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Humor / Satire
The Hari Putar Dialogues – 11
by
Rajesh Talwar
(Business
Standard, New Delhi, June 25th
For the 33 years of its existence, Microsoft has been identified
primarily with one charismatic person — Bill Gates, or William Gates
III. From next week, though, the 52-year-old Gates will focus on
philanthropy as he gives up his title as ‘Executive Chairman' of the $58
billion company, and switches to plain ‘Chairman'. He will work only one
day a week with the firm that he founded as a Harvard dropout.)
Putar:
According to a story carried in the Business Standard today Bill Gates
is leaving Microsoft next week.
Hari: That’s right, putar.
Putar: And from now onwards he is going to focus on charity work.
Hari: That is correct, putar.
Putar: Microsoft may not have it so soft anymore. Without Bill Gates it
may be in for some hard times ahead.
Hari: That is to be expected, putar. They will miss his business
acumen and guidance.
Putar: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is involved in health care
and education.
Hari: There is so much to be done in the world, putar. You have
to prioritize. The aim is ultimately to help the poor of the world.
Putar: Does this mean the Foundation will provide loans for the poor as
well?
Hari: Their agenda certainly includes providing scholarships to poor
students from ethnic minorities, putar.
Putar: So will this be a case of Bill Gates moving from Micro Soft to
Micro Credit?
Hari: That’s more in the line of Mohammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize
winner from Bangladesh. With Bill Gates it’s likely to be macro credit
and not micro credit.
Putar: Beyond a certain point, it becomes meaningless to think of making
more money. And Bill Gates came to that realization.
Hari: That’s probably true, putar.
Putar: He decided to leave Microsoft because he needed a fresh and
bigger challenge.
Hari: That is right, putar. And the challenge is nothing less
than to target and find solutions to major global problems.
Putar: Is it more difficult to earn money than to spend it wisely?
Hari: That’s a difficult one, putar. Of course it’s much easier
to spend money than to earn it, but to spend it wisely so that you
transform the lives of millions of people in a positive way, that could
be much more difficult.
Putar: Exactly right, Papaji. It’s true though that this
Foundation has much more money than most charities. 36 billion dollars,
I hear. The other thing that’s special is that it will have Bill Gates
heading it.
Hari: That’s true.
Putar: There are many cases of businessmen in the world who start doing
charity work, but quite often charity is something that they do as an
extra activity. Sometimes they do it to save taxes, and sometimes to
improve public good will towards their businesses, which helps them make
more profit.
Hari: That’s also true, putar.
Putar: But even those businessmen who do real charitable work, normally
end up spending much more of their time and energy trying to make money
than on the charity work.
Hari: I guess so, putar. But there are exceptions, like Bill
Gates, and our own S. Narayan Murthy, who set up INFOSYS, but now
focuses on philanthropy. And there are many charitable foundations.
Putar: Tell me something Papaji?
Hari: Bol, putar?
Putar: Billions have been spent in development aid. There are thousands
of charities working in the world, but in general global problems are
looming larger, not disappearing. It remains to be seen how far he will
succeed, but Bill Gates has taken an extraordinary decision.
Hari: I think so, putar.
Putar: He has embarked on a new, more difficult journey. He must have
thought a great deal about what to do with the rest of his life and then
he suddenly saw this completely new and unfamiliar territory requiring a
different kind of knowledge and understanding.
Hari: That’s true, putar.
Putar: Was this because he was always looking out of Windows?
Hari: I don’t know, putar.
June 29, 2008
Hari Putar Dialogues
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