Bill Gates on The Huffington Post

Microsoft Shareholders Grill Ballmer: Apple Ads Make Us Look 'Like Buffoons'

2009-11-20T08:10:33Z

Ballmer, on the other hand, had plenty to say -- particularly in response to shareholder questions about Macs, Windows, and the company's struggle to regain its footing in the market for mobile phones.

Paul Allen Diagnosed With Cancer: Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

2009-11-16T20:22:38Z

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. co-founder and billionaire investor Paul Allen has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is undergoing chemotherapy.

In a memo sent to employees, Jody Allen, Paul Allen's sister and the CEO of his investment firm Vulcan Inc., said the 56-year-old received the diagnosis early this month. According to the memo, Paul Allen has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma.

Don McNay: President Obama's Entrepreneurial Mindset

2009-11-16T14:07:48Z

I can give you
anything but time

-Elvis
Costello

I'm sometimes critical of President Obama because it often seems to me that he doesn't understand people like me – an owner of a small
business in a small town.

I have not seen much evidence of Obama being in touch with
small-town
Kentucky, but
after reading David Plouffe's new book, The
Audacity to Win, I have become
convinced that he knows what it takes to run a business.

I'm a devoted student of Dan Sullivan, the “Strategic Coach" for
entrepreneurs. I went through Sullivan’s program in Toronto. Dan has devoted
his life to helping entrepreneurs become better at their craft. I am convinced that President
Obama operated his 2008 Presidential
campaign with a classic entrepreneurial mindset.

Common
traits of successful entrepreneurs include setting
seemingly impossible goals and challenging conventional wisdom.

Planning to be President of the United
States is a pretty high goal.
Especially for a guy who had been an Illinois state legislator just five years
ago.

When history goes back to studying the Obama
campaign, it will compare it to the William Jennings Bryan campaign of 1896 or
Ross Perot's in 1992. Those unconventional
styles of
campaigning set the standard for every
campaign after them.

No one focused on Larry King before Ross Perot did.
Now,
all candidates find their way to Larry, Leno, Dave, Ellen, Tyra and Oprah.

Now, every campaign is going to organize and raise
money using the
Obama model.

Like a Steven Jobs or Bill Gates, Obama changed the dynamic.

But unlike
Bryan and Perot,
Obama won.

And he
did in classic entrepreneurial fashion. He developed a campaign plan that
exploited
opportunities that seemed crazy to "Washington insiders.”

It was the same way Steven Jobs and Bill Gates seemed crazy to IBM and Xerox. Or the way that Google seemed crazy to Microsoft.

A good entrepreneur takes what "the
professionals" see as disadvantages and turns them into advantages.

Jimmy Carter had one of the most innovative
campaigns of
the modern era. People laughed when an unemployed, former governor of a Southern
state decided to be president. Carter understood that being unemployed
allowed him to campaign full time, and that being Southern allowed him to connect to a large segment of
the population who didn't want George Wallace as the primary symbol of southern
politics.

Obama took the unconventional candidate theory to a new
extreme. We have not had many senators become president, and especially not many one-term senators. I can't think of another president who was raised by an unmarried,
single mother. I’m sure
Obama is the first president born in Hawaii. He’s younger than all but a
handful of presidents and has an unusual name.

Also, did I mention that
he is African-American?

As Plouffe's book points out, Obama's
"negatives," like Jimmy Carter's negatives, turned out to be
positives.

Plouffe noted that among people who voted in the 2004 George W. Bush- John
Kerry election, Obama beat McCain by only a 50% to 49% margin. Depending on how
the electoral votes would have played out, Obama could have narrowly won, narrowly lost or faced the
same fate as Al Gore.

Instead, a huge turnout by African-Americans and younger voters propelled Obama to a landslide victory.

Obama did not run the
campaign by conventional rules. He
developed his own rules and made them work for him.

It’s tough to challenge conventional wisdom. Everyone wants to tell
you what you are doing wrong.

Programs like the Strategic Coach teach
entrepreneurs to develop written goals and to have ways to measure how people are progressing
towards those goals.

Plouffe noted the discipline exhibited
by the Obama campaign in sticking to their game plan.
The early campaign was roundly criticized by "experts" who didn't see the same
vision that the Obama people saw.

I was impressed by how they were able to use matrices to measure
every aspect of the campaign, like fundraising, organizing and coordinating, to track how successfully the campaign was meeting its plan.

It has been said that anything that
can be measured, can be obtained. In Obama's case, that
included the Presidency of the United States.

Dan Sullivan built most of his
coaching philosophy around something called the "entrepreneurial time
system." An entrepreneur's time is the
most precious resource of any business, and it needs to be treated as such.

I've seen way too many political candidates and business people
try to be everywhere, doing everything, and who wind up being nowhere and
getting nothing much done.

Until I read The Audacity to Win, I had no idea how
much campaign focus was directed
to proper use of Omaba's time. Time was also scheduled for the
candidate to relax and spend time with his family. There was a lot of pressure
to have Obama go to outside debates and rallies, but the plan called for him to stay focused on the Iowa primary and never to waver from
his central message.

His highly favored primary opponent, Hillary
Clinton, did not manage her time as
well and had a litany of campaign messages. Obama against Clinton was like
watching an energetic start-up go against a bureaucratic
mega-corporation.

We all rooted for David over Goliath. Entrepreneurs are those who
can look at Goliath and recognize
that a giant can be taken down.

Just like Barack Obama took the Presidency.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is
one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with “Big
Money” issues.

McNay
is an award winning, syndicated financial columnist and
Huffington Post Contributor.

You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com

McNay
founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial
consulting firm, in 1983 and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC
in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com

McNay
has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the
Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

McNay
has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers
and What to Do When You Win The Lottery

McNay
is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four
professional designations in the financial services field.

Bill Gates: Steve Jobs Is 'Fantastic,' 'Saved The Company' (VIDEO)

2009-11-13T15:06:08Z

During CNBC's TV special featuring Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Microsoft's Gates had warm words for Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

According to CNBC, a Columbia Executive Business School student asked this question:

If you could just comment and tell us what your thoughts are on the job Steve Jobs has done as the CEO of Apple? (Audience laughs as Gates smiles.)

Gates' response, CNBC reports:

GATES: Well, he's done a fantastic job. Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape.

