How About Bill Gates as Obama’s Ambassador to China?
Written by Rivka
What is this idea doing on this blog? How about this: Every comment I make-from the craziness of our worship of fame, to our self loathing and alienation-comes from one root: the sociological implications of the technological age, and how it's changing our behavior. That's why my novel is about a two-week vanity coma you go under to lose weight. That's why I obsess about our growing alienation, need for a personal brand name, and inane collective belief that every human being should look like they're 20. These are some of the darker implications. But there are other, bright implications.
Bill Gates is the technological revolution, or at least an exemplary personification. So bear with me, this is actually not a satiric idea. It's genuine.
First, let me make this clear: I think Bill Gates is a credit to our generation. He may behave poorly, kinda thuggish, and definitely needs a little people skills development, but he is the only one of our generation to deal himself in at the table of the power infrastructure in this country, and globally. I mean the ability to pull up a chair and tell the likes of J.P Morgan to scootch over and make room (figuratively, of course, the original J.P. Morgan is dead, as is his son).
This is not an easy feat. This table is filled with the guys who funded the industrial revolution, as well as World War II (in J.P. Morgan's case, that included funding the Nazis before it became out of vogue, when the entity switched to backing the Allies), and of course the technological revolution. To get in on this in just one more generation should be applauded, no matter how bratty. It is life affirming to know that someone can still move mountains, and break a previously impenetrable barrier. (And come on, after this election, we are reminded that it is possible. Now let's make it the norm.)
Bill Gates started out wanting to do one thing: make it possible for people to have access to their congressman-to write them a note. Email. He grew up in a generation where he was more worried about government oppression (Vietnam) than corporate greed and corruption. Same difference if you ask me, and always has been, but that's fodder for another day.
And as far as him stealing code from IBM (I have to get all the crap out of the way before my Ambassador pitch): Did Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarize "I have a dream" because the words "I" "have" "a" and "dream" already existed? It is the recipe you create with words that makes you a writer. You don't invent the words. Same is true for software developers: It's not that the code isn't out there. It's the recipe of code you create that makes the software. Intellectual property for software is shaping up to be the courtroom battle of the next 10 years, with new precedents being set. What's the core issue? When a software developer is hired by someone, how much of their brain and research belongs to the company, particularly when they leave to go to another job? While at their jobs, they're flying around the Internet, grabbing tiny pieces of code from Google, and stirring it into a creation flavored by their point of view. All of the tens of thousands of people now laid off in the tech sector; if they go somewhere new and their intelligence, insight, and, yes, experience, helps them to develop some great new product, does Hewlett Packard and their ilk have the right to lay claim?
Don't forget: Bill Gates offered a deal to IBM and IBM said no. This is a guy to rally behind. He forced the computer makers of the world, well within the boundaries of free enterprise, to load his software before they sell their boxes. These PC sellers ain't nice people necessarily, either, you'll remember. Someone who can do this can figure out China.
Okay, fast forward: I contend that today Bill Gates is still the underdog, the upstart, the one to root for, when you take a look from a global perspective and include the Halliburtons and family dynasties out there. And I love geeks, so I say it with affection for the whole bunch. The love interest in my novel. Greg Thomas? He's the dream geek; the leading man of the digerati. The publisher I chose is a native Northern Californian Silicon Valley geek who is all about the "we roll our own" mantra. He's been preaching to me about the Open Source guys getting ripped off for decades now. And that's the thug part of Bill Gates, I don't deny it. (He's not a fan of Bill Gates, for the record, which is why I'm not telling him about this blog entry. I'll wait until he notices it on his own. He can have his little Bill Gates fit then.)
Here's what we get if Bill Gates is ambassador to China (and in my fantasy world, with Al Gore as the CTO):
The minute Bill Gates is involved at an ambassador level, we'll start to see him invest even more money in China. American ownership in Chinese ventures is a good thing, especially as countries like Russia and soon many others start borrowing from them. We'll start to see Bill Gates have ideas other than his petty worry about Chinese piracy of his precious software.
He'll start to get ideas about moving out of the software business and into the hardware business, where he belongs. The man has the world's resources at his fingertips, and he's developing software. It's ridiculous. Software is poor people (relatively speaking of course). Why do they develop software in Israel and India? Because they couldn't afford to be in the hardware business. But Bill Gates? He could single handedly bring potable water to the world. How about high tech desalination plants? How about a wireless network of pods, floating out at sea, harnessing wind energy? How about real fuel cell cars in China, to replace the lawn mowers they now drive now, which are creating one of the worst pollution problems in the world? Forget Internet browsers, they're way beneath his capability.
Move over GM and Chrysler if Gates starts a car company. (GM and Chrysler, by the way. There's a braintrust of a deal, huh? Merging two terrible companies into one huge terrible company. Gates would never make such a decision).
China is the new axis of business. We want in, we want a new flourishing economy, we want peace and freedom. They'll love him. They already do. He's invested huge amounts of money in telecommunications there. And I don't care what anyone says about Bill Gates, he would fight for humanitarian policies all over China and get it done. Bring the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation there, with a China Chapter.
An ambassador with his level of tech capability, dealing in Chinese business and human affairs, will bring the global tech sector roaring back to life with our interests protected and millions of jobs created. And he could work so well with any CTO. It will give rise to the most important new economy and new global infrastructure: Green tech.
And therein lies the sociological implication of our tech era: The CEO of our generation in tech will drive the political re-landscaping of the next generation.
-Rivka