Bill Gates increases net-worth by $15 billion in 2013

The world's richest man, Microsoft founder and software genius Bill Gates, increased his personal net worth by $15.8 billion to $78.5 billion over 2013. Congrat's Bill!

Student Speech about Bill Gates bribing educators with millions

Investors with 5% of Microsoft Stock Suggest Bill Gates Leave As Well

Three Major Microsoft Investors Call for Bill Gates to Step Down

Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Tells the World Ctrl-Alt-Del was a Mistake

At a recent fundraiser at Harvard, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, admits that the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-Del was "a mistake." One button would have done the trick.

Thanks Bill. We appreciate the update.

But, wait. He pasted the blame on to the guy from IBM who designed the keyboard who has confessed to the thoughtlessness. Thanks IBM.

So to conclude, it was "a mistake" - not a bug or a feature.

Bill Gates says go long on toilets

One of the best investments we can make? Toilets. Here are 260 billion reasons why: http://t.co/yQxmyYpsFl http://t.co/jGlJiufXXl

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) September 11, 2013

Harvard drop-out, Bill Gates, wins World's Richest Man Contest this year

Congratulations, Bill Gates! And welcome back to being the World's Richest Top Dog!



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Warren Buffett Continues to Snow the World

What Warren Buffett values the most? 
[VERY easy answer] 

Snow, the internet, BS, Bill Gates, Becky Quick, Dairy Queen, CNBC, .....

"The amount of time that it's freed up for other things is just incredible. I would gladly pay half my net worth just to have that kind of information available to me. They haven't figured out how to charge me what it's worth. That's one of the problems they've got." - Warren Buffett, on the internet

Microsoft Reports Loss Due to Write-down

Microsoft Corp. Reports First Huge Loss As Public Company

A substantial accounting write-down of $6.2 billion related to the company's 2007 acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, has wiped the software maker's entire Q4 profit.

previous on ThinkBillions-

Microsoft stock continues to go nowhere, but Steve Ballmer has a plan!

Protesters Hit Berkshire Hathaway

Two boisterous protest groups have invaded Omaha Nebraska and specifically Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting this weekend.

One group of protesters is from Southern California (of course) and desires above all hope to persuade (Berkshire's unit) Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to relocate a container-handling facility it plans to build near their neighborhood.

The other protesters are allegedly associated with the local Occupy Omaha (OO is a splinter division of the OWS) group. OO spokesperson D'Shawn Cunningham says the group plans to address concerns about wealth inequality and corporate governance policy practices in the U.S. Basically, OO had a free weekend free on their busy calendar.

Warren Buffett, chairman of  Berkshire Hathaway, could not be reached for comment. Mr. Buffett was working on a new tax policy for the federal government to soak the rich even more. "I'm not messing around this time. They deserve to get hit and hit hard," said the bridge playing very close friend of fellow billionaire, Bill Gates.

Warren Buffett: NOT great with personal philanthropy

".....it turns out that Gates and Buffett have pledged to give most of their money to the Gates Foundation. But they haven’t actually done so, yet."


 article: Haven’t Gates and Buffett given away their billions?

Carlos Slim remains number one on Forbes billionaires list

Mexico's Carlos Slim remained the world's richest man for the third year in a row with a $69 billion fortune on the Forbes billionaire list. Slim was down $5 billion compared to last year.

Bill Gates of Microsoft came in second at $61 billion, up $5 billion for the year.

Mexico's Monopoly Man Mints Many Pesos

In Economics 101, one eventually learns the definition of a monopoly as "one firm or producer in an industry or market sector."

Outside of class, and in life, one learns that the somewhat educated news media throws around the term 'monopoly' without any regard to a standardized definition (9 times out of 10). And, of course, this is the same news media that calls bloggers into question for journalistic integrity issues.

So, we have to give The Economist some professional and journalistic credit for recently writing that Carlos Slim enjoys "two near-monopolies" ("Let Mexico's moguls battle"; The Economist, February 4, 2012).

Note for future billionaires: it helps to become a billionaire with occassionally achieving a near-monopoly on a market or two. Call Bill Gates about this.

So here we have Carlos Slim owning both Telmex and Telcel, both with huge near-monopoly market shares in the broadband and mobile markets in Mexico.

And because The Economist is interested in economic fairness (among other things) it is suggesting that Carlos Slim, or the government, or somebody allow a little competition into the marketplace for the benefit of Mexican consumers.

Fat chance. Pun intended.