In fact, most likely it wasn't going to survive. And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it's great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I've worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company.

Watch Gates' answer in the video clip below.

WATCH:

Bill Gates: Wall Street Pay Is "Often Too High"

2009-11-12T13:48:16Z

Bill Gates said on Wednesday he believes Wall Street pay is "often too high" and that U.S. government ownership of American International Group Inc worries him because it has devalued the giant insurer.

Tour Bill Gates' House For $35,000

2009-11-12T08:43:35Z

Each fall as part of Microsoft's charitable giving campaign, people at the company donate products, services and experiences for their fellow employees to bid on. The item that typically fetches the highest bid is a tour of Gates' Lake Washington home for the winner and a small group of friends, guided by Gates, with appetizers at the end.

Dr. Orin Levine: Calling on Kids of Investment Bankers, for Kids Who Aren't

2009-11-10T10:47:02Z

Attention: this blog is targeted for specific
individuals. Anyone can read it,
of course, but it is specifically for young adults between the ages of 12 and
19, and specifically for those who have parents in investment banking or who go
to school with kids who have parents in investment banking. And among that group, it’s for those who
are interested in changing the world.

By now it’s no secret that many in the investment banking
and financial sector have received or are going to receive large bonuses this
year. Bloomberg.com reported that
the three biggest banks to exit the government bailout plan are expected to pay
out record bonuses of nearly $30 billion this year. If you’re at Dalton, Horace Mann, Riverdale, Trinity or
another school where your parents and your parents’ friends might be investment
bankers, ask them this week if they have ever considered investing in the life
of a child in the developing world.

Ask them if they know that more than 4 million children die
of pneumonia and diarrhea each year in these countries because they lack access
to simple treatments and safe, effective vaccines. Ask them if any investment in their current portfolio can provide
so much bang for their buck – for less than $100, they can add a year of life
to a child. In fact, Bill and
Melinda Gates called their investment in vaccines through GAVI the
best money they ever invested.

Some of the financial sector’s most successful individuals
are among the most generous supporters of Save the Children, CARE, and the GAVI Alliance. But what about the rest? I suspect that
most of them just aren’t aware of how many lives could be saved with simple
vaccines and antibiotics. Or they
may be misinformed about where their money will go. They may be under the inaccurate assumption that the money
will be mismanaged or go to corrupt foreign dictators – actually, the funds are
carefully managed by these agencies and save lives very cost-effectively. The Copenhagen Consensus,
for instance, ranked childhood vaccinations as one of the most cost-effective uses
of foreign aid.

Please make this request with respect and dignity. Don’t ask them how big their bonus was
this year – that’s rude. Don’t
insist that they give up all worldly possessions – that’s naïve and misplaced.
However, if you really want to show your own passion and commitment, you could
suggest a donation to GAVI or Save the Children in place of a holiday gift this
season.

Let them know that their donations will make a difference
and are urgently needed. The GAVI
Alliance for example is meeting next week to consider how to fill an annual
shortfall of ~$800 million per year.
Without this funding, the lives of millions of children will be lost
because they lack access to the same vaccines that children in this country
routinely receive.

Additional funding from governments can help fill the gaps,
no doubt. But the generosity of individual
Americans also can play an important part in changing the world. In the aftermath of a humanitarian
disaster like Katrina and the Christmas tsunami of 2004, the response of
individual donors, large and small, was overwhelmingly helpful.

So, without being rude or insensitive, ask your parents or
your parents’ friends, “Have you considered a contribution to provide
life-saving vaccines and treatments to children in developing countries?” You never know, your question might just
change the world for thousands of children whose parents aren't getting bonuses this year.

Michael Russnow: Windows 7 Not so Great as Advertised and Has Compatibility Issues: Is Microsoft in Collusion With Manufacturers Like HP?

2009-11-06T07:18:20Z

A few weeks ago, I had a horrifying PC moment. For the first time in twelve years of Internet surfing, a terrible virus oddly named Total Security disabled my computer. No programs would open. Total Security left me in a total mess.

The price for excising the virus was $200. Since my XP computer was almost six years old, I thought that seemed excessive because I could get a new unit for about $700.

During my initial panic, Geek Squad Guru Julio Sagastume of West Hollywood's Best Buy kindly devoted lots of telephone time for free as I described my woes. Later he and colleague David McClay painstakingly advised me, and after shopping around I bought a Dell 3055 Inspiron computer. Julio and David also assured me all the files on my virus-laden XP computer would be transferred -- disease free -- for $99.99

Then I brought the new PC home, and suddenly there were problems. Understand, I've had computers for over twenty years, so I know how to set them up. However, Windows 7 didn't accept my HP LaserJet 1012 printer or Creative Cam Live! Pro! webcam drivers, nor my Transparent Language WordAce! German dictionary and True Fonts program, all on CD.

Oddly, it did embrace my Altec headset and Magic Spin DVD burner, both bought at the same time as my webcam in 2006. And the DVD burner CD driver said it was for Windows 98! Windows 7 also admitted my Movie Magic Screenwriter program, my Translation Language German tutorial and -- hold onto your hats -- my Microsoft '97 Office CD. Before I'm disparaged for not upgrading, I found no discernible difference in basic word processing over the so-called improved years, so my program suits me just fine.

More about the need to "upgrade" equipment in a moment.

Re the Windows 7 look itself, I was dismayed all my programs downloaded, including Mozilla, IE 8, AOL 9.5 and Skype suddenly appeared in miniscule font size. As a comparison I turned on my newly cleansed XP computer and everything seemed fine.

However, on Windows 7 if I changed display settings, some pages appeared better, while others' data drifted off the screen. Plus websites had overlapping type or showed words meant to be on one line suddenly hanging orphaned onto another all by themselves. This occurred on my personal website (which looks fine on XP) and also on professionally produced sites such as HuffPost.

So, I called Dell and was pleasantly surprised their offshore employees were mostly helpful. I'm not xenophobic, but I've suffered over several years dealing with folks who don't quite understand our language. Very polite but maddening to deal with. With Dell I got good support even with the 12 hour time difference.

A wonderful supervisor took over my computer by remote control. He saw what I was dealing with and I asked: "Why should I keep this computer? It's one thing to have to switch between the new one and XP for the occasional webcam use or printing, but Internet surfing is constant, and my other programs look horrible."

