The difference in reputation between the two in China and the United States is caused by the local conditions in China and the United States.
Gates has a very bad reputation in the United States. It started in the 1980s. It has nothing to do with divorce or anything. It is purely due to the history of computer development.
There is a factor here that is very unfamiliar to the Chinese - the American free software movement.
Simply put, the programmers of the dawn of personal computers were influenced by the left-wing movement and wanted to eliminate the influence of capitalism in the virtual world. They believed that software should be created by enthusiasts out of interest, and free software could promote informatization to the greatest extent. Once software has copyright, it will be a huge disaster for society. The free software movement is the foundation of the modern computer industry. If Linux disappears, modern industry will collapse directly.
The free software movement started in the 1970s and was the mainstream voice in the computer industry until the 1990s. Almost all hackers belonged to this school, and almost all PC users who entered the field in the 1990s were their believers. On the contrary, Bill Gates is the most staunch defender of software copyright. He became famous for tearing up the leader of the free software school at the Software Developers Conference. In the 1980s, Microsoft actively promoted the legislation of computer software copyright, and finally became the world's largest software company by selling software.
People in the industry objected, as did laymen. Every household in the United States had a computer, except for Apple users (there were not many Apple users in the 1990s), and all of them had to install Windows. And in the United States, the average person had a genuine copy, and a copy cost more than $100. After Windows 95 was launched, Microsoft released four generations of Windows in five years. Who could stand this?
That's why Gates deliberately acts like a well-educated, philanthropic person. I believe his kindness is not fake, because there are too many bad guys like Steve Jobs in the industry who are too lazy to pretend. But we have to admit that Gates' performance is also affected by environmental pressure.
I guessed that some people didn't know about the deeds of the boss. Many of Jobs' behaviors can be directly expelled from the company. He and Wozniak founded Apple. The early development work was also done by Wozniak. Jobs was responsible for business, and then took the money and gave the boss a big share or even embezzled it. After Apple became big, Jobs wanted to monopolize the company and not give employees equity. Wozniak took the initiative to give up his equity and give it to everyone, and then quit the company. Wozniak's only request was that the company continue to donate to charity funds. After he left, Jobs specifically ordered to stop the donation. Jobs' mother was a single mother and he was adopted. It stands to reason that no matter how scumbag he is, he should at least have some empathy for his own kind, right? However, Jobs resolutely refused to recognize his eldest daughter Lisa, and went to court to say that he could not have children and his daughter must be someone else's. His girlfriend and daughter could only live on social assistance. The most amazing thing is that he just refused to recognize his daughter, and then named the next generation of Apple computers after his daughter, and said everywhere that it was named after my daughter.
Compared with Gates and Jobs, it is no exaggeration to say that they are morally perfect people.
Chinese people have never experienced any of the above things, let alone the free software movement. In the era of Gates, few people in China could distinguish between hardware and software. Before 2005, the rate of genuine Windows was close to 0%. Now in 2023, most people are not ashamed to use pirated software.
What is more important is the influence of China’s own thoughts.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Chinese society still took the United States as its model. No matter how the upper classes of the two countries fought, the advantages of the US system, technology, and culture were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. As the best example of a country developing through science and technology, Microsoft has a very positive image.
Unlike today’s IT companies, which have become representatives of capitalism and have been criticized, the evil capitalists in the 1990s were still traditional manufacturing companies such as Lockheed, General Motors, and Caterpillar, as well as Walmart and Disney. Small companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo, which started out of garages, were regarded as “warriors challenging the dragon”, and Gates was revered as a leader in the computer age.
Just as the SPACECEX rocket beat Boeing to a pulp and everyone applauded, everyone cheered when Microsoft's market value surpassed GM.
Musk has a bad reputation. The fundamental reason is that China and the United States were at odds during the period when he became famous. His various achievements have proved that China's approach is indeed not working, so of course he will be slandered by a group of trumpets.
And excluding all other factors, Musk's personal morality is really too bad. Don't even compare with Gates, even if compared with Steve Jobs, Musk is really too bad. Of course, he is not completely useless. Steve Jobs' help is to harm others and benefit himself, while Governor Musk often harms others and does not benefit himself. To put it in a good way, it is "taking pleasure in enmity", and to put it in a bad way, it is "lacking a brain".
Take the recent AI controversy for example. Musk called on OPENAI to stop the development of GPT, but OPENAI was founded by him, and the current AI research was also started during his tenure. In 2018, Musk felt that the company was not developing well, and wanted to kick out other partners to lead OPENAI himself. After being rejected, he withdrew his investment in anger. At this time, Microsoft made up for Musk's investment and gave OPENAI the world's fifth largest supercomputer. Finally, GPT4 was completed and achieved great success. Then Musk jumped out to oppose the business he started.
The best ending for Governor Ma was that the "Trident", the ship he was on, was the only one in the Martian immigration fleet that exploded. I deeply mourned this great man, and then made up a joke to make fun of him.
