Bill Gates

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Sorry, Tom Hanks: Obama 'Most Influential Celebrity'

Prez knocks actor from top spot

(Newser) - The nation’s leader is also its most influential celebrity, Advertising Age reports. President Obama bumped Tom Hanks from the top spot in the Davie Brown Index, a survey that determines how celebs affect consumer choices. The commander in chief ranked first in the categories of trust, influence, trendsetter, and...

Gates Lets Mosquitoes Fly at Audience

Stunt underscores malaria threat shouldn't be for 'only poor people'

(Newser) - Bill Gates had the audience buzzing yesterday as he released a jar of mosquitoes at the TED2009 conference in California during a presentation on eradicating malaria, reports MSNBC. The bugs were not carrying the disease. "Not only poor people should experience this," Gates explained, according to a witness...

Obama Is One of Us, America's Geeks Cheer

President-elect digs Star Trek and comics ... though he does play sports, and is married

(Newser) - Barack Obama may be America’s first geek-in-chief—or at least that’s what Star Trek and comic book fans are hoping. The president-elect embraces technology, flashes “Live Long and Prosper” signs, and jokes about being from Krypton—all characteristics of his repressed inner geek. The title is more...

$148M Loss Bites Into Crocs
 $148M Loss Bites Into Crocs 

Nov 13, 2008 3:02 AM CST

$148M Loss Bites Into Crocs

Demand for colorful clogs tanks

(Newser) - Crocs, the maker of hugely popular colorful plastic clogs, suffered a $148 million third quarter loss on a 32% drop in demand in Europe and the US. The Colorado-based company has shuttered a factory in Canada, will close another in Brazil next month, and has amassed extensive unsold inventory, reports...

Gates Gambles Big on Bold Medical Probes

$10M in public-health grants eschew peer review for innovation

(Newser) - The Gates Foundation has awarded more than $10 million to medical researchers with quirky ideas that might not be funded otherwise, the Washington Post reports. The initiative, dubbed Grand Challenges Explorations, offered a simple 2-page application and vetting by entrepreneurs, not medical professionals. “Peer review—by definition almost—excludes...

Market Meltdown Reshapes Forbes Rich List

Buffett bumps Gates in redrawn rankings of world's wealthiest

(Newser) - The mortgage meltdown has certainly hit middle-class Americans hard but hasn't spared the uber-wealthy, Bloomberg reports. Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson’s net worth shed $4 billion between Aug. 29 and Oct. 1, for instance, while Warren Buffett overtook Bill Gates, whose net worth declined $1.5 billion, as...

PC to Mac: Who's Square Now?
 PC to Mac: Who's Square Now? 
ANALYSIS
Oct 1, 2008 4:29 AM CDT

PC to Mac: Who's Square Now?

Microsoft's $300M ad campaign fights 'snooty' Apple

(Newser) - Apple's ads have long painted Microsoft users as square, but the PC has effectively stood up to the cool kids in the company's $300 million campaign, writes Farhad Manhoo in Slate. "Even if they are a little saccharine, the core message of Microsoft's ads—that Apple is snooty—should...

In Terms We Can Understand: $700B = 12 Bill Gateses

Or, $2,300 for each of America's 300M average Joes

(Newser) - Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson have been urging Congress the past two days to authorize the largest bailout in US history. Slate breaks $700 billion into smaller bites:
  • $2,300 per person (based on the US population of 300 million)
  • 12 Bill Gateses
  • 381 Hollywood blockbusters (Titanic made $1.8
...

Microsoft Yanks Crazy Seinfeld Ads
 Microsoft 
 Yanks Crazy 
 Seinfeld Ads 
OPINION
Sep 18, 2008 9:56 AM CDT

Microsoft Yanks Crazy Seinfeld Ads

Cryptic ads left some 'scratching their heads'

(Newser) - Microsoft has axed the cryptic Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates ads that left some viewers "scratching their heads," Michelle Quinn writes in the Los Angeles Times. Though a Microsoft spokesman claims it was the plan all along to stop here, the blogosphere is abuzz about Microsoft's "strained...