At first he seemed baffled, but then switched to the troubleshoot area of Windows 7 and found problems in "Add-ons" on Skype, AOL and Internet Explorer. Suddenly the fonts were better on my programs, but the Internet problems persisted. Explorer was far better than Mozilla, but neither pleased me.

He determined in our 3-hour session it might be due to my machine's 64-bit configuration. Haven't a clue what he did, but he did something with Explorer and then affixed the Explorer rendering engine onto Mozilla. In short, I now have a small icon in the lower right of my screen, and if I don't like the way a Mozilla page looks -- 2/3 of the time -- I click on the icon and it changes to the Explorer engine while staying on Mozilla, with its bookmarks and other tabs. Everything now looks great.

Strangely, when I go onto Internet Explorer 8 directly there are still problems, and I have no idea what version of Explorer or what engine he used to fix Mozilla's look. But it's better than it was, and, while not perfect, I'm able to function with more power and speed, while still able to use the XP as a sturdy back-up.

But why does this problem exist? Is there something wrong with Mozilla and Internet Explorer re Windows 7? Why does downloading major programs cause add-on issues that never presented themselves on XP? And if you're not having the same problem, why am I when all I did was turn on the machine only to confront this havoc?

Added to this is my primary beef. I have an HP printer less than six years old, and though I know we live in an age of get the latest thing almost every year -- read that to mean cell phones, cars and other gadgets -- how many of us do that? How many of us -- especially in these economic times -- don't hold onto products that still function well? Okay, if we want an improvement, such as an HDTV with mega-screen, that's one thing. That's something new.

But my printer works fine, prints at 15 pages/minute and is still on its original toner cartridge. I even bought a standby cartridge and have yet to open the box. Yet, despite the Dell technician's masterful attempts, he was not able to install the printer. The Hewlett-Packard website says it doesn't support my printer on Windows 7 and directs me to buy a new one for over a hundred dollars that prints 17 pages/minute -- hardly an upgrade when mine works perfectly.

My webcam is only 3 years old. What's Creative Cam's excuse? Why should I have to buy another one, simply because Microsoft doesn't want to include within its software earlier recognition applications as it used to? On the one hand, it still recognizes old MS Word programs, but not many other programs that did a technological handshake with earlier versions of Windows. Yet in the old days, the first Windows program recognized DOS, and, at least through XP, would not render most hardware and software shamefully obsolete.

My first laser printer (Panasonic 4410), bought in 1993 and used with my DOS computer, transitioned beautifully to Windows 95 and continued to work with my XP computer through today (though I bought the HP in 2004 to gain greater speed and operating RAM). On the one hand, a printer can work for 16 years, but the other functions for less than 6 due to incompatibility, not work performance.

What's the cause? Is it Bill Gates' fault for not incorporating into Windows 7 the driver information his company used to do in successive editions or is he in collusion with software and hardware manufacturers like HP, who also refuse to update drivers so that obsolescence becomes the order of the day and we are forced to buy things we really don't need?

If we get a new state of the art TV, we can still connect our old VCR. If we get a new CD or DVD player we can play our old disks. We can still use a dial telephone on a telephone system that has been transformed with fiber optics and satellite transmission. But a new computer forces you to discard perfectly good machinery.

There ought to be a law preventing the computer hardware and software industry from shortchanging consumers so that we get the full use of our equipment as we do for non-computer related appliances and products. Anderson Cooper should do a "Keeping Them Honest" report on CNN, as should other commentators on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and Fox News. There should also be an uproar on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

All in all this new computer experience has been disappointing, extremely stressful and a whole lot of needless hassle.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com.

Bill Gates' Birthday: Bono Serenades Gates In Song (VIDEO)

2009-11-02T15:11:50Z

See video below

Bill Gates turned 54-years-old October 28, and celebrated his birthday at the U2 concert in Vancouver B.C., TechFlash reports.

A lot of guys might celebrate entering their mid-fifties by going to a rock concert--but Bill Gates isn't most guys, and his celebration was anything but average.

U2 singer Bono not only sung Bill Gates a rendition of "happy birthday", but led the entire stadium in song. Watch it below!

TechFlash writes:

"Without him, and without his business, we just wouldn't be where we are today. It's his birthday today. Bill Gates is in the house," Bono said, before leading the cheering crowd in a rendition of "Happy Birthday."

"A pretty sweet birthday salute," says our former Seattle P-I colleague John Marshall, who was there and filled us in on what happened.

See Bill Gates through the ages here!

WATCH:

WATCH:

Richard Walden: A Note to Bill Gates, Oprah, Madonna: size isn't everything!

2009-11-01T17:51:22Z

Madonna recently announced that she was helping to build a $15 million girls school in Malawi; She apparently does not know that former Malawi President, Hastings Banda, an anglophile, built an exact replica of Eton in rural Malawi, complete with black tie & tails for each boy and to worldwide derision. This follows Oprah's $40 million girls "leadership academy" in South Africa which is experiencing growing pains and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation making grant after grant in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to mega-groups whom they feel will provide a greater "global impact" than the odd individual or small group-with-a-good-idea.

The Grameen Bank's Nobel Peace Laureate, Muhammad Yunnus, started with just $300 and an idea that a small loan to the poorest of the poor might yield positive returns. That has grown into what is now tens of millions of borrowers from not only Grameen Bank but from hundreds of microfinance institutions large and small following Yunnus' model and that of emBay's Pierre Omidyar and other "social venture capitalists" whose focus is not on the poorest of the poor but the better educated "most likely to succeed".

Would a letter or email from a "new Yunnus" with a new idea ever reach the New Philanthropists?

I asked just that question to Bill Gates, Sr., Bill Jr.'s dad and one of their Foundation's triumvirate, which also includes Melinda Gates, a couple of years ago at a private meeting he held in Los Angeles with local foundation presidents and philanthropists. If a communication in any form with a Grameen-like "new idea" was received by The Gates Foundation, would it:

A. Survive the mail room and go north from there?

B. Get anywhere near the "three who decide"?

C. If it came from an unknown individual or small group of individuals, would they be considered worthy if they only asked for a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars to implement a small project with great potential?

"Sadly, no" was his direct quote. That left many observers audibly surprised or even shocked.

