Bill Gates About His Riches: Once You Reach a Certain Point, Money Doesn’t Matter Anymore [Bill Gates Says Getting Beyond Hundreds of Millions, "It's The Same Hamburger"]

Posted on TFTS by J. Angelo Racoma on Friday, 28. October 2011 under: Computers & Computing

Love him or hate him, Bill Gates is among the richest persons in the world. But with his billions of dollars, you’d think he would want to keep track of each additional million or so? It seems it doesn’t make a difference.

In his recently-released biography, Steve Jobs was quoted to have said, “Bill [Gates] is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology.” In Jobs’ view, Microsoft ripped off Apple’s concepts, although the execution was not so great. Gates seems to have responded to this point about philanthropy in a recent lecture at the University of Washington. Queried about how one can be as rich as he is, Bill responded that he started out not really focusing on the money, but rather building a business. “I didn’t start out with a dream of being super rich,” he said.

Most people who have done well have just found something they’re nuts about doing. Then they figure out a system to hire their friends to do it with them. If it’s an area of great impact then sometimes you get financial independence.

Gates also follows-up that once you reach a certain amount of money, any more than that would only make an incremental difference on how you perceive money. After a few hundred million, what’s a few million more?

I can understand about having millions of dollars. There’s meaningful freedom that comes with that, but once you get much beyond that I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger. Dick’s has not raised their prices enough.

With Dick’s, of course, he refers to Dick’s Drive-In in Seattle, which is popular for its hamburgers.

Bill Gates, while being a big part of the PC revolution in the 1980′s and well into the 1990′s, has been focusing on philanthropy since he stepped down as Microsoft CEO in 2000 and eventually easing out of day-to-day operations in 2006. He says that wealth entails a certain responsibility, and people who have a lot of money will need to either leave it to one’s children or “be smart about giving it away.”