoft and Windows.
__________________ Jiri Novotny Get your to-do lists organized in no time with powerful To Do List Software (Swift To-Do List) |
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03-09-2007, 05:16 PM
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| Without knowing Bill's true motives, you can't really know for sure. Even if he took actions that were anti-competitive, what was his reason for doing those things? Was it for personal gain, or was it because he genuinely believed the world would be better served with Microsoft software being spread far and wide? If I had to guess, I would say Bill is predominantly love-polarized and has been so since the early days of Microsoft. I think he cares a lot more about creating something of value, making a contribution, and impacting people's lives. I don't think personal gain, status, and recognition are of much importance to him. Microsoft's internal motto in the early days was, "A computer on every desk and in every home... running Microsoft software." That's an outflow orientation to me. Bill intially resisted taking Microsoft public. I read that he felt it would become too much of a distraction. But his employees who held stock basically demanded it, so they could finally cash in. Many of them became instant millionaires when the company went public. Many people think that a lightworker will behave in a lovey-dovey manner towards everyone they meet. Surely some will behave that way, but it's not a requirement to serve the greater good.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com Get my new book Personal Development for Smart People (now available at Amazon.com) |
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03-09-2007, 05:38 PM
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| Interesting. You could say he at least used the light polarity in that regard. One could claim Linus Torvalds was a darkworker because he did it "just for fun." But I still see free/open source as light and proprietary/closed source as dark. I think Windows is basically inferior because it limits your power as a user. When you have thousands, or millions of people involved, there isn't a clear dark/light polarity. Light and Dark can work alongside each other. The only difference is motives. Light motivated people can work on free software out of a spirit of giving, dark motivated people work on it for fun and as a demonstration of personal power. Similarly light motivated people can work on proprietary software out of a desire to provide a service to customers, and dark motivated people out of a desire to build their personal power base. So we have dark/light strategy on the one hand, and dark/light motives on the other. |
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03-10-2007, 01:39 AM
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| Study the minds of Hitler and stalin,if you want to know more about how darkworkers think.Their motives were to impact people's lives.And see what they did. Last edited by munish : 03-10-2007 at 01:45 AM. |
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03-10-2007, 04:07 AM
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Thanks Steve for the answers...just what I had been thinking about the last couple of days!!!!! I was wondering whether businesspeople like Gates or Google founders or Buffet would categorize as darkworkers. and whether lightworkers have to be love dovey all the time :P |
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03-10-2007, 04:24 AM
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another interpretation is that the windows arm-twisting hyper competitivity and greed-mindedness threw the software industry into a dark age from which we are only beginning to emerge Microsoft deserves credit for rapidly developing ubiquitous office software but when it comes to Windows the company motives were greed and control rather than quality and service. Many many excellent companies and technologies, through no flaw of their own, have been sent on a one-way trip to the Recycling Bin by Microsoft entirely because they were seen as a looming threat to wealth and control. Bill Gates himself never personally wrote any worthwhile software, rather he conned his way into the business. He deceptively bought DOS for an extremely selfish sum and then tricked IBM into destroying their own company by signing the exclusivity contract with Microsoft. He was unendingly selfish when it came to his employees - dealing with Bill Gates often meant being used, abused, unappreciated, and underpaid. MS Windows does not represent value creation, rather it represents the transfer of wealth from the world at large to Microsoft's empire. Microsoft does deserve credit for developing & supporting good office software long-term, but this is unrelated to the Windows branch. And even with this software many many valuable innovations were killed for no reason other than greed. Bill Gates, however, having succeeded in amassing his fortune, seems to have had some kind of realization and now is giving it back. So in the end maybe he will do more good than bad. Until now Microsoft's actions have certainly been more to the bad than the good. They killed so many valuable companies that sought only to contribute, and could have contributed many valuable technologies, but were restrained from doing so when they were sent to the software gas chamber by Bill Gates. Of course one can never know Bill's intentions. They may have been good all along. But his effects have been extremely negative in my opinion. |
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03-10-2007, 04:36 AM
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He isn't lavish, rather he calls himself thrifty. He drives a 15 year old car. He is giving his entire $45 billion fortune - including all future earnings - to charity. Buffet also has never hurt anyone on his way to power. The only thing he has been criticized for is layoffs - but layoffs are a service to the society as a whole. Keeping employees on who aren't providing value is hardly a service to humanity like some would make it out to be. Rather he took over failing companies and transformed them into enduring successes. Buffet represents one of the very last honest CEOs. If he wanted he could have paid himself hundreds of millions from shareholder pockets but instead he has done his best to be fair to them and to humanity in general. The people who deal with Buffet only have glowing praise for the way he ensures everyone around him benefits. I only have ever seen good in Buffet, and i've read the story of his entire life including now when I keep up with him. Whether he's a lightworker or dark depends on his intentions and so we can never really know. However his effect on humanity has been nothing but positive. He's a role-model to all who want to contribute through knowledge of business/economics. |
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03-10-2007, 02:29 PM
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__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com Get my new book Personal Development for Smart People (now available at Amazon.com) |
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03-10-2007, 08:55 PM
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| if we compare Microsoft and Macintosh I think Macintosh are the lightworkers. I admit Ive never owned a PC, only Apples (since 1983), but I teach on PCs (which every lesson they have some problem) and with a Mac I feel that every aspect of it was made with love and care. even if its more expensive, I feel it was made with less greed. (maybe Im innocent but that s my feeling) I own my current Mac for 3 years now and it never crashed, never had a bug. PCs only became friendlier after they were forced to by competition with macs. You dont necessarily have to be a lightworker if you donate to charity, especially if youre a smart darkworker and you know that a law of the universe is that if you want to receive more you have to give more, and if you know that giving to charity will also make you look very good. Its like if want to buy milk and its so cheap everyone can afford it, but next to it is organic milk which only richer people can afford, but I feel that the cheap milk was made with more greed (poor cows) and the organic one with more love.... |