Our meeting was just after Warren Buffet committed an additional $30 billion to the Gates Foundation, bringing their annual grant-making to $3 billion and he expressed great distress at how they were ever going to give away that much money without a 2000-strong staff and a number of offices throughout the world. I replied that maybe the Gates Foundation's rapid growth was an albatross because they would likely miss out on Grameen-like ideas and only work through high overhead universities and mega-charities. These large organizations would be happy to soak up their funds in administrative costs and imaginary expenses with no greater likelihood of success -- and likely far less -- than individuals or small groups of individuals initiating change.

I also suggested that the Gates Foundation hire a diverse group of what Disney calls "Imagineers" to screen these odd over-the-transom communications for a kernel of an idea they could invest in.

I appreciate the Gates family's, Oprah's, Madonna's, Bono's and Brangelina's work -- don't get me wrong -- but there's a huge world full of local talent, new ideas and smaller-scale projects crying out for funding. Most often, these philanthropists meet a few such people through the larger groups they habitually fund... but not always. They must remember how they made their money in the first place and the creative challenge they again face in giving it back to humanity.

Bill Gates's Birthday: Send Us Your Photos With Gates! (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-10-28T17:11:30Z

Bill Gates celebrated his 54th birthday on October 28, 2009 and in honor of the innovator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, we've put together a little slideshow of Bill Gates, through the ages.

See him below -- mugshots, cream pies, and all!

Diane Tucker: Mr. and Ms. Gates Go To Washington, Host Roundtable On Global Health Funding

2009-10-27T15:31:36Z

"We're here to thank the U.S. taxpayers. Your investment in global health is working."

That's the "official" reason Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates are in Washington, D.C., today.

As spin goes, it's a nice line. But obviously the Gateses didn't go to all the trouble and expense of launching a multimedia experience that debuts tonight at 7 p.m. at Washington's uber-chic Harman Center For The Arts (with simultaneous Webcast) simply to thank lil' ol' taxpayin' me. (Couldn't they have just sent a card?)

The Gateses are visiting our nation's capital to reframe the conversation about global health aid. We should spend more time talking about what works, and how to measure it, they said. All too often, the gotcha-obsessed media focuses instead on what Melinda called "slippage."

We've been traveling in the developing world for over a decade. It's so different than it used to be. We're seeing a lot of hope on the ground. It's palatable. And yet so many reports focus on the negative -- people using malaria nets for fishing, or for a wedding dress. Of course you're going to get some slippage on the end. But what about the story that indoor residual spraying and malaria nets are saving lives...lots and lots of lives?

The Gateses met with about a dozen reporters this morning at the Monaco Hotel for a short roundtable discussion about global health funding. Currently, the U.S. budget is roughly $8 billion. The Obama Administration is looking at possibly increasing this aid, which means knowledge of what works is essential.

"Some things, like education funding, are tough to track because of all the management issues. Vaccinations are a lot easier to track, even in a place like Somalia," Bill told our roundtable group. He would like to see the U.S. budget increased, but has no particular number in mind.

Just think about the $8 billion very differently than you might. It's been wildly successful. It shows that if you make these investments early, it has a transformative effect. Hopefully, this will lead people to want to do more, even at a time when there are tough budget trade-offs.

Italy came up during the discussion because that country recently cut its AIDS budget dramatically without much outcry. "It's a terrible thing to have happen," said Bill. "And when a few governments go backwards, it makes it easier for other governments to do the same thing."

The Gateses argue that the further away you are from funding recipients, the less you may know about whether or not your money was well spent. Since the Gates Foundation team goes back and examines whether their programs worked or not, they are able to share this data.

At this morning's roundtable discussion, Melinda was visibly passionate about finding ways to spread the word about success stories. A few weeks ago, she began posting short videos on the Gates Foundation Web site.

But honestly, our talent isn't storytelling. Hopefully our talent is biotechnology, and creation of delivery systems for vaccinations and other life-saving tools. We hope to draw more filmmakers and storytellers into this work, to make sure the budgets for these programs aren't cut just because people don't have an understanding of the difference they can make.

No developing nation has become self-sufficient without first improving their health care delivery system. Often a little aid goes a long way -- for example, vaccinations save millions of lives each year. But according to Melinda, we've still made very little progress on the preventable deaths of newborns in underdeveloped countries. "Nearly four million infants die in that first 30 days. And a half-million mothers die in childbirth every year. We need more American investment in this area."

The world's poor are fortunate to have Melinda and Bill Gates as advocates. Whether or not you agree with the couple's priority list, the Gateses are serious about measuring and duplicating success. Now if only another billionaire philanthropist would come along and create a multimedia experience showing how health care reform could improve the lives of millions of Americans, and create a healthier climate for small business in the United States.

* * *

Melinda Gates speaking at the reporters' roundtable in Washington, D.C. on 10.27.09
(Photo: Diane Tucker)

Bill and Melinda Gates Share "Impatient Optimism" Via Webcast

2009-10-26T21:09:05Z

Although the U.S. sends billions of dollars to other countries in foreign aid each year, Bill and Melinda Gates understand it's hard to wrap our minds around what that means for a single person on the other side of the world.

That's why they've launched "The Living Proof Project: U.S. Investments In Global Health Are Working" through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project comprises an ongoing collection of personal stories, multimedia and progress sheets that document the success of the U.S.'s global health initiatives.

"Our hope is that if more people see this impact they will be moved to share these compelling stories and support America's continued leadership in global health," Melinda Gates wrote in a blog post on Monday. "I know that for Bill and for me, these stories have had a profound impact on the way we look at the opportunities in the years ahead. At our foundation, we have come to believe that sharing stories of success is one of the most important things we can do to motivate and inspire others. Through our work, especially our visits to the field, we have been deeply touched by personal stories of lives changed for the better."

To launch the project, Bill and Melinda Gates spoke live via webcast. The Why We Are Impatient Optimists presentation highlighted some of the remarkable success stories from U.S. global investments and outlined those that are yet to come.

WATCH THE WEBCAST NOW:

Visit The Living Proof Project to start learning more about global heath success stories.

