Seeing Bill Gates!!

[kirupa]

Hey everyone,
Today, I got to see Bill Gates speak to students about the future of Computer Science and other stuff :)

Anyhoo, here are the pics:

Wohoo!!!
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg1.jpg

Starting his speech.
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg2.jpg

Brief moment of bright light...
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg3.jpg

Spam Joke 1
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg4.jpg

Spam Joke 2
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg5.jpg

Spam Joke 3
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg33.jpg

Question/Answer Session with the Students
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg6.jpg

Getting the MIT Sweatshirt
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg7.jpg

Of course - the classic MIT Engineering hard hat!
http://web.mit.edu/kirupa/Public/bg8.jpg

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It is really quite an experience seeing someone whom you've seen in tv or in magazines speak in real life :) His speech went on for about an hour or so, but he previewed a lot of cool technologies that are being developed for future versions of Windows that were pretty neat. Of course, the main focus of his speech was the future of Computer Science and the solutions we all will help provide in the future.

Best of all, he is quite humorous. He didn't mind the prying questions that we all had about the lawsuits, personal wealth, microsoft's wealth, intellectual property rights, defending outsourcing, etc. and answered most of them well.

Cheers!
Kirupa :ub:

[mlkedave]

now i want to go to MIT :)

[morse]

:love: MIT

[kirupa]

Tickets were free for students - which made it a lot better :bandit:

[BadMagick]

Aww man! That's awesome.

The biggest person in the tech world that I've ever seen speak was Paul Bell - the vp of overseas operation for Dell (and also a Penn State grad!!). It was about how global information technology is today, and what it's going to become.

It's always interesting seeing these heads of corporations on college campuses. They're real people too - not just some guy (like Kirpua said) who you see on TV news and shows with 6 zeros in his bank account :)

[kirupa]

I also saw Charlie Rose. I had no idea who he was till I got back and realized he is that interview guy on PBS. Oh well :)

But seeing them live is a little bit different. I am not sure what it is, but it seemed more "real"....as if TV wasn't real life hehe.

[thoriphes]

MIT gets Bill Gates. VT gets Ron Jeremy.

[asphaltcowboy]

kirupa, where are the photos of you taking him out with your long-range military rifle? :p

[reverendflash]

funny how celebs affect you.

there is a famous guy who hangs out with a group of friends of mine (I'm kinda a fringe member of this group, 'cause I live in SF, not Marin), so I see him quite a bit @ parties/gatherings. I am still starstruck, I get tongue tied, suddenly become extremely aware of myself... Yet I don't react the same way around others who are just as famous...

I never have figured out why...

::looks deeply into soul::

:D

Revhttp://aulman.com/rev.gif

[asphaltcowboy]

Originally posted by reverendflash
::looks deeply into soul:: I don't think you'll find anything in Soul.. he's shallow as anything! :sure: ;)

[BadMagick]

Ron Jeremy - Filmography (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000465/)

That's how big Ron Jeremy is! (no pun intended)

He was in Jesus Christ Superstar!!
--------------------

Penn State gets some good speakers every now and then - just no one from the tech field.

Kirupa is right - it's much different when you see the person in ... well ... person!

[reverendflash]

Originally posted by asphaltcowboy
I don't think you'll find anything in Soul.. he's shallow as anything! :sure: ;)

I knew that was a setup...

:D

Revhttp://aulman.com/rev.gif

[asphaltcowboy]

I'm just that predictable :D

[morse]

Originally posted by asphaltcowboy
I don't think you'll find anything in Soul.. he's shallow as anything! :sure: ;)

HAHAHAHA :s:

[kirupa]

Yeah - the thing about seeing people in magazines and TV is you only see a small portion of them as a person. Mostly its just about some idea related to technology. In more candid speeches such as this you see more of him as a human being who plays the XBOX on occassion, gets woken up by his daughter who wants to show him that she won money from those get-rich quick ads (spam!), getting to talk about his friendships such as Paul Allen, Warren Buffet, dropping out of Harvard and how that felt, etc. :)

[dropkick]

Did he show the matrix spoof video?

