Reddit used to believe he was the IRL Tony Stark though, he had a huge cult following her. Me being a millennial and the time being right after the financial/housing crisis, and occupy wall Street protests, thought it was weird af.
When he stuck to investing in and pushing cool cutting edge stuff he was a LOT better at keeping the mask in place. My cousin was a fan girl at that time she can't stand him now. I thought he was involved with some cool stuff, which he is with Space X and some other things, but that was about the extent of it. I'm just waiting for his OD at this point so we can move on and see what his companies can come up with without his dead weight.
There are hundreds, perhaps a few thousand, of people in the world who could replace him at Tesla and SpaceX and the world would be the same.or better for the change.
There is nothing good that has come from his actions that wasn't entirely, exclusively, and one hundred point zero percent TOTALLY attributable to his dollars, irrespective of his personality.
I still think his personality played into it a bit. Like it or not, he does have (or more so had) some charisma. It was absolutely used to draw attention to his companies and enrich himself, but it was still there. Who the fuck else would have made a hole digging company seem cool? I’m sure he could be replaced at any of his companies, but whether or not they would have fared the same under another billionaire investor is entirely speculation. Now that those companies are pretty well established and he’s entirely toxic, I think he could absolutely be replaced without the any real damage to the companies.
He’s just an asshole with money that pays smart people to make things happen, takes credit for them, and over sells them to dumb people as groundbreaking.
I’ll give him credit for being one of the most successful at wielding social media to reach the dumbest and most vile to truly make the world a better place for himself.
I loathe the man but Jobs had an undeniable eye for design and aesthetics. He was not a designer himself but he knew what he wanted his products to be.
Tbh I'll give him that, personally hate the guy but he definitely was the best at knowing what people wanted before they did (or rather, knew what people wanted but couldnt articulate properly)
I mean Bill Gates has spent the later part of his life focused on his foundation- fighting climate change, helping with the pandemic and other diseases around the world. Why is he always lumped in with the others?
I saw him do a Ted talk a couple years back on how we can prevent the next pandemic. He’s still trying. Coincidentally Elon also gave a “talk” at Ted that year and it was much much different.
He did, and tbh he's pretty good now. Referring more to a lot of the anticompetitive stuff he did leading up to it. Since retiring he's one of the chillest people there is, hard not to be tho when you have all the money you could ever need and then some
Bill Gates took advantage of the lax antitrust enforcement of the time due to the business friendly atmosphere created in the 80s and 90s.
Our government really dropped the ball with all the deregulation throughout those decades. People love blaming Reagan solely for how things have turned out, but each subsequent president cemented those policies with their own little spin, while still deregulating industries.
The antitrust suit against Bill in the late 90s was kinda like the, "wtf is going on" moment showing how markets were implementing anticompetitive strategies.
Gates's foundation has done a lot of good, but it has always had an aroma of being a "charity." Where billionaires donate to a charity so they can get good PR, tax deductions, and since they usually head the charity, the money they donate goes right back in their own pockets.
Gates has been a philanthropist for 30 years now and he's still one of the richest people on Earth (Forbes #15). Which speaks to both how hard it is to give away that much money, and exactly how hard he's tried.
I know there's a lot of phony charities, but he could fund things like doctors without borders or every food bank in the US for decades in a second. But he doesn't.
Imagine being heralded as the real life Tony freaking Stark and then just throwing that down the toilet. Now everyone hates his guts and he'll be looked down on in history forever. He could've had a legendary reputation if he just kept his mouth shut.
Gates was a ruthless businessman and Jobs was a loathsome human. Musk is kind of both of them combined. I'm not sure sure if I'm rooting for a Gates like redemption or pancreatic cancer, but for Musky, I'm leaning towards cancer.
It wasn't just reddit, it was a popularly-held belief. Hell, the movie version of Tony Stark was partially modelled after him. Or rather, the version of him that his PR provided.
It was still kind of niche, even on Reddit. He certainly had a weirdly large fan base for the fact he has always just been another douchy rich fuck. But it was hardly the majority opinion. I would say more than half the world saw him quite clearly as the stupid blowhard richboy he has always been.
He's not even above average intelligence. He literally doesn't understand how brakes on a car work. Why does anybody think he's the brains behind anything?
He has done nothing but buy into companies and then sue them for money and the right to claim he is a founder.
He's a massive baby because he has always had money and mommy and daddy sheltered him his whole life and now he has all the money and power, but the intellect and emotional maturity of a 13 year old boy.
His highest education is an undergrad in physics, he’s more book smart than the average person but nowhere near a generational genius; definitely no emotional intelligence either.
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u/Mossy_Rock315 1d ago
I keep hearing about what a genius he supposedly is, but he’s no Einstein or Hawking.