The original intention here was to scour the net to find quotes of Bill Gates exhibiting wit or humor. As it turns out, that’s a tough assignment and I failed miserably. So I changed the objective to: finding Bill Gates quotes that are ironic. That’s still a tough assignment if you insist on the rule that the irony was intended. But what could be more productive, than to ignore such a constraint and allow apparently unintended irony on the assumption that, for all anyone knows, irony was intended?
Here are ten ironic quotations, dripping with irony, that tripped forth from the mouth of the bashful billionaire.
1. On Being a Bashful Billionaire
When asked about being the world’s richest man: “I wish I wasn’t … There’s nothing good that comes out of that. You get more visibility as a result of it.” – Bill Gates
How terribly sad. And don’t think we don’t get your pain Bill. All that free publicity for Microsoft and all that hob-nobbing with heads of state everywhere, who are desperate to get photographed with Bill The Billionaire. It’s just so tiresome and, well, it makes you so horribly and unprofitably visible. If only you could return to blissful impecunious obscurity, but I guess that’s not to be.
“Hey, I never told anyone to buy my stock! Besides, no one is less happy than I am with the performance of Microsoft stock! I’ve lost tens of billions of dollars this year-if you check, you’ll see that that’s more than most people make in a lifetime!” – Bill Gates
And isn’t that the worst of it. Everyone complains when Microsoft stock falls, as though that were somehow your fault. Don’t they realize that they cannot possibly have lost as much as you when that happens. Don’t they understand that your wealth is just bleeding away. Do they have no heart?
2. eMail and Spam
“Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren’t so irritating.” – Bill Gates
Brilliant! Irony within irony. Those nasty spammers get though even to Bill Gates, who may have one of the best protected in-trays in the world, but not protected enough. And when they get through, rather than the usual Viagra or appendage extension offers, all Bill gets is offers on how to get rich quick and kill his debts. Laugh? I nearly fell off my chair.
3. On Intellectual Property
“Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.” – Bill Gates
Oh, the irony of it. I mean Microsoft only has 5000 or so patents and there they are rotting away in some Microsoft legal office somewhere like over-ripe bananas. So, it only costs a few million dollars each year for Microsoft to maintain those useless patents, but if Microsoft didn’t do that, who would employ those penurious patent lawyers. Nobody I suspect.
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.… The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.” – Bill Gates
That’s a solution how? Oh wait, I get it. The industry is moving too fast, so let all the big guys get together and try to bring it to a complete standstill – only to discover that all they’ve got is a huge consignment of rotting fruit. Genius!
~ Master Yoda
