"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...

You said he gets good grades, doesn't excel at sports and doesn't have
many
friends. The word "geek" leaps out at me. I don't mean this in a negative
way. Geeks are good. Bill Gates is a geek. A rich geek who is helping
lots of people with his vaccines.

Yet this same Bill Gates exploits non US nationals by underpaying them and
getting away with it simply because it's more than they'd earn in their
home country. Bill Gates earns 10 times as much each hour than most of his
employees earn in a year, yes he does some philanthropic stuff, but it
would be helpful if numerous employees weren't struggling to make ends
meet.

Anne

You know, in general, I agree with you. If you were to say Dell, Nike,
Reebok, Ford or many other companies that have employees overseas or
outsource overseas, I would agree with you.

Although people in India and other countries where Microsoft has offices get
paid less, the buying power of the money the recieve and the standard of
living is probably similar to life here in the US.

Bill Gates actually earns thousands less than any of his employees. In fact,
I think he is the lowest paid employee in the entire company. His annual
wage is $1. Of course, he makes up for it on company stock. Of course, Bill
Gates no longer runs the company. There has been a new CEO for a few years.
Bill Gates spends a lot of time on his charity.

Employees who are janitors and such may make a marginal living. However, I
think the vast majority of employees, here in the US and abroad, make a
living that is above the mean and median income for their area. If any of
the employees have trouble making ends meet, I think it is rarely because
the means are not adequate. I am not saying that employees can expect a life
of luxury, however.

In this particular case, I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't employ people
who aren't in the US. Microsoft sells software to just about every country.
I think it is only fair that he employees people in every country. In
addition, Microsoft probably has nice offices overseas. And certainly
Microsoft lifts the economies of the places where they employ people,
whether it is in Washington or Hyderabad or Ireland.

Anyway, in general I agree with you. In this particular case, I think
Microsoft does ok.

Jeff