Revisiting the spectacular failure that was the Bill Gates deposition
arstechnica.com
In the 1990s, Microsoft wore its disdain for antitrust on its sleeve. Now, not so much.

I only became of aware of Bill Gates as more than a placeholder name once he’d transitioned into the Kinder Gentler Philanthropist Gates… but my lord is this video an eye-opener.

There are interesting content-related things to think about here, but I found myself surprised how strong my gut reaction was against the man. Some large portion of my emotional response stems from familiarity with the way scorn is flaking off his face in those clips. Yes, I’ve met a number of men who don’t care to conceal how irritated they are at having to waste their far more valuable time on whatever our necessary interaction is. Yes, a number who really think they’re So Smart and so much more Important than you that they don’t have to care how they come off to you.

It’s interesting how you can feel a throughline with the Zuck’s painstakingly media-coached persona, even though his successor goes to such lengths to try to not seem that way.

  • @forgotmylastusername
    1•4 years ago

    Paint the government as out-of-touch policy wonks who had no idea how tech and real markets worked. And above all, deny even the most basic of premises in the government’s case. The plan from Gates’ army of lawyers and PR handlers seemed to be to wield his image as a software wunderkind who dropped out of Harvard to bootstrap his company and went on to become the world’s richest man. Team Gates planned to use that same domineering force of will to beat back government lawyers.

    Every tech bro has adopted this tactic. It works now as opposed to Gates’ era when people, especially the tech communities, saw him for what he is. They now have social media to rally everybody from tech geeks or the average Joe before them as idols.

    These days people immediate write off anything legislative because government bad, all hail the tech bros.