The Bill everyone loves to… love!

Lines that stood out for me from Bill Gates’ remarks at Harvard:

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person’s life – then multiply that by millions. … Yet this was the most boring panel I’ve ever been on – ever. So boring even I couldn’t bear it.

What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software – but why can’t we generate even more excitement for saving lives?

He spoke about issues close to his heart, but he started off with a couple of jokes, which is always a nice way to start, and made me think, again (( Remember AllThingsD and the “I am not Fake Steve Jobs” remark, again, right at the start? Either this guy is good or well tutored :p Ya ya, once a Microsoft cynic, always a cynic. )), not bad, this guy has a sense of humor (( There’s no such thing as a good sense of humor or bad sense of humor. You either have a sense of humor, or you don’t. )).

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

And this little gem:

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.

Keep up all the good work Bill, the world appreciates it. Needless to say, I am talking about all non-technical projects.

And then you die

Sometimes in life you meet people who accept you the way you are. They ask no questions. They make no demands. They don’t ask you whether you do pot or care if you are having a bad hair month. Instead, they take you for exactly what you are and make you feel special the way no one else has done before. This post is to thank those people and tell them that they’ll be missed when they are not around.

This post is about accepting that life isn’t always a bitch.

I am living the dream

Still, if they were pushed out, why would smart, professional women insist that they chose to stay home? Because that’s the most emotionally healthy course: wanting what you’ve got. “That’s really one of the agreed-upon principles of human nature. People want their attitudes and behavior to be in sync,” said Amy Cuddy, an assistant professor in the management and organizations department at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. “People who’ve left promising careers to stay home with their kids aren’t going to say, ‘I was forced out. I really want to be there.’ It gives people a sense of control that they may not actually have.”

Quote from The Opt-Out Myth.

Reminds me of “entrepreneurs” who “always wanted to join the family business”.