I live in Seattle and know the culture here as well as the facts on the ground.
Mary Gates was genuine, her son Bill Gates III is not.
Bill Gates III has always been a person that looks to gain advantage even if it meant he needed to lie, cheat and steal. And those were the traits possessed by most of the Pirates of Silicon Valley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEyrivrjAuU
Bill followed his mother’s footsteps for one reason only, it provides cover and control. Whereas his mother involved herself as a wealthy socialite with genuine intention, Gates saw it as a vehicle for wealth preservation and also to allow his wife to mimic the life of Mary Gates.
Gates’ entire life up to his founding of his foundation was about preserving himself and his treasure, in other words self-serving. His foray into philanthropy is not of the goodness of his heart.
A lot of controversy exists on whether the world is a better place because of Gates. Would Netscape or Apple have accomplished the same results without Gates’ thievery and cheating? As long as the world is a better place because of the fighting of the silicon priates, nothing much wrong can be said of the way Gates handled himself. But to try and create an image as having genuine concern for humanity is a joke. But having an image as a humanitarian does provide a degree of protection from the Justice Department anti-trust hacks and enemies such as Larry Ellison. It’s all self-serving.
If Gates was genuine, he would give the entire 40 billion foundation endowment away. But he wants to control it, why?
The wealthy of Seattle know why. It’s because charitable trusts when set up right represent the ultimate tax shelter.
And as long as he is doling out 3% a year from the endowment for malaria and vaccines, he is untouchable. Of course to keep the grants flowing and the endowment preserved, back-end hedge funds and fixed income groups are needed. Such entities provide Gates a means to influence markets in the normal business sense.
His father is a typical liberal. Wants the rich to pay income taxes in Washington State of which he himself is largely exempt. There is no income tax in Washington. So he followed the historical purveyors of the federal income tax and proposed an initiative of taxing incomes only 1%. Of course that 1% will grow to 5%, then 10% and then 15%. People here could see through that and his initiative went down in flames.
Including your "hero", Steve Jobs. Jobs is as big or bigger thief than Gates, and he started earlier. When he and Wozniak were "birthing" Apple, he set it up so he (Jobs) benefited and Wozniak got the short straw. Jobs is no more an "inventor" than Gates. Wozniak was the innovator at the early Apple. Jobs talent was the ability to PROMOTE (both Apple and himself). He was also good at finding and developing guys like Wozniak, stealing their ideas, and convincing them that said thievry was a good thing for them.
I suggest you read "Fire in the Valley" and some other early histories of the development of the personal computer. There is zero difference between Gates and Jobs.