Google's First Employee Departs 137
redletterdave writes "Craig Silverstein, the first employee hired by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, will leave the search giant for Khan Academy, an online education portal based in Mountain View, Calif. Silverstein had been with Google shortly after it first launched in the garage of Susan Wojcicki, a friend of both Page and Brin, in September 1998. He had helped Brin and Page develop infrastructure when Google was just a Stanford grad school project, but when he officially joined the company, Silverstein became its technology director. The Khan Academy, where Silverstein is heading next, is a not-for-profit organization that aspires to change the education industry by providing free 'world-class education to anyone anywhere.' Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is an enormous fan of the service, telling CNN that he uses it with his kids."
KHAN!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory.
Great run, Craig (Score:5, Insightful)
Craig is good egg who walks the walk. Not hungry for power, glory or money, he already has enough of all that. The original Google do-gooder. I sincerely hope that his shoes do not prove too big to fill.
Re:Great run, Craig (Score:4, Insightful)
Craig is good egg who walks the walk. Not hungry for power, glory or money, he already has enough of all that. The original Google do-gooder. I sincerely hope that his shoes do not prove too big to fill.
He was part of a force that changed the internet. Now's he's joining Kahn to help change the world of education (except now he has a lot more clout and a lot more resources). Let's hope he can have a significant impact.
Re:Great run, Craig (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it is obvious that education at the moment is going through a very creative phase,
a lot of attention is being directed to the distributed model the KHAN academy made
popular; I'm very curious to see how the rise of distributed learning will change the
world of knowledge and accreditation. Could be that the 3k year old paradigm of the
classroom will be obsolete (or dramatically changed) by the end of the decade.
No, doing 3,000 year old schools better (Score:5, Insightful)
People have been trying a half century to properly use television and computers in education. This seems to be one of the better results.
Re:No, doing 3,000 year old schools better (Score:2)
The recent Wired article about Khan Academy [wired.com] makes me think there's a bit more to it than that.
Apparently actual classrooms are using it in an "inverted" model, where students watch the lectures at home and then do work in class. That way the students are already prepared to understand the classroom assignments, and if they need help the teacher is there for them.
Would be interesting to see if this model works for every subject and with every lecturer, or if there's something particularly good about Khan's lessons.
Inverted model worked for 2nd year calculus (Score:2)
Re:No, doing 3,000 year old schools better (Score:2)
Would be interesting to see if this model works for every subject and with every lecturer, or if there's something particularly good about Khan's lessons.
I'd definitely argue that a large portion of the success is due to Khan's teaching ability. There are plenty of other videos on youtube explaining the same concepts, but Khan's are the best I've found.
I think there are several factors that make Khan great at what he's doing. To begin, he's a very smart guy, a MIT grad electrical engineer. While there are plenty of equally intelligent people in the world, not many of them are teaching K-12. On the other hand, he isn't arrogant or condescending, which tends to be off-putting to someone trying to learn something. Instead, he often makes it clear that he doesn't know everything. Then, there is his obvious passion about the subjects. Just watch some of the videos, and it becomes clear he is truly amazed by this stuff. This inspires the person watching to want to understand the material so they can also be amazed. He is also rather amusing, casual, and informal in his presentation, without wasting too much time or coming off as desperate to make the student laugh.
About the style of the videos, 10 minutes works very well. It's just enough time to cover one small concept. Plus it has the huge benefit of the 'just one more' effect. Similar to games that lead to 'just one more turn' and then it's 4am (Civilization), it's much easy to watch just a few more 10 minute videos than to start watching 40 or 60 minute video lectures.
Re:No, doing 3,000 year old schools better (Score:2)
It was the most boring and uninspiring approach to mathematics I'd ever been part of. A class should do the opposite: it should be lively, and bring something new to the kids minds right then and there, to keep them interested and to make them think of the possibilities. At the end, the kid should be energized with new knowledge.
I believe pre-reading material before class is a strategic mistake. It's like reading the end of a mystery novel before the beginning. When you already know who the killer is, the story becomes flat and not very interesting. The same is true if you first read the cool new knowledge in a book chapter before the teacher gives it to you, *again*. It drains a lot of the fun (education-wise) out of the school time. A better system is to read the chapters *after* the class that covered it, if necessary.
Re:Great run, Craig (Score:2)
Khan Academy is a tool of very wealthy people who understand very little about education. It's telling that their leadership is almost exclusively stem types with nary a psychologist in sight. I wish him luck but the education system doesn't need his kind of overhaul in the western world.
Re:Great run, Craig (Score:1)
Re:Great run, Craig (Score:2)
Yeah, all worship must rightfully be directed towards our lord and savior Steve Jobs! Speaking highly of anyone associated with the unholy Competitors is heresy and devil worship!
