Amazon...pretty soon they'll own everything....

[904VT]

Originally Posted by HHIslander

I have to agree. I personally love Amazon. I wouldn't step foot in a Walmart unless my life depended on it and even then I'd pause.

If you are ever wondering how the govt calculates whether or not to pursue antitrust, here's a good read. It's not exactly the formula they use I would think, but it gives you an idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfin...irschman_index

The good ol HH index for industry concentration. Bringing me back to college now

I think nowadays they play favorites with when and where they apply. I can think of so many examples that would fail the test if they weren’t on someone’s good side. Amazon with e commerce, Walmart with retail, Tesla with EVs (and award of carbon credits), Pfizer with all their acquisitions and mergers over the years dominating certain treatment industries. AMC with domination of theaters. Telecoms among others. It seems like regulators prefer the easier to control Oligopolies compared to free markets.

[binArt]

Originally Posted by 904VT

Bill Gates stays in his lane? Lol, the somewhat of a computer guy that plays doctor when he has an investment supporting? He was the laughable expert on every news station his foundation had a quid pro quo arrangement with. Interesting that he has fallen from grace too, I’m assuming he made someone more powerful not too happy. Most billionaires I think do not stay in their lanes and actually try to influence others for gain of more money and power. For better or worse Bezos is making Walmart 2.0 and wants to dominate US supply chains.

The Gates Foundation led some questionable and dangerous large scale clinical trials of unapproved drugs in Africa and India that landed on the radar a few years ago. Now he's buying up farmland.

[Star Ferry]

Originally Posted by binArt

The Gates Foundation led some questionable and dangerous large scale clinical trials of unapproved drugs in Africa and India that landed on the radar a few years ago. Now he's buying up farmland.

People tried to cancel him for shady dealings with female subordinates. He lost his wife and his board seats at MSFT and Berkshire, but ultimately he was too rich and powerful and is currently not cancelled at all. If he were just a regular billionaire like Steve Wynn he’d be exiled from public life, but Gates has serious connections and even deeper pockets.

[binArt]

Originally Posted by Star Ferry

People tried to cancel him for shady dealings with female subordinates. He lost his wife and his board seats at MSFT and Berkshire, but ultimately he was too rich and powerful and is currently not cancelled at all. If he were just a regular billionaire like Steve Wynn he’d be exiled from public life, but Gates has serious connections and even deeper pockets.

He's trying to move chip manufacturing from Taiwan to the mainland giving the PRC control over the global supply. Time will tell how that works out with his connections.

[HHIslander]

Originally Posted by 904VT

The good ol HH index for industry concentration. Bringing me back to college now

I think nowadays they play favorites with when and where they apply. I can think of so many examples that would fail the test if they weren’t on someone’s good side. Amazon with e commerce, Walmart with retail, Tesla with EVs (and award of carbon credits), Pfizer with all their acquisitions and mergers over the years dominating certain treatment industries. AMC with domination of theaters. Telecoms among others. It seems like regulators prefer the easier to control Oligopolies compared to free markets.

Yep, that's one of the few things I remember from Finance 301.

Agree with all. They are more than reluctant to pull the trigger on any large cap firms by doing anything other than blocking mergers. They are going to file against Google soon according to the rumor mill, but that's that only significant suit I've heard in the making?? Considering they have ~90% of global search, etc., I would say that it's about time.

[JoeJoeBobo]

Originally Posted by Star Ferry

People tried to cancel him for shady dealings with female subordinates. He lost his wife and his board seats at MSFT and Berkshire, but ultimately he was too rich and powerful and is currently not cancelled at all. If he were just a regular billionaire like Steve Wynn he’d be exiled from public life, but Gates has serious connections and even deeper pockets.

Is that what they’re calling the underage girls on Epstein island now?

[Star Ferry]

Originally Posted by JoeJoeBobo

Is that what they’re calling the underage girls on Epstein island now?

I think the public story was, IIRC, affair with a subordinate who worked at MSFT. I guess it could have been a cover story for something more sinister, but I’m not sure.

[904VT]

Originally Posted by binArt

The Gates Foundation led some questionable and dangerous large scale clinical trials of unapproved drugs in Africa and India that landed on the radar a few years ago. Now he's buying up farmland.

Him, Bezos, and the Waltons shouldn't be allowed to dominate our supply chains like they have and are currently doing. They only made their money because regulators didn't do anything to stop their anti-competitive behavior. Now they have so much money, it's almost impossible to follow all of their quid pro quo arrangements.

