Andrew Carnegie was regarded as a ruthless businessman by his contemporaries, competitors, and employees. However, he is also almost solely responsible for the free public libraries which have contributed so much to American education (and which, sadly, are now falling into neglect everywhere).

Sometimes you have to regard a person as, y'know, a person -- someone who can do both good things and bad things, things you're grateful for and things you disagree with.

I'll be happy if he eradicates disease and hunger, don't get me wrong. I just don't think this is his priority.

When it comes to humanitarian work, I don't care what someone's motivation is.

By the way, if you get in the habit of editing messages after they're posted, you can add a publishing delay in your profile settings.

You know Trojans thought like that... "Nice horse, let's bring it in - it matches our decor". We always have to question motivations. Is the humanitarian work aimed towards gaining more political influence? To what end?

Nobody is nice.

A bit cynical eh? My personal opinion is after the full ramifications of the US DOJ/EU anti-trust actions set in years later Gates realized he couldn't run Microsoft the way he always had and the game was basically fixed against him going forward. If he stayed involved with Microsoft's day-to-day operations it's likely he would been overseeing a long slow decline in relevance. No fun for someone who likes challenges. I think he just lost interest and realized how much good he could do elsewhere.