Or you can just drop the religious shit and accept that the guy did better than most corp employees.
nice! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:2)
If he is the Tech behind Google (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing he has enough money to last him several lifetimes by now. Good to see people that will work for non-profit at that point.
Re:If he is the Tech behind Google (Score:2)
Just because he's going to work for a non-profit orginization doesn't means he wont be handsomely paid. I seriously doubt he'll be making as much at KA as he was at google; but, that doesn't mean he'll work for free.
Sadly, there are far too many non-profit charity orgs that pay their CEOs and upper staff wads of cash - which means very little charity is going around...except, of course, for those upper staff members.
Re:If he is the Tech behind Google (Score:2)
Craig does not need to work.
Re:If he is the Tech behind Google (Score:2)
Craig does not need to work to pay the bills.
That does not mean that he does not need to work.
Most self made men feel a need to work after they have "made it".
It is this drive that makes successful people who they are.
Re:If he is the Tech behind Google (Score:2)
At least in the US, 501c3 organizations (most non-profits) are limited in how much they may pay their employees, including leadership staff.
The CEO of a 501c3 makes considerably less than even low level executives (think junior VP) at a for-profit corp.
I'm sorry I can't quote the numbers for you right now, but a few months ago my brother in law made the same claim you just did, justifying his aversion to charitable giving. My wife pulled out her smartphone and looked up the facts and debunked his claims to his face. It was sweet.
There *is* waste and fraud and incompetence in the non-profit sector, as in any human endeavor, but if you think people work there because it's the easy way to riches, you're fooling yourself. Most of the people I hear making such nonsense claims are rationalizing their own selfishness, or at best lazily repeating the claims of others without giving it any thought or investigation.
Now, go have a nice day. :)
I wonder how much he is worth (Score:2)
Does anyone know?
Education industry (Score:2)
"Change the education industry"? That's a strange choice of words, considering Khan Academy coursework is free and so is K-12 education in America. Should we even be thinking of educating our children as an industry?
Re:Education industry (Score:5, Informative)
Khan Academy doesn't stop at K-12. There's plenty of college level material there.
Re:Education industry (Score:2)
Re:Education industry (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:2)
Free??? (Score:1)
I have property tax bills that say otherwise. K-12 education in America is anything but free.
Like most taxes in America it's unfair, racially biased, and (usually) badly managed.
Just because you don't write a tuition check to the school for K-12 doesn't make it free. It's far from free.
Re:Free??? (Score:5, Insightful)
And your alternative is what?
Don't just complain and whine about unfair taxes, tell me what you would propose that would be better for education. Keep in mind that you have a diverse population of children ranging from very well off to homeless. I would hope you want every child to have some education, because you would believe that an educated nation is a strong nation.
Please, provide a workable plan to educate our youth that does not include some social sharing of cost. Here at /. you'd get some great feed back and perhaps it can be presented to the President for consideration.
Re:Free??? (Score:2)
Real change in education happens best at the local level.
Re:Free??? (Score:5, Insightful)
And please, do not say, "what good did it do?" Compared to 50 or 100 years ago, Americans are far better educated. The decline we perceive is mainly a factor of 1) relative comparisons to the rest of the world and 2) the inclusion of a higher percentage of the population in modern testing. There were no good old days.
Re:Free??? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Don't just complain and whine about unfair taxes, tell me what you would propose that would be better for education. Keep in mind that you have a diverse population of children ranging from very well off to homeless. I would hope you want every child to have some education, because you would believe that an educated nation is a strong nation."
You have the RIGHT to an educaton.
You have the RIGHT to PAY for that education.
You do NOT have the right to free education.
"I would hope you want every child to have some education,"
Sure, BUT you best be prepared to PAY FOR IT! I've heard all this "education nation is a strong nation." Education is good, its just not a free ride that has no cost. Good schools cost $$$$. I went to one of the top 2 HS in my state, and the property taxes for the school were 3-4x that of the neighboring districts. Hiring, your not even in the running unless you had or were in a Masters program. There were more Doctorates teaching everything from Kindergarten to AP Calculus, than most of the surrounding districts had in total COMBINED. Getting a job at this district was like hitting the lotto jackpot, they got the top of the top of the top of the top of teaching canidates be it fresh from school or other districts. and they paid very well, top of the list for the area. People purchased homes in this area, just so they could send their deliquents to this district. And homes were not cheap, and still are not cheap, even for homes 30-40 years old. Simply because of the schools.
Why should *I* pay to educate YOUR CHILD? ? Rule #1, don't tell me about the benefit to soceity mumbo jumbo. You chose to have a child, YOU PAY for their needs, and that includes education! What you want me to pay for your food too! The whole process is totally un-American in the way it taxes everyone child or not, I would expect something like this in some Socialist or Communist country.