Gates Tops Rich List With $57B

Leads Forbes ranking for 15th year

(Newser) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates leads the latest Forbes list of America's richest people with a fortune estimated to be $57 billion. It's the 15th year in a row that the visionary behind the computer revolution has topped the ratings. But the rich are not getting richer, Forbes reveals. Several fortunes...

Geek World Rants, Raves Over Microsoft Ad

Some find Seinfeld/ Gates routine unfunny; others, 'hilarious'

(Newser) - A new Microsoft ad is sparking praise and putdowns in roughly equal measure around the Web today. Paul McDougall calls the spot "outdated and not very funny" in InformationWeek, but says it's revealing—of a tech company totally out of touch with Generation Y.  The choice of “...

'Saving' Public Schools Not a Money Thing

Better education can't be legislated, or bought—parents have to make the effort

(Newser) - As dissatisfaction with the nation’s No Child Left Behind policy grows, it seems educators, politicians, and businessmen all have their own take on how to “save” the US public school system—with little consensus. Gary Stager, in Good, examines the overwhelmingly complex difficulties facing the nation’s ailing...

Microsoft's Answer to Apple Ads: Seinfeld

Comedian to front $300M campaign to counter stodgy image

(Newser) - So what's the deal with Microsoft ads? The company has enlisted Jerry Seinfeld to spearhead a new $300-million campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports, to try to shake the negative buzz about Vista, and the nerdy, feckless image projected by John Hodgeman in Apple's popular "Mac vs PC" ads....

Gates Urges Companies to Get Creative to Improve Lives

He ruminates on how to tweak market forces to help more people

(Newser) - Bill Gates tweaks his corporate colleagues with an essay in Time urging businesses to look harder for ways to extend the benefits of capitalism to a greater portion of the global population. As a philanthropist, he says, he recognizes the need for nonprofit work, but as a businessman, he knows...

Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking
Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking
Jul 23, 2008 1:20 PM CDT

Bloomberg, Gates Take On Smoking

Billionaires donate $375M to global anti-tobacco campaign

(Newser) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money and pouring $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking. The two philanthropists—who have a combined worth of more than $70 billion—say the new effort will target developing countries where tobacco...

UK Immigration Rules Would Exclude This Man

Without college degree, Gates wouldn't qualify for visa aimed to bring skilled labor

(Newser) - Strict new immigration rules aimed at attracting highly skilled workers to Britain would keep tech icons Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell from getting top-tier visas, Bloomberg notes, because they don't have college degrees. "It's a dumbing-down,'' one opponent says. "If you're a 20-something American with...

Who's the Best VP Pick? Take a Wild Guess

Political mag lists longshot candidates that strangely work

(Newser) - Nancy Pelosi suggested an unlikely vice-presidential candidate for Barack Obama this week, and got Politico's editors thinking—who are the best longshot candidates for both parties? They called up political analysts and drummed up seven names that are "unconventional" but "reasonably viable." Bill Gates topped the list...

Teary Farewell for Gates
 Teary Farewell for Gates 
Jun 27, 2008 4:18 PM CDT

Teary Farewell for Gates

Microsoft CEO salutes founder, leaving after 33 years, for 'enormous opportunity'

(Newser) - Microsoft celebrated Bill Gates’ last day as a full-time employee today, the Seattle Times reports. More than 800 employees, family members and friends shared memories at the company’s corporate conference center in Redmond, Wash. CEO Steve Ballmer bid a tearful farewell to his longtime friend: "We've been given...

Reflective Gates Waxes Nostalgic
Reflective Gates
Waxes Nostalgic
Jun 26, 2008 9:00 PM CDT

Reflective Gates Waxes Nostalgic

On eve of retirement, he narrates slideshow for Fortune on history of Microsoft

(Newser) - Pictures of Bill Gates the child in a football uniform and alongside Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in their high school computer room are among 15 shots in an exclusive Fortune photo essay. Gates himself narrates the slideshow chronicling Microsoft’s roots, through its founding and 1986 IPO. Other shots show...

Microsoft Without Bill Gates? His Final Week Begins

The 52-year-old has slowly backed away from the software company's operations

(Newser) - This will be Bill Gates’ last Monday at Microsoft, the company that the 52-year-old founded with business partner Paul Allen as a teenager. He’s retiring Friday from Microsoft’s day-to-day business and beginning full-time work with his $37.3 billion philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He's...

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