I have come to believe that Bill Gates is not a particularly bright guy.
It was good luck and arrogance that made him rich. The good luck was having someone else's software to sell at the very moment IBM wanted to get out of the personal computer business. The arrogance was in Gates’ absolute unwillingness to amend the agreement he had with IBM, once they both realized how valuable it was.
I have written about Gates’ complete inability to understand the development world in an earlier blog about the Bill and Melinda development foundation. He is totally off-base and understands nothing but the standard foundation groupie trivia.
Now he is on the front page of the groupies favorite magazine, the New York Times Weekend glossy. He has been enamored for several years with an Australian who promotes Big History.
Big History was first explained to me more than 40 years ago by my friend Stuart Silverstone who is still promoting the idea. It is a graphic way to present human history beginning with the big bang and having separate timelines for anthropology, civilization, biology and a dozen other categories. Presumably, one learns effectively by looking at the big picture.
The problem with Big History should be obvious to my readers. It was once used heavily in natural history museums and has fallen into disuse. The reason: history looks very different to a Native American Inuit, a Chinese Mandarin and a Bedouin in the heart of Tel Aviv.
That is why natural history museums no longer use giant murals of timelines on their wall. You see history from the perspective of your life and your culture.
My friend Stuart has heard my critique often. His way of dealing with it is to asked me to write segments of great interest to me such as the history of commerce. To me, commerce created the entire modern world two hundred years ago.
Gates doesn't see this. He isn't really very bright, to put it politely.