For a while now I’ve started thinking
that Bill Gates is one of the greatest people of our time.
I have never been particularly
interested in what Microsoft had done, nor have I been fascinated by
those lists of the richest people in the world, so I didn’t know how
to explain my position, except for the fact that in recent years I
haven’t skipped a book he recommended.
And then a few days ago I watched
Netflix’ documentary „Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates“
and realized that I was right all along.
I wasn’t overly interested in
Microsoft’s clash with Netscape, nor the quality of the documentary
which frankly has many plot holes.
It was Gates that I was interested in.
And the fact that ‘ve I finally
realized what I suspected all along – about this introverted guy who
doesn’t like the media spotlight like Jobs. He was, for lack of a
better word, a genius.
The guy who has already won the sixth,
seventh, eighth and ninth grade math competitions in sixth grade!
All-American!
The guy who has written timetables for
classes at their school. Someone who told Paul Allen when they were
14 that he would be back, but that he would be in charge then. The
guy who would leave Harvard because he knew that if he was late then
– he would be late forever.
The guy who will know by heart the
license plates of all their employees.
Just like in my favorite comic book,
Drun, it’s one brain that connects things, even though you’re not
aware of it.
Here is the man who lead us all into
the Information revolution. Here is the richest man in history, who
goes to his cottage, smaller than any you can find on Divčibare
every week, to read books and drink his little fridge full of Diet
Coke.
That’s something out of the lifestyle
of every Serb citizen.
When asked to describe Bill’s brain,
his wife says through laughter: „Chaos.“ But it is in the
chaos something always is creating in.
Indeed, when you meet a man who wants
to save the world or change the civilization, you immediately know
that he is either the Miss Universe or that he is insane.
The problem with Gates is that every
idea he has, he puts it into action.
Whether it’s the software that would
quicken the 20 years of the Information revolution or the toilet that
would save millions of children suffering from diarrhea in Africa.
It is Gates who works on finding the
way to eradicate polio, but also finds it is present only in places
where Nigerian villages overlap because doctors from different
villages think that the other one has completed the vaccination.
Finally, a big relief: he decided to
devote himself to climate changes.
And you know immediately that it will
not be about dreams of artificial photosynthesis, nor unrealistically
expensive wind farm projects.
He quickly realizes that nuclear energy
can destroy us, but it can also save us. Just like that most nuclear
plants use the technology from 1950s.
He is making a new, waste-free model
that uses waste for creating new energy, the one that cannot be
converted to nuclear weapons or experience any kind of breakdown,
since a replacement for water and cooling has been found.
Chinese President has signed a deal
with Gates over new nuclear plants that was halted by Donald Trump’s
sanctions. But that will also pass…
If I were to entrust someone to deal
with the climate change, it would be Bill Gates;, if I wanted someone
to get involved in finding a cure for cancer, it is Gates again.
The man whom Warren Buffett decided to
donate half of his property to.
And so, even subconsciously, all this
time, I felt the importance of that generation, born ten years after
World War II, unburdened by massacres and the misuse of technology.
The symbol of that generation was
certainly Gates; I have to explain to my daughter – who thinks of me
as a dinosaur, born before cell phones and high-speed internet (which
she still can’t fathom) – that it is the generation that actually
left her with mobile phone, the internet, and a world in which Gates
is the richest man and not someone whose grandfather robbed
government funds or killed entire nations.
And we are yet to see what that new
generation will come up with …
Just as our generation of the 1990s
with Milošević had missed the Information revolution, which has had
greater consequences than all the wars and disasters that hit us back
then. That’s why we don’t have elderly people working. They are the
losers of this transition, who could not adapt since they hadn’t
mastered the smartphone.
Instead of Bill’s brain, we remained
trapped in Milošević’s.
And that is why this society will only
be able to rise when Gates’ generation, the people who shall not
remember the 1990s, comes.
C:/> del
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