News Lucky Reddit reader gets Bill Gates for Secret Santa

A Reddit reader got quite the surprise when she found her Secret Santa gift came from Bill Gates.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2013/12/19/lucky-reddit-reader-gets-bill-gates-for-sec/1

 

What would you ask for?

Windows XP...

 

A Start Menu.

 

0.0001% of his wealth.

 

I'd ask him if I could help in any way.

 

Let's face it, It's Bill Gates. He does a lot of charity work. If you ask for something big for you you're probably going to get shot down, so I guess you'd have to ask for him to donate to a charity on your behalf.

Maybe a couple of signed copies of Windows from yesteryear. 3.1, Windows 2000, Windows XP.

 

"A lucky reddit reader" - why was she lucky?

 

A signed floppy of DOS 1.0

 

True, she didn't get much from him. Makes me wonder what he got.


What's interesting about this is how well Bill played his cards. Think about it - anything else and people would have been like "what a cheapskate" or "wow, he really has nothing to spend his money on". If he just simply decided to give money to another charity, people either wouldn't notice it (because of how many he's done already) or people would say his priorities are wrong. But by letting someone else get the attention of deciding where the money goes, nobody has to point fingers at him.

But, I still don't like the guy.

 

A signed copy of a copy just to get on his nerves

 

I think you've seriously overanalyzed this. This isn't a case of Bill making some clever underhanded donation to charity by using the Reddit Secret Santa to mask his tracks. It's pretty simple, really. Bill Gates is well known for his charity work. For his secret Santa gift he made a donation in the girl's name, and it appears as though he's pretty open about what he did. He also sent her some books that he though she might enjoy. That's pretty much the end of the story.

Interestingly, she apparently had an Apple iPad on her wishlist. She was very thankful for what she received, and she saw the humor in Bill Gates getting her name considering the particular device on her list. I don't believe she actually asked for the National Geographic book nor a donation in her name. That part was just Bill being awesome.

 

As much of a dick as he was back in the day, I can't really have a problem with his behaviour these days, between giving half his money to charity, and only giving his kids enough money to get an education, so they still have to work for a living he seems like an ok bloke.

 

Great piece, made me smile

 

Take a look at the Gates Foundation website, and they work they are doing.

Yeah, he made a mint, but now he's using his money, power and influence to invest in projects promoting education, healthcare and agricultural advancement for under-developed countries (amongst other things) without pushing an agenda.

It's hard to dislike someone for that.

 

Oh, no that was in regards to the last line of the article more than what she got

 

Do you see that plush cow? #madswag

 

Supplicant consciousness. We should tax him at 99.3% and then he would REALLY be helping people!

 

Because the US government are great at spending tax dollars responsibly...hahahaha. If they taxed all businesses and people at a 99.3% rate then it'd probably all go into kickbacks for themselves and their cronies. Isn't that how high level government spending works?

 

You can't be serious?

 

If you took 99.3% of his total fortune, it would only pay for about 1 month of our current deficit spending.