As they say in Mexico: "it is impossible to go a day without putting pesos into Carlos Slim's pockets."

Enjoy the pesos Carlos!

Microsoft stock continues to go nowhere, but Steve Ballmer has a plan!

The kind of CEO backside kissing that Businessweek brings to journalism is truly special. You'll want to read the following article for proof if you can stomach it--

Steve Ballmer Reboots

... because, after all according to BW, Steve Ballmer is all about "Cooler tech, more energy, higher profit—the Microsoft CEO is out to prove Steve Jobs wrong and make Redmond relevant again."

Bill Gates Likes (+1) Communists

Those awake in the world over the past couple of decades know and understand that the People's Republic of China has been one of the world's worst serial polluters in the history of mankind.

Microsoft co-founder, and Think Billions VBF, Bill Gates believes he has a solution.

The billionaire software guru says he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new kind of nuclear reactor.

Yes, you read that correctly. Bill Gates. China. Communists. Nuclear Energy.

At a talk this week at China's Ministry of Science & Technology, Gates said: "The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste."

Gates backs Washington-based TerraPower, which is developing a nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium. He says he is thinking about tossing perhaps as much as a billion dollars into R&D over the next couple of years.

Bill Gates Likes (+1) Communists.

We know that China Likes (+1) Bill Gates. Since the country has been using Microsoft software largely on a freeware basis over many, many years.

Bill Gates: Tax Me and Tax Me Again

At a recent talk at the University of Washington, software billionaire Bill Gates explains why he is an enthusiastic "tax and tax again" billionaire.

(After all, it is all very cool talk these days, this "tax me" stuff; since very few billionaires like Mr. Gates were even close to being greedy billionaires on the way up. Correct? So, these billionaire public relations tours are just all very, very cool to listen to if you enjoy listening to a re-writing of U.S. business history.)

Gates gave a talk at the University of Washington's computer science building regarding a whole ranges of subjects. He commented:

"I didn’t start out with the dream of being super-rich. And even after we started Microsoft, and the guys who ran Intel -- Gordon Moore and those guys -- were billionaires, I was like, 'Wow, that must be strange.' And so -- it is, it's quite strange."

Jee, Bill, wow.

"So I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, because there's meaningful freedom that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that -- you know, I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. Dick's has not raised their prices enough. But, you know, being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing."

Yeah, hamburgers.

"In terms of the very rich ... Warren Buffett and I are the two wealthiest Americans -- are certainly believing that the rich should be taxed a lot more...and the rich should give away more wealth than they currently do. And we've certainly been willing to speak out about that."

Speak out! And and reach out, Bill! Keep reaching out.

Bill Gates Wins in Phoenix (Again)

Bill Gates (not the billionaire) wins his Phoenix City Council spot again during the August 2011 election.


COUNCIL DISTRICT 3

Registered Voters 90,014
Voter Turnout 22.89%

Votes Percent
BILL S GATES 15,326 74.37%
STEVEN GROSS 5,281 25.63%
Write-In* 0 0.00%
Total 20,607 100.00%



http://www.phoenix.gov/election/results.html

Mexico's Carlos Slim Helú Continues to Super-size his Fortune

World's Billionaires 2011

Bill Gates Talks About Knowledge Revolution at TED [LIVE BLOG]

Bill Gates Talks About Knowledge Revolution at TED [LIVE BLOG]

Hosni Mubarak, Billionaire

How Hosni Mubarak Got So Rich

There are no Mubaraks on the Forbes list of the world's richest people, but there sure ought to be.

The mounting pressure from 18 days of historic protests finally drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office, after three decades as his nation's iron-fisted ruler. But over that time, Mubarak amassed a fortune that should finance a pretty comfortable retirement. The British Guardian newspaper cites Middle Eastern sources placing the wealth of Mubarak and his family at somewhere between $40 billion and $70 billion. That's a pretty good pension for government work. The world's richest man--Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim--is worth about $54 billion, by comparison. Bill Gates is close behind, with a net worth of about $53 billion.

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Mark Zuckerberg says he'll give it all away. Eventually.

Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is among the latest to join the Giving Pledge, an effort by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to commit the country's wealthiest people to increase their charitable donations (or, be publicly humiliated for not doing so???)


Giving Pledge has now signed up over 50 people and their families.


Giving Pledge is not a formal contract. The goals is to give away at least half of their wealth to philanthropic causes either before or after they die.


Both Gates and Buffett are both on record agreeing that it is not wise to give more than a modest sum to their children and families.