I never met Gates, but my son, Kent, went to work for him after graduating with a computer science degree from UC-Berkeley in the early 1980s. I visited Kent in Seattle soon after he settled in, and on a Saturday we went and walked through the new small corporate Microsoft building. “Want to see Bill's office?" he asked. Yes!
Bill worked in a two-office suite. The left-hand room was the office of the Chairman of the Board, as I recall. It had a big window, a leather-covered desk, a leather chair, two leather chairs for visitors and a clean desktop. All the pencils were sharpened and placed on an inkwell, all facing the same direction.
I walked across a small hall into Bill's office. The office size was the same, as was the window, but the desk was an old door, piled high with papers. An inbox and outbox peaked out beneath the folders atop. Books lined a small shelf; folders and papers lined the corners of the room, and were stacked up to the sill of the window.
How can these two guys -- one an absolute neatnik and the other a person who didn't care zip about neat -- even work together, I wondered. Maybe opposites attract and create new ideas.
Kent called after I got home and told me he just came back from Bill's 30th birthday party -- at a roller skating rink, with free skates provided for all party-goers.
The article about Bill Gates' generosity in the 11-23 issue of the NYT brought to mind e man himself, as well as all the tech CEOs that live in or near Palo Alto -- all of them rich. There's Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Tim Cook of Apple, Larry Page of Alphabet, Sergey Brin recently retired from Alphabet -- to name a few. We have a staggering amount of rich men within a two-mile radius of Palo Alto.
If I look at the top six tech giants, the only two that don't live locally are Gates and Amazon's Jeff Bezos. The four here (and former giants like Eric Schmidt of Google fame) are a starry cluster of brains and wealth.
My mind started asking questions. What if some of their money (or their company's money) could also go toward solving the global health -- and domestic poverty -- problems? Maybe, individually or collectively, they could brainstorm over this Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe during December. 'Tis the season to do things like that.
I hesitate suggesting the use of their money to solve worldwide health problem, because they should do what they want with their own money. But since they all live here, this is a unique place to make my suggestion. Maybe some of their local Palo Alto area friends might mention this idea to them.
This has been a rather traumatic year for all of us, but I, for one, am glad we are alive, that although our area has witnessed another spurt in COVID-19 cases, most of us are wearing our masks and practicing physical distancing, and many of us are not gathering together for big family Thanksgiving dinner, which is most appropriate. And there's also the possibly great news that it appears that a coronavirus vaccine may be on its way in the next six months.
Let us enjoy our blessings, and Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Share your own wealth with others who need it.