Can't afford the tuition to the local district, parochial, or private, then home school.
School districts should work the same as private and parochial. If the budget for the school is $x, and there are y students,then $x/y =$tuition. Period.
What happens when the community has no kids to go to the local district. Shutdown.
What happens as the number children decreases, cuts in staff, pay, building closures, sell buildings, tuition increases. What about sports.. you want to be in x sports, this is the fee, same goes for cheerleaders, pantherettes, majorettes, band, choir, glee club, Key Club, etc..
The area I am talking about, has NO BUSINESS base for taxes, its 95% homes, there are few office building complexes, and a few business that existed before the community plan was changed, there are no business districts. The main road through the area is 4 lanes, major north south artery, and when you get to this community the businesses that lined the road in the previous community, instantly disappear, and don't reappear till you get to the next community. Its done intentionally, by design. Its strictly a residential community.
Having kids has repercussions, and COSTS. None of which should I bear, when I chose not to have kids.
Re:Free??? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can either help pay for the lower classes to be educated, or you can deal with the consequences of having large numbers of uneducated unemployable people, and all the social problems that come with that. Which do you really think is better for you?
I choose not to have kids either. But I understand that I'm going to be a lot better off if the youth I have to deal with in the future are in school and not on the streets. If I send them to school now, I can live off of their tax dollars later. If I don't send them to school now, I'll be paying for their incarceration into the foreseeable future.
Investing in the society in which you live is a rational self-interested decision.
Re:Free??? (Score:3)
It may not be fair that your neighbor has 5 kids, but taking care of that problem as a society is another (complicated) issue. Having the children turn to crime or starve is not an acceptable solution for me. But continuing to allow people to irresponsibly breed is also not working. Parents are now children themselves, and having 2 parents (of any sex) is a luxury most children do not have. Even with 2 parents, many cannot afford to feed the mouths they have created.
Could the government insist that everyone receiving welfare funds be either sterilized or on birth control? That would be a tough fight. Could the government *reduce* funding for each new child rather than increase it? Another tough fight.
I'd love to hear a solution that considers where we are headed and how it can be changed... the current system is broken and rewards those who breed irresponsibly by placing the burden on those of us who are careful and intelligent. The movie "Idiocracy" comes to mind.
Re:Free??? (Score:5, Insightful)
But continuing to allow people to irresponsibly breed is also not working.
The birth rate in most developed countries is decreasing. Not because of any policy mandate, but because the people choose it. We need to figure out what they're doing and copy it.
What they're doing is educating their people, and providing opportunities for them. Educated people have fewer children. Moderately well off people have fewer children.
What we're doing in the US is the exact opposite. We're cutting education, we're expanding economic opportunities for the rich and not the lower classes. And when 30 years of ever increasing inequality bear fruit in social problems, conservatives will blame the very people they refused to help.
Re:Free??? (Score:2)
(Disclaimer, I have no children)
"Why should *I* pay to educate YOUR CHILD? "
Because you don't want my child coming up to you one night and beating the crap out of you for your wallet so he or she can feed their drug habit.
because you don't want my child costing you more when they grow up and continuing the cycle of limited work options due to lack of education.
There are people that exist in this world that do not have money. They cannot afford to pay for private education, they cannot afford to pay for healthcare, they cannot afford to live on the money they receive from their below minimum wage job. What do you do with these people. They exist today. They are right there in the poorest section of a city or town. They live in shacks, tunnels, abandoned homes.
Do you suggest we just let them die? Provide no help, no assistance, just let them starve to death? They exist NOW, today, and they eat, and breath, and live.
Perhaps you suggest we round up the poor, the least able to afford anything and put them in a camp. Who pays for the camp?
Perhaps you suggest we round up the poor, those with no education, because they could not afford it and ship them off to third world hell holes to work as indentured slaves.
Perhaps you feel we should sterilize the poor so they stop having children and stop being a burden on your society.
You seem like one of these people that looks at a homeless person and says "get a job" like they are plentiful and hiring someone who wears a skull cap of tinfoil.
As Hatta comments, you help pay for the poor so you do not deal with them rising up and killing you. To put it another way, the more unbalanced a structure, the easier it is to tear down. That is why I accept paying to educate other people's children even when I have none.
Re:Free??? (Score:3)
You have the RIGHT to an educaton.
You have the RIGHT to PAY for that education.
You do NOT have the right to free education.
Poor people have the right to education. Poor people are not able to pay for education. Therefore, poor people -- at least -- have the right to free education. QED.