[kirupa]

No he didn't ;P

[Digigamer]

wow thats cool. Very cool

[asphaltcowboy]

are you allowed to use the word 'cool' when talking about Bill Gates? :sure:

[kirupa]

......brings long range sniper paintball rifle and points it in the direction of asphaltcowboy. Waits for RB to give the go ahead ;)

[asphaltcowboy]

bah! paintball version! ya big girl ;)

hehe, so you actually think he's cool? :P

[ScHAmPi]

Well don't know about Kirupa but I think he is cool. Can you imagine that he founded one of the biggest (or the biggest) company in the world... Besides, he's been hacking since he went to high school.

No one heard that story?

Well in high school he hacked the schools server and he changed his sex in the class lists. That way he had his gymnastics lessons with the girls.

Now everyone likes hackers, not? (well of course not if they hack ya computer) Or at least admires them for what they can. And certainly if you hack to be able to sport with the girls.

Well that is my oppinion... Maybe someone should create a poll about Bill's coolness :P

[asphaltcowboy]

Originally posted by ScHAmPi
Well in high school he hacked the schools server and he changed his sex in the class lists. That way he had his gymnastics lessons with the girls. that's just the kinda sad, geeky, pathetic thing I'm talking about. Anyway.. if you looked like him, would you want to be the only guy there amongst a whole load of girls, in your school sports vest and shorts, knobbley knees and glasses? No. me neither...

EDIT: and what if you had to do classes like.. I dunno, dance or netball?

[grinch]

That's in Massachusets eh?
I live right on the border of Agawam, Mass. (Suffield, CT)
Bill Gates... That sure is cool seeing a man with such power and wealth. Cool! thx+_+



grinch:kir:

[ScHAmPi]

Well anyway I think it is quite cool and a good joke. I bet he didn't do that a whole year :P. They probably will have noticed after a while. But it is still one of the most succesfull men in the computer industry - that's kinda cool...

[The_Vulcan]

Well you have to admire the fact that he takes the time to do speeches full stop.

If I handed you over all the money in the world so that you do anything you wanted.

I doubt most of us would waste our time giving speeches to students.

[reverendflash]

I certainly wouldn't show up for work tomorrow...

I don't care if I am self-employed

Revhttp://aulman.com/rev.gif

[Raydred]

im not smart enough to go to MIT....

[kirupa]

I actually think he is one of the coolest people I have known from magazines and such, and now the coolest person I've met :) I've actually been fascinated by him for at least 6 or 7 years now. I've read both his books multiple times, and I try to read almost all the speeches and interviews he gives in various magazines, trade shows, etc.

He also wrote Basic - one of the earlier versions of OS-like programs to run on the PC. I think he developed that when he was in high school. He is quite a brilliant guy if you actually do some research into his views and ideas. Not any average programmer can create what he has been able to do and revolutionize the world in the way he has done.

He is quite an accomplished individual, but another reason I like him is that he doesn't ram his accomplishments down others' throats like some of his more vocal critics such as Oracle's Ellison and Sun's McNealy, and a few others.

EDIT: Ray - MIT has nothing to do with how smart you are. It is all about ambition and how far you are willing to push yourself ;)

EDIT2: What actually interested me more was not that he gives speeches. It was that he actually had a Q/A session with the students. The questions weren't moderated/filtered prior to the speech either. That definitely takes some guts :)

:nat:

[asphaltcowboy]

fair play, he did create MS-DOS, which is teh daddeh :D
Originally posted by kirupa
He is quite an accomplished individual, but another reason I like him is that he doesn't ram his accomplishments down others' throats like some of his more vocal critics such as Oracle's Ellison and Sun's McNealy, and a few others ;)yeah, just rams his software down your throat instead ;)

[claudio]

Wow must have been exciting seeing Bill Gates speech.
I grew up into basic, dos, windows, id be thrilled if i were there. :)

[mdipi]

Wow thats very cool, the pictures didnt seem to turn out all that well tho :(

I too admire him, but am still not a fan of his software (except anything that comes out of their Mac division, that rocks). But thats another topic for another time.

A local prep school that we compeat with (Deefield Academy) just had Jobs come in and talk in their Chapel, and there is word that we might be trying to schedual as well, which would be soooo cool becuase he is like to me what bill is to kirupa.

Still this is something that is so cool k-man, musta been a great experience.

Sergi: Cambrige, MA (sp?), its just outside of Boston, near Harvard...one of the best Tech Institutes in the country...lol, how have you not heard of it? Thats were i wanna go :P

[kirupa]

It's quite a strange feeling being in the same room with a person who probably everybody who used a computer knows about :)

[nobody]

Were you like "Hey I wrote a book on Frontpage, give me lots of money!" ?
That's what I woulda done.