Gates is buying farmland up to now dominate our agriculture industry. With him it's always about unfair competition and muscling out those that stand in the way. None of which promotes free capital markets. His goal here is making money off of the overuse of GMOs, control of production (and consequently manipulating agriculture pricing for the benefit of his family office investments), and lastly playing quid quo pro with other countries in supplying food to those he wants to gain favor. The most disgusting use is probably his foundations funding of studies that research how to use agriculture as a guise/vehicle for treatments/medicine which can unethically be used without the knowledge of those ingesting. Anyone else, I would never consider, but Gates as you mention has a questionable code of ethics that has been proven over the years with what he has done in India and Africa. It's all about making populations cattle and controlling food and medicine to him, which is about as unethical as one can get. If it wasn't for his money and connections, I doubt he would be allowed to experiment for profit like he has. He has become so out of his mind that even Microsoft pushed him out.

[Blansky]

Originally Posted by 904VT

Bill Gates stays in his lane? Lol, the somewhat of a computer guy that plays doctor when he has an investment supporting? He was the laughable expert on every news station his foundation had a quid pro quo arrangement with. Interesting that he has fallen from grace too, I’m assuming he made someone more powerful not too happy. Most billionaires I think do not stay in their lanes and actually try to influence others for gain of more money and power. For better or worse Bezos is making Walmart 2.0 and wants to dominate US supply chains.

I was referring to Bill Gates AT Microsoft which pretty much stayed in their lane.

Bill Gates the "retired" billionaire has a lot of different interests which I take it you're not a fan of.

[904VT]

Originally Posted by Blansky

I was referring to Bill Gates AT Microsoft which pretty much stayed in their lane.

Bill Gates the "retired" billionaire has a lot of different interests which I take it you're not a fan of.

I think he just became worse at hiding it over the years and/or burned too many people that they no longer covered for him. Remember how often and how many unnecessary Windows updates there were under Gates that he used to make money off the firm's corporate buyers. At best he stole money from shareholders of all those companies that were forced to integrate endless Windows updates on their employee computers. Even today, you see how little Apple iOS or LynxOS is used in the corporate world. I think Bill Gate's mother may have "borrowed" IBM DOS back in the day as well. He was never the out of a garage little guy turned success portrayed.

[Blansky]

Originally Posted by 904VT

I think he just became worse at hiding it over the years and/or burned too many people that they no longer covered for him. Remember how often and how many unnecessary Windows updates there were under Gates that he used to make money off the firm's corporate buyers. At best he stole money from shareholders of all those companies that were forced to integrate endless Windows updates on their employee computers. Even today, you see how little Apple iOS or LynxOS is used in the corporate world. I think Bill Gate's mother may have "borrowed" IBM DOS back in the day as well. He was never the out of a garage little guy turned success portrayed.

There was a great documentary called Triumph of the Nerds done by Robert Cringely in 1996 that tells the incredible story of basically, the birth of Silicon Valley and computing. I think you can watch in on Prime. And I think it also on Utube. 3 hours long.

It tells the story of almost ALL of them. Gates et all, Jobs and Woz, Xerox, Larry Ellison, Intel, HP, Fairchild Semiconductor, etc.....and this was 26 years ago. Great documentary.

What makes it sort of unique is that it was done at the time of the birth of the industry and not later when there is probably a lot of revised history.

As for Gates and DOS, this story explains it. IBM tired to buy it from a guy in Pacific Grove but he balked so they made a deal with Gates, but he didn't have the operating system so bought it from Tim Paterson for $50,000
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-dos-2011-7

https://www.businessinsider.com/hist...t-is-history-8https://www.montereycountyweekly.com...cc6312a4b.html

https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-of-th.../dp/B01N0KK5JQ

[TswaneNguni]

If the whole world was run as effectively as Amazon is,it would have been a wonderful place .

[904VT]

Originally Posted by Blansky

There was a great documentary called Triumph of the Nerds done by Robert Cringely in 1996 that tells the incredible story of basically, the birth of Silicon Valley and computing. I think you can watch in on Prime. And I think it also on Utube. 3 hours long.

It tells the story of almost ALL of them. Gates et all, Jobs and Woz, Xerox, Larry Ellison, Intel, HP, Fairchild Semiconductor, etc.....and this was 26 years ago. Great documentary.

What makes it sort of unique is that it was done at the time of the birth of the industry and not later when there is probably a lot of revised history.

As for Gates and DOS, this story explains it. IBM tired to buy it from a guy in Pacific Grove but he balked so they made a deal with Gates, but he didn't have the operating system so bought it from Tim Paterson for $50,000
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-dos-2011-7

https://www.businessinsider.com/hist...t-is-history-8https://www.montereycountyweekly.com...cc6312a4b.html

https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-of-th.../dp/B01N0KK5JQ

Thanks for the heads up, I will check out this documentary

[904VT]

Originally Posted by Blansky

There was a great documentary called Triumph of the Nerds done by Robert Cringely in 1996 that tells the incredible story of basically, the birth of Silicon Valley and computing. I think you can watch in on Prime. And I think it also on Utube. 3 hours long.

