-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
<A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A>
-----
Gates vs. Jobs
Machiavellian Super-Nerds Eat Silicon Valley
Computer geek chic
THE richest man in the world is finding out the hard way that money
can't buy you love - or even good publicity. Already tarnished from the
Microsoft anti-trust trial, Bill Gates, 42, is soon to be portrayed to
the world as a charmless opportunist who founded his immense empire on
the deal of the century.
The Pirates of Silicon Valley, an exhaustively researched TV drama due
to air next month, paints Gates as a Machiavellian and scheming
super-nerd. But for a single moment of "inspiration", he might have sunk
into the comfortable obscurity enjoyed by his father, a wealthy merchant
banker, the movie alleges.
It alleges that soon after forming Microsoft as a Harvard drop-out in
1975, Gates and his partner Paul Allen opportunistically built upon the
software of a rival company to produce the DOS computer operating
system. This was the foundation of Gates's estimated $80 billion fortune
when IBM licensed it as the software to run the first-ever affordable
mass computer. Soon DOS was transformed into the standard of the
computer industry. Receiving a handsome cut on every PC sold, Microsoft
was on its inevitable way to becoming the most powerful company of the
information age.
Microsoft officers who have examined the movie dismiss it as
"historically and factually incorrect". They say that Gates is unlikely
to seek an injunction against the screening or to sue for libel for fear
of bestowing legitimacy on what they regard as an "insignificant TV
movie". They also fear a further backlash in public opinion if Gates is
seen using his wealth to keep critics quiet.
But Gates-baiting is nothing new. He has long been reviled in Silicon
Valley, where Microsoft is called the "Evil Empire" and its Windows
system, though dominant in the computer market, is dismissed as
unreliable, inelegant, expensive and inferior. The trial deepened the
anti-Microsoft sentiment by revealing the predatory and arrogant nature
of Gates' business practice. Even when he embarked on a whirlwind of
chat-show appearances and huge charity donations, many dismissed it as a
blatant and cynical ruse to polish his tarnished image.
But while Gates's steely personality has been exposed in the past by
critical biographers, Pirates of Silicon Valley marks the first time his
dramatised story will be told to an American public hungry for scandal
about the computer titan. Such accounts have been dismissed in the past
as of interest only to hard-core technophiles, but with the rise of what
Entertainment Weekly called "computer geek chic", Pirates is assured an
audience of millions.
Sociologists say the cultural ground shift is largely the result of the
huge amounts of money that have been made in the computer revolution.
They also say that, with computers now present in more than half of all
US homes, America appears to have found itself in a love-hate
relationship with geeks and the technology they invented. While Gates is
resented by many for his alleged monopolistic practices, he is also
admired for having built up the world's biggest fortune and played such
a leading role in the popularisation of the computer.
Other hi-tech tycoons have also become objects of such wonder, emulation
and envy in American culture that academics identify them as a genuinely
new cultural icon. "The hi-tech entrepreneur is the new cowboy," says
Todd Gitlin, professor of culture, journalism and sociology at of New
York University. "He's a loner, admired as someone who makes something
happen. These folks are conceptualised as lone rangers. They're
pioneers."
But these moguls should be aware that such exalted status may prove to
be fragile and temporary. Should, as most experts predict, the
technology-hyped stock market crash, or technology appear to run out of
control, these modern-day moguls could experience a public backlash even
more ferocious than the one the transformed the financiers of Wall
Street in the 1980s from masters of the universe to blood-sucking
corporate leeches. "They will be recast from hi-tech heroes to the
villains behind the greatest ills of society," says psychologist Tony
Hoffman. "All society's traditional distrust of science will come
pouring back."
They will find plenty of ammo in Pirates. The movie is already creating
a buzz with its breathless exhortation to "see how two 20-year-old kids
stole a multibillion-dollar industry from America's corporate giants".
It proceeds to tell how the young Gates battled his great rival Steve
Jobs of Apple to shape and dominate the future of computers.
Gates is portrayed more like a Sicilian gangster than an entrepreneur.
He even utters a classic Mafia credo: "Keep your friends close and your
enemies closer."
As a 12-year-old Gates tells his psychologist that his idol is Napoleon.
A few years later, he is a power-mad teenager, speeding his open-top
Porsche through a New Mexico desert singing Frank Sinatra's My Way at
the top of his lungs. Played by Anthony Michael Hall, of The Breakfast
Club fame, the short-sighted Gates falls over himself in classic nerd
style when he tries to chat up women at a roller rink. Elsewhere, he
bulldozes his partner's car in a fit of anger. He is constantly scheming
and manipulating in order to keep his empire ahead of hungry Microsoft
wannabes.
If Gates is the geek with the dollar signs in his eyes, his nemesis is
Jobs, Silicon Valley's first celebrity. Combining good looks and genius,
Jobs is portrayed as an inspired hippie whose vision of the computer had
as much to do with fiery beliefs as commercial motives. Played by ER
hunk Noah Wyle, Jobs draws inspiration from the famous Xerox Parc
research lab for devices such as the point-and-click mouse, which formed
the core of Apple's user-friendly products. He patrols Apple's corridors
barefoot and in tie-dyed T-shirts, and drives his workers into the
ground to come up with a winning machine.