[mdipi]

Originally posted by kirupa
It's quite a strange feeling being in the same room with a person who probably everybody who used a computer knows about :)

even those who havent used a computer know about him lol.

Jobs is a man that is unknown tho...to bad.

[kirupa]

Tell Jobs to make OSX run on a PC, and I'll personally plaster his face on every road-side billboard ;) Not many people know about Andy Grove or Lou Gerstner either.

The scale of accomplishment between Bill Gates and most other technology individuals is very different. There is little basis for comparison between the company he has founded and the impact he has had on technology as a whole when comparing it to other individuals at this point in time. Maybe in the future it could be somebody else - who knows?

[mdipi]

You know kirupa, i wouldnt mind seeing that, the posibilites would be endless. The problem tho is that Apple as we know it could vanish.

Maybe not the same osX that us mac lovers know and love but a verson of it, i wouldnt mind that :D

The problem is that as soon as it would be on a PC why would people buy Apple hardware? (besides the fact that its MAD sexeh)

[kirupa]

Yeah - that would be a good topic for Computer and Games forum :)

If you want, feel free to create a thread in C&G and we can continue this part of this thread there.

:D

[gr8jay]

Wow, It really is great to see some one in real who is as famous and ofcourse rich as this man. I am so much inspired by his credibilities...I have always wondered why is he being sued for? Wonder is it a crime to be that rich;). I can imagine how kirupa might have felt when he saw gates in real...I am sure kirupa might have thought of taking over from Bill Gates as the richest man...:)
Cheers Kirupaman

[Kitiara]

I met Tim Berners Lee whilst I was at University... :)

But nice one. :) Did he have a lot of interesting things to say?

[kirupa]

Wow - Tim Berners-Lee is the next person I really want to meet. He certainly must have a lot of interesting things to say. I think his office is somewhere around here....must get my stalking outfit on, and find out.....

It was pretty interesting. It was basically, the "mathematicians rule the world" speech from the beginning of a "Beautiful Mind" reversed to why "computer science" people will rule the world :P

[Kitiara]

Because we clearly rock. :)

Berners-Lee was great. That was during my second year of University, so about 1998 ish when things were really starting to take off. He talked to us about how the whole Internet got started as the ARPAnet and has just grown... And how the first thing sent over the 'Net' crashed after like, two letters. :P

I never took any pictures, but he was fascinating to listen to.

[elya]

wow kirupa

that's really intersting

you were in the same room with the most knowen man in computing field :player:

----

i think it's really nice to have such admiration for one man, this gives you the inspiration to work hard and push yourself up more and more .. :)

by the way kirupa, how long have u been studying in MIT ? what year ?

[T-O]

Did someone ask about Why he stole the window consept form the mac?

[DDD]

Originally posted by thoriphes
MIT gets Bill Gates. VT gets Ron Jeremy.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA.......Ron Jeremy......I went to UCBerkeley so all we get to see is a bunch of NBA players....Like Jason Kidd and stuff talking about bling bling....

But that is cool K....I have a bunch of questions I would ask him if I were to meet him.

[REEF·]

Rob him! Rob him now!

Kirupa: "Hey Mr. William Gates III, may I please borrow a dollar?"

Gates: "Sorry Kiddo, I'm broke."

[CanadianGuy2]

Originally posted by kirupa


EDIT2: What actually interested me more was not that he gives speeches. It was that he actually had a Q/A session with the students. The questions weren't moderated/filtered prior to the speech either. That definitely takes some guts :)

:nat:

lol

Is Gates reading this thread?

I mean c'mon. Does it really take guts to answer questions and have an open discussion? If he had something to hide then yes it would take guts.

[kirupa]

Well, true. You could also have your average caffeine induced nerd who goes up there and says something really stupid also :)

At least this time all we got in the way of pranks were yellow anti-MS leaflets written in a ransom font (distributed prior to the speech). These were far better: http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1996/gates/ from 1996 though.

:cap:

[CanadianGuy]

lol. I wonder what Gates had to say about those banners?

Kirupa, I guess what it comes down to for me is that any speaker in an educational setting should engage in discussion and not give 'pep talks'. Although the threat of having some 'nerd' asking a stupid question was there, it would be taking the cowards way out if Gates simply gave a 'microsoft pep talk' and left. Also, 'nerds' with stupid questions are usually seen for what they are.