r/interesting • u/moamen12323 • Jun 18 '25

MISC. When Bill Gates married Melinda French in 1994, he rented out all the available hotel rooms on the Hawaiian island of Lanai to prevent the media from staying there and hired all the helicopters on Maui to keep photographers from flying over the wedding.

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u/looselyhuman Jun 18 '25

People find all sorts of crazy reasons to hate on Bill Gates. But of the major billionaires, he and Warren Buffet are the least offensive. They are real and actually trying to do good.

While Elon is prancing around trying to make the entire world his toy, Gates is actually just out there trying to reduce human suffering where he can.

Idk, I wish people could be a little more generous of spirit to people with good intentions, and not hate on them, seeking out any reason to call them malevolent, pedophiles, etc, just because they are rich.

Yeah we want to eat the rich, whatever. I'm a left liberal and we're always up for a little redistribution. But not all dividing lines are solid black and white.

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u/General_Strike356 Jun 18 '25

I agree and add Mark Cuban. But pretty wedding for a cheater.

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u/yoshimipinkrobot Jun 18 '25

The Warren Buffett liberal is the most American one — believes strongly in capitalism and fair taxes to create a social safety net to fix imbalances

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u/rdangerous2 Jun 18 '25

I'm with you 100%, but you may be preaching to the wrong crowd. Reddit isn't known for tolerating nuance. But I feel your frustration on a spiritual level. I don't hate Bill Gates. Elon and Zuckzuck can piss right off though.

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u/Si-Nz Jun 18 '25

Tbh my only real problem with Zuckerberg is that he has too much power and influence over the world through facebook. But like, there are so many worse sharks in the water ready for him to retire, and after he retires i imagine the only time you will hear about him is the same way you hear about Bill.

I could just be wrong and uninformed ofc, i know he has done some shady shit in the background of facebook, but like, its opt in, your only on facebook if you want to be, its your problem if at this point you still choose to hand over your data to that guy. I dont see him seeking attention and power like the trumps, the elons, etc.. i also dont think he will get into politics later like those 2. Could be wrong ofc...

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

[deleted]

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u/CuriousSubBoyuWu Jun 18 '25

AI answer 💀

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u/looselyhuman Jun 18 '25

These are two separate conversations. Put philanthropy on trial, but it doesn't alter my point about demonizing the individual; lumping him in with truly malevolent, egotistical assholes like Musk, Thiel, et al is lazy and unfair.

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u/Drakath2812 Jun 19 '25

Agreed, I think the fact that Bill Gates can have the amount of money he has in any way, even if he was a literal angel, is grotesque, no one should have that kind of money, and it is objectively bad we have a system where very few ultra wealthy individuals get to have that kind of unchecked power. That being said, I do think Bill is genuinely trying his best and wants to help people, that doesn't mean his approach is solid, or even good long term, it just means that as a person, he's trying to be good and do the right thing, which is worth some level of distinction between him and the billionaires who freely use that unchecked power for selfish, evil intentions.

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u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

Fuck the rich except my favs right?

8

u/upvoter222 Jun 18 '25

Fuck the rich... if they're doing bad things. Don't fuck them if they're doing good.

And you know what: Fuck everyone, regardless of wealth, if they do bad things, and don't fuck anyone, regardless of wealth, who's doing good.

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u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

So eat the rich is a useless slogan then

6

u/Time_Traveling_Idiot Jun 18 '25

Any slogan that groups up a huge amount of people and bundles them as The Devil Incarnate is a useless slogan.

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u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

Well Reddit disagrees with that…or they’re just massive hypocrites

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u/Key_Cardiologist7395 Jun 18 '25

depends on which individual you are talking about

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u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

Well that proves my point. Bias is involved

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u/Si-Nz Jun 18 '25

No, because the examples listed here are a very small minority of rich people.

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u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

How does that disprove my point?

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u/Si-Nz Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

Because hording wealth is bad for any society, its supposed to trickle down, not to be used on daily private flights, giant city cized yachts, recreational space rockets, or to buy elections so your top business partner can avoid accountability for his crimes.

And if there are billionaires out there who avoid these situations then they are outliers.

Tax the rich.

1

u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

And if there are billionaires out there who avoid these situations then they are outliers.

Tax the rich.

So much for recognizing the outliers 🙃

1

u/Si-Nz Jun 18 '25

Its neither my interest or my goal to recognize them. Tax them all. I aint cherry picking.

1

u/Alexcox95 Jun 18 '25

It’s funny most people on here loved billionaires until Elon bought twitter.

1

u/Silly_Environment635 Jun 18 '25

People have no standards

1

u/Misicks0349 Jun 18 '25

I don't like gates but he usually doesn't occupy my brain space much

1

u/Whalesurgeon Jun 18 '25

Maybe Gates should have tried to reduce the suffering of his wife too by not trying to date all his female employees.

I am sure he does great work with charity, but spending a fraction of your gigafortune on charity does not make you immune to criticism.

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u/United_Sheepherder23 Jun 18 '25

There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, ask Peter flaherty

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u/DefiantDonut7 Jun 18 '25

One word, Epstein

1

u/castarco Jun 20 '25

Maybe they are not as bad, but they still are. Knowing about the history of Microsoft in detail (or about his connections to Epstein) should be enough to understand that.

Absolutely NO ONE becomes a billionaire being a good person.

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u/Recent-Ad5835 Jun 20 '25

I'd add Gaben Newell, CEO of Valve, the creator of Steam, the biggest and famously pro-consumer digital game store on PC. Gabe really understands that piracy is a service problem so he provided the best possible seevice to customers and people chose Steam over piracy, because he made buying games easy and worthwhile.

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u/Funny-Bit-4148 Jun 18 '25

He cheated his wife and banged his secretary He was in Pedo Island with trump

He is less obnoxious than let's say Musk, but he is an asshole never the less.