It tells the story of almost ALL of them. Gates et all, Jobs and Woz, Xerox, Larry Ellison, Intel, HP, Fairchild Semiconductor, etc.....and this was 26 years ago. Great documentary.

What makes it sort of unique is that it was done at the time of the birth of the industry and not later when there is probably a lot of revised history.

As for Gates and DOS, this story explains it. IBM tired to buy it from a guy in Pacific Grove but he balked so they made a deal with Gates, but he didn't have the operating system so bought it from Tim Paterson for $50,000
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-dos-2011-7

https://www.businessinsider.com/hist...t-is-history-8https://www.montereycountyweekly.com...cc6312a4b.html

https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-of-th.../dp/B01N0KK5JQ

Seems like Mary Gates had privileged information from John Opel and the three of them did their own thing by squeezing out/sabotaging Gary Kidall's C/PM deal with IBM and acquiring SCP. Mary is the one that connected Bill and John. Gates got $75k ($25k for B2B marketing rights and $50k to purchase remainder of intellectual property later on) to buy Seattle Computer Products and their QDOS, got preferential treatment/approval from Opel to be able to sell MS-DOS outside of IBM products. If I was a betting man though, IBM already had the code they needed before Gates or Kidall, but couldn't implement because IBM was already under an anti-competition/anti-trust investigation case prior to looking for an operating system. That was a 13 year case that concluded in 1982 after the operating system search.

To me Occam's razor here would be IBM was under a long-term anti-trust investigation during their search for an OS and launch of PC. IBM could not launch their own software because of the anti-trust investigation. So they had already developed the OS potentially, but did not have an outlet to get to market. As a result, they funneled the OS to Gates' business as a proxy. Then squeezed out competition (mainly Kidall's C/PM) by setting up a NDA that fooled Kidall into not knowing it was IBM coming to meet with him. Then bought the only other remaining competition in Seattle Computer Products and rights to QDOS. Then reconciled with what IBM already had under their PC project and allowed Gates to sell the the OS. Behind the scenes what Bill, Mary, and John Opel had worked out I have no idea. Mary and John were friends and additionally had connections thru the board of United Way.

Just most likely, imo at least.

[Blansky]

Originally Posted by 904VT

Seems like Mary Gates had privileged information from John Opel and the three of them did their own thing by squeezing out/sabotaging Gary Kidall's C/PM deal with IBM and acquiring SCP. Mary is the one that connected Bill and John. Gates got $75k ($25k for B2B marketing rights and $50k to purchase remainder of intellectual property later on) to buy Seattle Computer Products and their QDOS, got preferential treatment/approval from Opel to be able to sell MS-DOS outside of IBM products. If I was a betting man though, IBM already had the code they needed before Gates or Kidall, but couldn't implement because IBM was already under an anti-competition/anti-trust investigation case prior to looking for an operating system. That was a 13 year case that concluded in 1982 after the operating system search.

To me Occam's razor here would be IBM was under a long-term anti-trust investigation during their search for an OS and launch of PC. IBM could not launch their own software because of the anti-trust investigation. So they had already developed the OS potentially, but did not have an outlet to get to market. As a result, they funneled the OS to Gates' business as a proxy. Then squeezed out competition (mainly Kidall's C/PM) by setting up a NDA that fooled Kidall into not knowing it was IBM coming to meet with him. Then bought the only other remaining competition in Seattle Computer Products and rights to QDOS. Then reconciled with what IBM already had under their PC project and allowed Gates to sell the the OS. Behind the scenes what Bill, Mary, and John Opel had worked out I have no idea. Mary and John were friends and additionally had connections thru the board of United Way.

Just most likely, imo at least.

LOL.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)

How did Walter Scott know???????

The entire Silicon Valley genesis from graduates and dropouts at Stanford all the way through is fascinating. And Xerox actually had a working model of a personal computer that Jobs borrowed and became Apple.

You'd find the documentary pretty interesting. I saw it when it first came out around the time I moved to Silicon Valley (San Jose) and wanted to know what the whole thing was all about. Everyone I played hockey with in the area was a nerd or an engineer. The computer revolution there was basically swallowing up every small town from San Francisco to San Jose.

[binArt]

Originally Posted by TswaneNguni

If the whole world was run as effectively as Amazon is,it would have been a wonderful place .

Over 160% employee turnover rate is a poor KPI for a wonderful place. Amazon treats its employees like fodder. Which makes their model more like the PRC than a forward looking example for the new world order.