Melinda Gates: Our Efforts Around The World Are Working

2009-10-26T18:46:47Z

From Melinda Gates on ONE:

This week, I'm in Washington with Bill to do something that might seem unusual: say 'thank you.' We're saying thanks to those who have been a part of the U.S. government's tremendous leadership in improving global health. Our trip will include the launch of a new effort called "Living Proof Project: U.S. Investments in Global Health are Working," a campaign aimed at conveying to Americans the tremendous progress we are making on multiple fronts in the effort to improve health around the world.

From Chewing Gum To Chocolate: 76 Innovations To Improve Global Health Backed By Gates Foundation

2009-10-26T10:10:34Z

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding 76 projects using innovative ideas from chewing gum to chocolate to improve global health, and that of developing countries in particular, to the tune of 100,000 US dollars each.

Raymond J. Learsy: Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street and the Tolling of the Bell For America's Meritocracy

2009-10-22T06:55:10Z

In late 2007 and the early days of 2008 Citigroup announced they were cutting 4200 jobs. This happened shortly after Vikram Pandit, while just six weeks on the job as Citigroup's CEO, was awarded a $26.7 million stock bonus and $3 million in stock options. It also happened as the bank was set to announce that, by the end of 2007, it was already holding $18 billion in mortgage backed toxic assets. It also happened at the time the share price had already been halved while being led into the abyss by its management team that had included its previous CEO Charles Prince, who was given a golden parachute of $10.7million in stock and a $13.2 milion cash payout. Not to be overlooked, the cheer leading along the slippery slide to disaster of Robert Rubin encouraging Citigroup to adopt a mindset to become an aggressive proprietary trader/speculator, with all of its disastrous downsides and with billions more yet to be lost. Rubin was of course the former Secretary of the Treasury and before that Chairman of Goldman Sachs and collected more than $100 million from Citigroup for his wizened guidance.

As I wrote in January 2008, "While these 'executives' were wallowing in 'gravy' Citigroup had the effrontery to announce almost simultaneously that it was cutting 4200 jobs! 4200 families in distress. Shameless is hardly too strong an adjective... Citigroup had become the poster child of so much that is wrong, and much of what is happening throughout corporate America."

Of course things deteriorated dramatically since then. By early 2009 the job cuts at Citigroup climbed beyond 75,000; and what happened at Citigroup was only the beginning of the one-sided unfairness that has become the shameful norm in the way we now do business.

Now it is no longer Citigroup and the then 4200 layoffs, but millions throughout the land that have lost and are losing their jobs and their futures; families and communities overwhelmed with foreclosures and far too many losing hope along with their homes. This while the likes of Goldman, Morgan Stanley and their brethren on Wall Street are dancing off richer than ever before, (consider just a short time back the likes of Lee Raymond, retiring CEO from Exxon with a $400 million golden parachute culminating a career whose grim achievement was to preside over the largest cog in an industry whose rapacious profits resulted from Americans paying over $4.00/gallon for their gasoline and many unable to meet the cost of heating their homes)

As mentioned then, and more assuredly applicable now, that American capitalism was becoming and has now become rotten at the core. Gone is the American capitalist impulse's unique sense of fair play and adherence to a level playing field accessible to all. That formidable confidence in our system as being a 'meritocracy', uniquely American in its nature, very nearly void of envy and resentment. The kind that made a Bill Gates not only possible but probable. Here was a land that nurtured, admired and celebrated his exemplary vision making him rich and all of us as a society, richer. A land that is now being overwhelmed and whose creative vision and sense of fair play is being destroyed by vested interests that have successfully stacked the game to such one-sided advantage that it now has lost all credibility and crushed our confidence in the meritocracy that was so deep seated in the American grain and served as a beacon unto others.

In January 2008 this post observed "The Citigroup bell has tolled". Today struggling with some $350 billion in government bail-out loans and guarantees covering hundreds of billions of toxic assets, indeed the "bell has tolled" for Citigroup.

And now, sadly, the bell is tolling for the spirit and brilliance of what once was American capitalism and its sense of fairness and free enterprise. What has come to pass is obscene and a healthy society cannot allow it to continue.

Robyn O'Brien: Cloudy With a Chance of Allergies or Autism?

2009-10-20T16:23:13Z

Ever wonder what this food fiasco is costing us? You and me? Taxpayers? Well, the Economist recently assembled these jaw-dropping food safety stats in a "Farm to Fork" article in their October 9 issue:

1. There are 26,000 food poisoning cases per 100,000 Americans, every year (an eye-popping 26% of the population)

2. Compare that to only 3,400 cases in the UK, and just 1,200 in France. Stunning.

3. 76 million Americans become ill with food poisoning. That's as if every child in America were to get sick. All 75 million of them. And then some.

4. Insufficient food safety is costing the US $35 Billion a year (as a benchmark, the entire 2009 budget for the FDA was only $2.4 Billion).

According to the article, "the wave of food scares that has swept America over the past few years has caused a crisis in the country's $1 trillion food industry" and is resulting in a food fight of epic proportions.

With Michael Pollan on the frontline, we've also got Bill Gates touring the globe, espousing the benefits of "technofood" as Chief Technology Advocate of food's operating system (Monsanto's genetically engineered, patented and licensed, biotechnology food proteins).

While the recent introduction of "technofood" and the insertion of foreign proteins into our food supply (which began in 1994) has benefited agrichemical shareholders, 300 million stakeholders in the American food supply are seeing inflammatory reactions to food at record rates and the landscape of children's health has changed.

So, perhaps as we listen to these men, we should also listen to the voices of our children as the EPA calls for grant solicitations to study these genetically engineered plant-induced food allergies, and pause and observe the unforeseen consequences that these foreign proteins appear to be presenting in the 1 in 3 American children with autism, allergies, ADHD or asthma.

Before proceeding further with "technofood" and its licensed-for-profit and novel operating system, perhaps we should stop and listen to our 'canaries in the coalmine' who may be trying to sound food's "Dange-ometer".

The Top 15 Business Thinkers: Thinkers 50

2009-10-15T11:51:40Z

Amidst the thousands of management tomes published every year, there are only a few truly influential collections of business wisdom. But measuring the true impact of one of the world's thought leaders can be tricky.

Thinkers 50 believes it has come up with a formula to measure the impact of the world's top business gurus. They've compiled a list of the top 50 thinkers in business based upon, among other things, originality of ideas, practicality, writing style, loyalty of followers and rigor of research.