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03-12-2007, 06:10 AM
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| is it possible for someone to use that much money for good and not be a lightworker? I don' think he is doing it for pr, and i can't find anything he is hiding behind. Lets not compare macs and pcs, or software dark ages in response to the main question. Then again, I am not him |
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03-12-2007, 10:51 AM
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03-12-2007, 04:39 PM
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| Hehe, talking about Microsoft is a surefire way to get tempers rising  Like Steve said, you can only guess. I personally don't think someone can just switched from 'darkworker' to 'lightworker' like someone suggested. If you have gone so far into being a darkworker you won't just shed it overnight, so I'd personally guess lightworker. What I find much more interesting is how much emotion people put into this windows/Mac OS/Linux thing. They are all just tools. Love you! |
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03-16-2007, 08:52 AM
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| Interesting Articles Found these interesting articles written about the Gates foundation: The Blog | Larry Arnstein: Whiplash at the Gates Foundation | The Huffington Post A contradiction at the Gates Foundation - Los Angeles Times
__________________ PRADA ANYONE? |
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03-16-2007, 02:34 PM
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Hehe, yes, they probably got some guys whos job is only to invest money, and these guys do not care about helping anyone but their revenue stream. (can't blame them, it's their job to make money) Maybe the Gates Foundation will take this oversight as a lesson and change their investment strategies to exclude companies hurting people. Love you! |
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03-17-2007, 11:46 AM
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| I think he's more likely to be a darkworker. Starting his foundation, with all the good it may be doing, does not mean he has necessarily changed into a lightworker. If you look at how he conducted his business at Microsoft, from the stories about how he formed it, to the practices the company followed as they grew and dominated the industry, I think his motivation looks a lot more like the darkworker polarization. If you accept Steve's theory about what happens to a darkworker vs. a lightworker (attracting competitors, instead of attracting help and generosity), I think it also looks more like the description of a darkworker. The foundation does not mean that he has changed at all. Forming this foundation isn't incompatible with the darkworker framework. When this foundation was formed, Microsoft was under tremendous pressure about their anti-competitive practices, much moreso than they are today--what better PR could he have than to announce very publicly to the world that you're giving away billions to good causes? Taking that further, he has more money than he would ever need personally, and there are no major competitors that can really threaten Microsoft, so the challenge isn't really there the way it used to be. Bill needs another venue to challenge him, and his foundation provides another means for accomplishment. He gets to control which causes get *major* funding and which do not, he gets to bully around whichever charities he chooses. He even convinced Warren Buffet to throw all of his money into the Gates Foundation pot, so in effect he's monopolizing the charitable foundation "industry" the same way he did with software. Still sounds like a darkworker to me. |
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03-17-2007, 09:14 PM
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| Wow, Mike, that is very insightful. But have you actually seen some interviews with Bill Gates? He seems like he really cares about other people, I just can't quite imagine that he is really doing it just for himself. I think he is a great guy, darkworker or not 
__________________ Jiri Novotny Get your to-do lists organized in no time with powerful To Do List Software (Swift To-Do List) |
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03-17-2007, 09:23 PM
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03-18-2007, 01:12 PM
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| A lot of good comments about BG being a darkworker. Just a few thoughts about Apple/Steve Jobs and Microsoft/Bill Gates (I think these two are contributing mostly to the companies mindset). Apple, while Jobs was gone, went more open for other hardware companies. There had been talks about letting other companies sell their own hardware with licensed MacOS - when Jobs got back he stopped that, closed MacOS again, made sure it would only run on their own hardware (control). Microsoft is open for every hardware company. Since there had been a lot of stability problems with windows due to poorly written device drivers for cheap hardware, they added testing centers, certificates to help windows stability (since the users always blamed microsoft when windows crashed due to a poorly written device drivers) (contributing?). I don't know how it is today, when I tried to create programs for MacOS you had to buy expensive compilers, had to register with Apple, got strict guidelines what you were allowed to do and how, Apple being able to revoke your license anytime. Apple always tried to control the contributors market (control). Microsoft gives away compilers for free, allows everyone to contribute. They are trying to get higher quality by offering certifications, but you are not forced to do them (yet - contributing). So, as I see, Apple is working with control and fear: they control their hardware, and the software market, using the fear that apple might revoke your developers license if you do something they don't agree to. Microsoft invites people to contribute giving information and help for free. I'm really very excited what will happen to Microsoft when Bill Gates is really gone for good! As with Apple, we already had a glimpse where they will go when Steve Jobs was gone. Microsoft even went through hoops to allow as much backward compatability as possible, so you can run ancient programs as long as they dont compromise system stability (but are starting to block more stuff since system stability is suffering through this). By the way, microsoft is developing programs for the MacOS platform. And I think Microsoft even is a shareholder of Apple, but I don't know how much they own. Just a few thoughts, though. Sometimes I got the feeling people are blinded a bit much by their emotions about MS/Apple. Love you! |
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03-18-2007, 02:15 PM
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| Interesting question. I have to agree with radeldudel - it's funny the usual immediate reaction from the MS-is-evil crew. MS is, obviously, ruthless and large. And Bill Gates is obviously clever and cunning. But, if you look past the whole big-is-bad thing, you will see that MS do a great deal for 3rd party developer |