Such tales of drama and eccentricity seem to be flavour of the month in
Hollywood movie factories. Tom Hanks plays a battling computer supremo
in Paramount's $20 billion; renowned director Robert Altman is teaming
up with Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau for a Silicon Valley satire
named Killer App - computer-speak for a program application that wipes
the floor with the competition; and sultry actress Carmen Electra stars
in Hyperion Bay, a steamy soap-opera about a software company startup.
You've Got Mail featured email bringing Hanks and Meg Ryan together, and
in Office Space it is the resident company geek who lands the heart of
the beautiful Friends star, Jennifer Aniston.
The big publishing houses are paying big bucks for Silicon Valley
opuses. Best-selling authors Michael Lewis and John Heilemann have both
received seven-figure advances. "The digital world is close to a
national obsession," said one publisher. "This was a kind of
no-brainer."
The geeks of Silicon Valley are wallowing in their new celebrity. After
being for decades the brunt of countless bad jokes, they feel they are
getting the last laugh.
"We've got the money, we've got the jobs and we've even got the coolest
girls. Where does that leave the failed football stars from high
school?" gloated independent software engineer Paul Wong. At least he is
enjoying it while he can. "It seems too good to be true," he says.
"Maybe we'll wake up tomorrow and realise it was a dream or a big stock
market bubble that has burst."
The London Telegraph, July 6, 1999
Gold Market
Don't Crucify Us on a Cross of Gold
20,000 Lodge Protest as BOE Reserve Sale Begins
THE Government has received more than 20,000 protests against its
auction of gold reserves today amid claims that the decision will cause
unemployment in South Africa.
The Bank of England is to auction 25 tonnes of gold today as part of its
plan to reduce Britain's reserves from 715 tonnes to 300 tonnes over the
next few years. The World Gold Council yesterday said more than 20,000
callers had protested against the sale.
Some council mining members also suggested the decision to sell the
reserves, which led to the price of gold falling by almost $30 (�20) an
ounce, could force the closure of mines in South Africa. The price of
gold, which fell from $289.25 before the decision to auction the
reserves, closed at $263.25 yesterday.
The Government is also facing a legal challenge in the High Court from a
jeweller in Southampton, Kim Rose, who is seeking leave for a hearing to
stop further gold reserve sales and an explanation from the Government
for its actions. The hearing is expected to go before the High Court
today.
Mr Rose said the Government was not aware of the action until yesterday
when it was presented with documents from his lawyers. He said: "I
didn't think of doing it until Friday. I thought some bigger government
body would intervene but nobody has done anything about it."
A Treasury spokesman said: 'The Government has adequately explained its
reasons for the sale, which is to re-balance the Bank of England's
portfolio so a great proportion of reserves are held in currency."
Algy Cluff, chief executive of Cluff Mining, said the Government's
actions had put the industry under pressure, as had the International
Monetary Fund's plans to sell up to $2 billion of its gold reserves to
relieve debt in poor countries.
"We [the mining companies] are among the few organisations actively
helping the Third World," said Mr Cluff, who has operations in South
Africa, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso. "They're talking about kicking away
the important prop that's holding up the mining sector and that's the
gold price," he added.
The Bank of England declined to comment.
Michel Camdessus, managing director of the IMF, said that the sales
would be made at the right time and at a "reasonable price" so as not to
further depress the gold price.
At least five gold mines in South Africa have proposed sacking 8,000
miners because of lower gold prices.
The London Telegraph, July 6, 1999
Oil Market
Oil Price Hits $18 a Barrel
OPEC has the power
Oil prices soared to an 18-month high of more than $18 a barrel
yesterday, with petroleum company stocks also benefitting from market
optimism.
August Brent blend, the benchmark crude futures contract traded on
London's International Petroleum Exchange, was $18.19 per barrel in late
trading - 53 cents higher than last week's close.
The perception that leading oil producers are restraining production to
limit supply is the main factor driving up prices.
"The surge has been so strong, it's very difficult to see anything that
is going to throw it off course at the moment," one analyst said.
Shares in BP Amoco, the biggest capitalised UK stock, rose almost 4 per
cent yesterday, while Shell was up 2.5 per cent. British Borneo, Lasmo
and Enterprise Oil were also sharply higher, helped by French oil group
TotalFina's bid for rival Elf.
US markets were closed for the Independence Day holiday, but crude
futures in New York have chalked up impressive gains recently.
The New York Mercantile Exchange's August light crude contract closed on
Friday at $19.69 a barrel, its highest since November 1997.
Brent crude has jumped $2 in the past two weeks, and added $7 since the
beginning of the year.
As recently as December, it slumped to a 12-year low of $9.86, on the
back of the Asian crisis, fears about the global supply glut and
producers' apparent unwillingness to cut output.
In March the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) agreed
to shave about 2.3m barrels off daily output. The price immediately rose
but it is only now that it is clear that most of the cuts have been
implemented.
A report from the American Petroleum Institute showed that US crude
stocks had fallen by 488,000 barrels in the week ending June 25, on top
of a similar fall the previous week.
"Opec's action is at last having an impact on inventory levels," another
analyst said. "Sentiment has turned much more positive, and oil prices
are likely to keep going until Opec decide they have gone high enough."
The rises contrast last year's prices, when Brent averaged $12.76 per
barrel and only $11.30 in the first quarter.
Analysts have been surprised by the speed of the market's recovery this
year, though they caution that there is still some way to go for Brent
to equal its 1997 average of $19 a barrel. Many are still forecasting an
average of about $17 for the second half of this year
The Financial Times, July 6, 1999
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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