Based on that analysis, they've come up some very interesting results. C.K. Prahlaad, the author of Fortune At the Bottom Of The Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits, was actually deemed more influential than Steve Jobs, Richard Branson or the uber-popular Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell.

To see more of the rankings, check out our photos below, and vote for the world's most influential business thinker.

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Jocelyn Zuckerman: Learning From Norman, and Feeding the World

2009-10-14T14:22:34Z

As plant scientists, politicians, Big Ag execs, and hunger experts gather in Des Moines this week for the annual World Food Prize Symposium, the official topic of discussion will be "Food, Agriculture & National Security in a Globalized World." But the conversation will mostly center around Norm. Norman Borlaug, the Iowa-born agronomist and Nobel Laureate who founded the prize in 1986 and died a month ago at the age of 95, was always the central presence at the weeklong event, and even in his absence that won't likely change.

Known as the "father of the Green Revolution," Borlaug developed high-yield strains of wheat and rice that, together with the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation, helped feed the skyrocketing populations of a post-war world. Borlaug did most of his work in Mexico, but the fruits of his efforts were adopted widely throughout Latin America and South Asia. (He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contribution to ending the India-Pakistan food shortage of the mid-1960s.) In its front-page obituary on September 13th, the New York Times called Borlaug "the plant scientist who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself."

Borlaug's critics -- and there are plenty of them -- would call that the ultimate irony. And you do have to wonder: If the world learned to feed itself half a century ago, why are there now more hungry people than ever before? Far from being self-sufficient, farmers in places like India and Mexico are today more dependent on outsiders -- namely the companies that sell the hybrid seeds and inputs they now rely upon -- than they were before Borlaug came along. Yes, production rose decisively in the second half of the 20th century, but the gains came at a cost. Funding for agricultural research in the developing world plummeted, for example, and as bulging grain stocks led to falling prices, farmers unable to compete on the global market were forced off their land.

The increased use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers has polluted our rivers and continues to threaten our health; while in places like India, indiscriminate irrigation has resulted in dangerously low levels of groundwater. Meanwhile, the widespread planting of proprietary seeds means not only that biodiversity has shrunk but that power over the world's food supply has been concentrated in the hands of a few. And I'm not the first to make a connection between our nation's obesity and diabetes epidemics and the fact that we grow more corn than we can possibly figure out what to do with. Indeed, when you look out at the corporate nature of today's agricultural landscape, it's hard not draw a line back to Norman Borlaug.

But to blame the guy doesn't seem quite fair. He was a scientist, after all, working with his hands in the dirt -- often for 12 hours at a stretch -- to solve the problem put before him. If he didn't anticipate the social and environmental ills that resulted decades later, neither did he have any control over the international trade policies, domestic crop subsidies, bad leadership, gender discrimination and manifold other factors that contribute to today's hunger scourge. Nor did he consider the problem solved. "We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people," Borlaug told an audience in Asia in 2006, "and this contributes to world instability. Human misery is explosive, and you better not forget that."

To simply blame Borlaug would also be to miss an opportunity. Among the speakers at this week's Symposium will be Bill Gates, who three years ago launched his own Green Revolution, this one in Africa. A report published on September 25 by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization says that by 2050 the world will need to feed an additional 2.3 billion people, most of them in Africa, so a revolution doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Critics of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), however, are already warning that in its reliance on technology and market-based solutions, the initiative threatens to prove as flawed as the original. Like Borlaug, who remained an outspoken supporter of genetic modification up until the end, Bill Gates is a believer in the power of science to tackle the ever-evolving problems that confront humanity. There's something wonderfully hopeful about such an outlook, but in an age of climate change and environmental degradation wrought of past shortsightedness, to neglect the time-proven approaches long practiced by farmers in the developing world would be folly.

As Norman Borlaug well knew -- and as the theme of this year's Symposium will drive home again -- hunger is an issue whose consequences reverberate across the globe. I don't mean to throw cold water on the Norm-fest poised to sweep Des Moines this week. I just hope that amid all the adoration the very legitimate echoes of his critics aren't drowned out.

Jeffrey Smith: Vilsack Mistakenly Pitched "GMOs-Feed-The-World" to an Audience of Experts--Oops

2009-10-13T23:22:37Z

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was getting lots of appreciative applause and head nods from the packed hall at the Community Food Security Coalition conference today, held in Des Moines, Iowa. He described the USDA's plans to improve school nutrition, support local food systems, and work with the Justice Department to review the impact of corporate agribusiness on small farmers. But then, with time for only one more question, I was handed the microphone.

"Mr. Secretary, may I ask a tough question on GMOs?"

He said yes.

"The American Academy of Environmental Medicine this year said that genetically modified foods, according to animal studies, are causally linked to accelerated aging, dysfunctional immune regulation, organ damage, gastrointestinal distress, and immune system damage. A study came out by the Union of Concerned Scientists confirming what we all know, that genetically modified crops, on average, reduce yield. A USDA report from 2006 showed that farmers don't actually increase income from GMOs, but many actually lose income. And for the last several years, the United States has been forced to spend $3-$5 billion per year to prop up the prices of the GM crops no one wants.

"When you were appointed Secretary of Agriculture, many of our mutual friends--I live in Iowa and was proud to have you as our governor--assured me that you have an open mind and are very reasonable and forward thinking. And so I was very excited that you had taken this position as Secretary of Agriculture. And I'm wondering, have you ever heard this information? Where do you get your information about GMOs? And are you willing to take a delegation in D.C. to give you this hard evidence about how GMOs have actually failed us, that they've been put onto the market long before the science is ready, and it's time to put it back into the laboratory until they've done their homework."

The room erupted into the loudest applause of the morning.

Secretary Vilsack knew at once what kind of crowd he was dealing with. Or so I thought.

He said he was willing to visit with folks, to read studies, to learn as much as he possibly can. He pointed out that there are lots of studies, not necessarily consistent, even conflicting. He said he was in the process of working on a set of regulations and had brought proponents and opponents together to search for common ground. And he was looking to create a regulatory system with sufficient assurances and protections.

At this point in his answer, Secretary Vilsack, who has a history of favoring GMOs--and even appears to be more pro-GMO than his Bush administration predecessors--was trying to sound even handed. Then he made a tragic mistake.

