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Bill Gates - A Polarizing Figure

The detest for Bill Gates amongst elite IT workers and computer scientists in the US is quite immense and people who frequent the tech hot spots like Slashdot and Arstechnica on the Internet know of it all too well. For a real pioneer who can be credited for making the computer an integral part of our lives, such disdain is almost seems unjustified. For someone who has been one of the most magnanimous philanthropist in recent memory, his reputation as a greedy and monopolistic corporate figure is somewhat surprising. Why would people in the US dislike Bill Gates who is supposedly the person most Chinese students aspire to become ahead of Newton, Einstein ...? Why is his reputation stateside is much less glamorous? Why is he such a polarizing character? There are many reasons, including a recent realization I have come to in regards to his insistence on immigration reform to open the US up for more skilled labor from overseas.

The Good:
  1. He pioneered personal computing through his Windows operating system.
  2. His story of withdrawing from Harvard and starting a company like Microsoft in his parents garage is truly inspirational. Anyone with entrepreneurial spirit, particularly those in the computer sciences, engineering and IT could not help, but idolize him on the basis of his story,
  3. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he has put lots of his money into charitable and noble causes like fighting malaria in Africa, setting up health and educational facilities in the third world. He has also been an avid supporter of science and technology education.
The Bad:
  1. Microsoft has been accused of illegal practices to hold monopoly over major parts of the software industry. It has been the subject of many antitrust lawsuits and his company has been convicted on many counts. Virtually every product Microsoft releases is subject to some antitrust charges.
  2. The guy has been the richest person in the world until being overtaken by Warren Buffet this year. Much of his success has come at the expense of smaller companies.
  3. How can you love someone charging shit load of money for software while there are viable alternatives from free open source communities?
  4. Microsoft has been fierce about defending its innovations and intellectual property which has caused a lot of legal confrontations and slowed progress.
  5. Most of his latest products and experiments have not impressed people. The Windows Vista operating system has been such a flop that people are resorting back to the older XP. Windows OS has had many issued with security. It's Silverlight platform has not gained much popularity. The company seems to lack innovation; instead Apple has been the innovator. In fact, Apple was the first to adapt graphical interfaces for computers in 1983/4 even though Microsoft capitalized on the idea later.
The Dubious:

This is a theory of mine. Bill Gates has been a promoter of increasing the H1B visa quota and allowing more skilled foreign workers to immigrate to the US. He has testified in the Senate/Congress for immigration reform and improving science education in the US. His opinions on immigration has had significant implications in the IT industry.
  1. IBM and Microsoft depend on the H1B program to hire foreign workers every year. But the H1B workers compete with US workers for some jobs. This has driven down wages in technology jobs. Tech wages have been stagnant at best.
  2. Microsoft has outsourced a lot of jobs to Asia. Microsoft Research Asia is one of the most productive R&D centers in the world
  3. Despite Bill Gates claim that there is an acute lack of skilled labor in IT and engineering, there is data showing that Bill Gates' main motive is to make the labor market more competitive and drive down wages.
... So, my theory is that during this time when globalization has opened up labor markets in the US to foreign workers and the American public is having much angst about outsourcing, Bill Gates and his ideas on globalization have contributed to his unpopularity amongst people working in the IT business. I have yet to hear confirm these sentiments personally, but my suspicion is that they exist.
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