After a slight pause, he added in a warm tone, "I will tell you that the world is very concerned about the ever-increasing population of the globe and the capacity to be able to feed all of those people."

Moans, groans, hisses, even boos. Not rowdy, mind you. But clearly agitated.

You see, the people in the room were among the top experts at actually feeding the world. They included numerous PhDs who had spent their careers looking deeply into the issue. Among those present were several of the authors of the authoritative IAASTD report. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, is the most comprehensive evaluation of world agriculture ever. It was a three-year collaborative effort with 900 participants and 110 countries, and was co-sponsored by all the majors, e.g. the World Bank, FAO, UNESCO, WHO. The behemoth effort evaluated the last 50 years of agriculture, and prescribed the methods that were now needed to meet the development and sustainability goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability.

And GMOs was not one of those needed methods! It was clear to the experts that the current generation of GMOs did not live up to the hype continuously broadcast by biotech companies and their promotional East Coast wing--the federal government.

In fact, the night before Vilsack addressed the conference, the same audience heard a keynote by Hans Herren, the co-chairman of the IAASTD report, during which he reiterated that biotechnology was not up to the task. And this morning, Hans Herren was in the room when Vilsack tried to play the feed-the-world card. Bad move.

Vilsack responded to the crowd's rejection by saying, "And well you all can disagree with this, but I am just telling you this. As I travel the world, I am just telling you what people are telling me. They are very concerned about this."

Thus, he distanced himself from the contentious, and fallacious, argument. He was just reporting what others had told him.

And that may in fact be his problem with understanding the serious health and environmental dangers of GMOs in general, if he is simply, as he says, repeating what others--Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont--have told him over and over again.

It's true that I have mutual friends of Tom Vilsack who like and respect him and believe him to be reasonable and thoughtful. I have seen this myself, but not on the GMO issue.

Perhaps the reaction of the experts this morning will help to jar him out of his GMOs-feed-the-world mindset. Unfortunately, he is now deeply immersed in the second of this week's food conferences here in Des Moines, the World Food Prize. It features the major GMO promoters from around the world, including Bill Gates (who gives tens of millions to GMO development in Africa), and top executives of DuPont and Syngenta. Expect to hear constant chatter about how GMOs are the solution to world hunger which, unfortunately, may undue any of the restructuring that this morning's run-in with reality may have awakened.

In the meantime, if there are Q & A sessions at meetings where Secretary Vilsack is speaking or attending, I'll do my best to get to a mic.

International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey M. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology. His first book, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating, is the world's bestselling and #1 rated book on GMOs. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, documents 65 health risks of the GM foods Americans eat everyday. Both are distributed by Chelsea Green Publishing.

John Hope Bryant: Leading With Love: Giving to Your People Gets Results

2009-10-10T18:49:04Z

Giving is as old as the ages, and is even cited in the original business plan for life, the Bible, but very few people see giving as a value added, core competency in business.

Unfortunately, society seems to be teaching us that taking succeeds and suckers give. Well, "suckers" like Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Warren Buffett, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Oprah Winfrey, and entertainment icon Quincy Jones have not done so bad with this giving thing. And some of the most generous "givers" in the corporate space, such as Wells Fargo and US Bank, are also some of the same companies that have emerged on the other end of this global economic crisis with their balance sheets and their businesses still intact.

Giving IS getting.

Giving starts with how you serve those who work inside your organization, and then radiates out to others you serve as part of your mission. How you treat your employees is an important sign of how you treat everyone else in your business and in your life. If you can get it right here, you can get it right with your customers, your clients, your stakeholders.

Why not give? Easy. Fear, and fear is the ultimate prosperity killer -- you will never go wrong, doing right. And do right long enough and it will pay dividends that builds wealth too - as relationships return for repeat business, trust drives business to you that others have not earned, and individuals of power, experience and wisdom chose to make investments in you over others. On every level, love leadership provides the leader in business, politics, civil society, home and life with a strategic advantage over everyone else.

Love Leadership. Be a leader who shows up!
Love leadership of your people begins with love leadership inside of you. As the leader of your life, your family, your organization, your community, your city, or your country, you have got to represent the change you want to see in the world.

Show up in the offices of your partners around the world. Show up in underserved communities. Show up at regular staff meetings; sit in the back until asked to speak, if asked to speak. Show up in the lives of the employees, and sometimes their families, too. If a family member passes away, or a team member goes into the hospital, show up at services, make a call, or send a personal note.

Be the boss who is working as hard or harder than your workers do to "get it right" for those you serve.

It does not take much effort, and it takes even less money. But it does take interest. Little things count. Sometimes little things count the most. That's love leadership in action.

Today, show up with a simple question for your employees: "What can I do to help you do your job?" Most of the time the answer is nothing at all, but the staff member usually appreciates that you asked, and that you really listened when they responded. They know they have a chit of sorts in their pocket, if at a time in the future they have a need, or simply want to talk.

Employees want to know that their employer takes an interest in them for the long-term and wants them to succeed.

Intent matters when you are serving people. No matter what your end product or service, success always boils down to the people. Without them, you are nothing. And without serving them, you won't achieve your ambitious goals.

John Hope Bryant is the founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, vice chairman of the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy as well as chairman of the Council Committee on the Under-Served, financial literacy advisor to the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council, a Young Global Leaders for the World Economic Forum, and author of LOVE LEADERSHIP; A New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World (Jossey-Bass), which debuted in August, 2009, #8 in the CEO Reads Top 10 Best Seller List.

Countries Billionaires Could Buy: Forbes

2009-10-06T12:53:23Z

Castles in France. Islands in the Caribbean. Private jets. With a collective $1.27 trillion at their disposal, the members of The Forbes 400 could buy almost anything

Who Said It: Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? (QUIZ)

2009-10-05T13:20:03Z

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have been battling each other for computer supremacy for about 25 years now. As far as we can see, neither has anything very nice to say about the other or his products. But at the end of the day, aren't they basically coming from the same place? They're both self-made geeks who got really, really rich. And they both seem to be just a wee bit drunk with power. Hey, we're not saying it's wrong. If we were the lords of the technology universe, maybe we'd say these things, too. Can you guess which CEO made which outrageous statement?

Aaron Greenspan: The Fallacy of Execution (and Sex), or Why Mark Zuckerberg Doesn't Answer Questions About Facebook's Origins

2009-10-05T02:01:46Z

Running a company in Silicon Valley, you hear a lot of advice. It is sometimes offered by those esteemed individuals who are invited to speak on panels at conferences, by professors, by family members, by friends, by enemies, by the wealthy, by the not-as-wealthy, by the invested, and by the generally apathetic. Some of it is definitely good advice and some of it is definitely bad, and it comes regardless of whether or not the people giving it are actually qualified to do so. Often, it directly contradicts advice you've heard in the past. What is truly striking is that so frequently advice comes in the form of the cliché: the pat phrase that will supposedly solve all of your problems and transform you and your business into the next success story on the front page of The Major Newspaper--and of all the business clichés in the world, there is none that I hear more, and that I hate more, than the vague, poorly-defined and generally ill-conceived notion that "execution" is more important than "the idea."

There are a number of analogies that are quite illustrative when examining why the idea-versus-execution paradigm is pointless to even discuss in the first place. The simplest analogy among them is sex. There are two genders that we generally recognize: male and female. Both have their role in sexual reproduction; without one or the other, it is by definition impossible for sexual reproduction to take place. It would be pointless (and also wrong) to argue that male sex cells are "more important" than female ones, or vice-versa, which is why it's not an argument you see very often in journals that biologists read, such as Cell or Nature. If we suppose that a successful company, like a successful embryo, needs two complementary inputs to form--in this case, both a profitable idea that solves a problem, and execution on that idea--where the lack of either one guarantees a result of failure, then it should be patently obvious why it doesn't make sense to weigh one of those source's importance against the other's. (Granted, there are also a number of differences between companies and mammals, but there's a good chance that it's the similarities that led you to read this in the first place.)

Despite such thinking, or perhaps in spite of it, many people go on to assume that execution is more important than the idea, perhaps because anyone can have an [intriguing and profitable] idea--another common notion that is also false. Some of those same people continue to draw myriad conclusions from their apparent insight. These conclusions are similar to the kind of mathematical results that can be derived by dividing by zero. (In eighth grade, our math teacher proved that 0 = 1 by doing just that.) One such false conclusion is that "the idea actually doesn't matter at all," implying that the importance of the idea is equal to zero, and that "with proper execution, any idea can be made into a successful company." This is of course false. There are some ideas--say, the combination iron/cellular telephone, the imageless television, or the disposable jumbo jet--that even the best execution can't save. Put another way, the above conclusion means that there are no bad ideas, even while reality clearly indicates this not to be the case.

Another problem with the idea versus execution argument is that while the word "idea" has a relatively clear meaning, the word "execution" does not. Effectively, it refers to everything that isn't the idea, and in turn, that means that "execution" refers to a whole wide array of confounding factors that would make any serious student of statistics blanche. Funding? It's part of execution. Hiring decisions? Execution. Corporate culture? That would fall under execution. Engineering? Also execution. Marketing? Execution. Ethics? Oddly enough, ethics also falls under execution, which raises an interesting point.

There's another cliché that says, "rules are made to be broken," and indeed some rules seem to be. When those same rules are also laws, however, the situation becomes more complicated. If successful execution on an idea--for the sake of argument, one that could save millions of lives--requires breaking a law, is it worth executing on? Or if the legality of execution isn't clearly illegal, but falls into a gray area, does that change things? What if executing involves murdering one person (the literal case of idea versus execution)? What if the idea's benefit is nebulous in all of the above cases? Personally I would argue that regardless of the idea, execution strategies clearly involving even gray areas of the law should be out of bounds for entrepreneurs, if only because paying endless legal fees is rarely good for business.

There are plenty who might disagree, though, notably including every software mogul most people have ever heard of. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and even Steve Jobs are not celebrated for their kindness or moral rectitude. Just as we do with oil and energy, as a society we tend to accept that the benefits of using software outweigh the costs of developing it, which sometimes can include the strategic destruction of other programmers' companies and careers.

If and when it happens, all of this, too, is "execution." While I wasn't present when Microsoft, Oracle or Apple got started, I did happen to be around for the beginnings of another technology company in 2004 to witness what the word execution meant then.

I've been told time and again that the reason Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook succeeded over my own at Harvard is that I simply didn't "execute," while my classmate did. And so without casting any blame, I'd like to put everything that notion implies to rest. In his latest thirty-minute-long interview, Mark didn't mention anything about the fully-functional and heavily-marketed houseSYSTEM integrated student portal that was far more than a mere idea, the "Facebook" component that he joined along with his co-founders, the hours he spent visiting and re-visiting the site in January of 2004, or the Harvard College Student Entrepreneurship Council that created it, let alone the decades-long history of face books at educational institutions across the country. That doesn't mean that those products, organizations and events never happened, however. There's plenty of evidence indicating that they did.

So the next time you consider the importance of execution in a business situation, take the time to analyze exactly what it is you mean. The phrase "execute better" has never helped anybody. It's just about as helpful as telling someone to "do everything better," which is at best not helpful at all, and at worst insulting, since it demonstrates a lack of interest in getting to any real core issue. Worse yet, by endorsing a litany of things you never meant to, you'll identify yourself as one of those shallow Silicon Valley types who doesn't really think things through. And if we ever want to get out of our present economic slump, the last thing we need is more people in the Valley who don't think.

Aaron Greenspan is President & CEO of Think Computer Corporation and the author of Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era.

DonorsChoose.org Targets High-Poverty Classrooms

2009-09-25T16:56:42Z

Online hub DonorsChoose.org filters your donations to American schools in need. The "choose" part means you get to select which school or program your money goes to. Both Bill Gates and Stephen Colbert have advocated for Donors Choose, giving the site a huge boost as a portal for charitable giving.

With families strapped across America, school boards and educators are suffering even more. Here are some specific programs in need of help:

Tennessee Bloggers For Education is donating to classrooms throughout the state, items like a reversible mobile easel, magnetic letters and dry-erase boards. The group has a Facebook page if you want to stay really connected, Tennessee blogger style.
You can follow those promoting their giving on Twitter and see who's raising the most money for their projects. Even Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is getting in on the action.
Donors Choose also allows you to filter by certain keywords. For example, search for 'military' to donate specifically to kids from military families.

Anyone can start their own Donors Choose project, so please create your own and include the link in the comments of this page!