Re:Free??? (Score:2)
i would give you 50 examples of varying degrees of workable schools but the DOE kinda screwed that up so we only have once chance of finding the right way of doing something.
Re:Free??? (Score:2)
You're doing the same thing the AC did above. If not a troll, list a few keeping in mind that "Not everyone can afford education without help". Enough of this 'This system suck, there are better ways" without some constructive input.
Re:Free??? (Score:2)
As I said, we only get one example and it is poor. If we could get rid of that we could possibly get many more examples and see which ones work and which ones don't.
Re:Education industry (Score:1)
Should we even be thinking of educating our children as an industry?
K-12 education isn't free - it's taxpayer funded. So yes, it's an industry, but healthcare is probably an even bigger industry.
Re:Education industry (Score:1, Flamebait)
"free and so is K-12 education in America."
Wrong, K-12 education is NOT FREE.
You pay a school district tax of some sort, period. Kids or no kids every one has to unjustly pay for something they get no benefit from, and for those that choose to use private and parochial schools they get the privlege to PAY TWICE. Their school tax and tuition. Should be one or the other.
US education should be soley tuition based. you have a rug rat YOU pay when they sign up, when they graduate HS, you quit paying the school tax.
No need to reply about a how the education system where every one pays benefits soceity as whole, yadda, yadda, yahdda. I've heard this before, disagree. Thanks.
Sending kids to school who don't want to be there and disrupt classes requiring they be separated out, expelled, "alternative schools" is just a waste of money.
Re:Education industry (Score:2)
Free at the point of delivery.
Do you think anyone is so stupid that they need you, of all people, to point out to that it does in fact have to be funded somehow?
Re:Education industry (Score:2)
US education should be soley tuition based.
Please name me one country where this works.
Re:Education industry (Score:2)
Wasn't school education not in the least invented to have standardized workers to use in industry? So no, of course it shouldn't be that way, but maybe that's what it started out as, and is supposed to be, if it wasn't for teachers who genuinely love people and teaching, and pupils who love to be subversive and challenge their teachers. Who knows what we would have without those two factors... probably people with moustaches and top hats implanting steam powered chips into the brains of starving people in blue overalls.
Don't get me wrong though, my kudos to all good teachers, *because* so many teachers suck so very badly, and because the houses they have to work in are basically coated in evil slime (whatever that is lol) more often than not. Have a nice day and never give up.
Slow to Grow? (Score:1)
Re:Slow to Grow? (Score:5, Insightful)
It took him 14 years to find a job he wanted more than the one he had. If only we were all so lucky.
Re:Slow to Grow? (Score:1)
Croesus was the rich one. :-)
Re:Slow to Grow? (Score:2)
Croesus was the rich one. :-)
So true, but I wouldn't venture too far down the "Midas wasn't" alley.
Not a big change in development stack (Score:5, Informative)
The code for Khan Academy uses Google Code and runs on Google App Engine so he should at least have a passing familiarly with the technology stack that his new company uses :-) [google.com]
Source: http://www.brianbondy.com/blog/id/109/ [brianbondy.com]
Key word: with (Score:1)
Khan Academy (Score:2)
The Khan Academy has employees? (Score:1)
I thought it was a one-man show.
Re:The Khan Academy has employees? (Score:2)
It was. Now is a two-man show.
Re:The Khan Academy has employees? (Score:2)
Re:The Khan Academy has employees? (Score:3)
http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team [khanacademy.org]
Brain drain (Score:4, Interesting)
This guy is leaving for a good cause and all, but I've noticed a pattern of Google employees leaving lately. Even newer recruits don't seem to stay long. I wonder if they've taken the fun out of working there? Obviously, something has changed. It can't be the computing problems, because they still have huge challenges.
Begining of the end? (Score:2)
I interviewed with him (Score:4)
I got an interview with Google in 1999, and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Craig. He never mentioned to me that he was the 1st employee at the time.
I do remember what he asked me. I was interviewing for the job of initializing their QA department. He asked me how I would look for problems in an indexer that stored MILLIONS (ha) of pages. I had to ask what exactly an indexer was.
On the way out, I spent too much time flirting with the hot red head they had at the front desk, and Larry walked by and saw what I was doing. I don't think that's why I didn't get the job though.
DAMMMMMNN I wish I got that job!!!!!!!!
Postmodern Philanthropy (Score:2)
Overheard in Eric Schmidt's Office (Score:2)
Authorities were later called to Google HQ to dislodge a chair from the windshield of Sergey Brinn's Ferrari out in the parking lot, and a glass company was immediately called in to repair the window.
Re:Overheard in Eric Schmidt's Office (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2, Interesting)
Netscape search site perhaps.
All the cool kids used Alta Vista.
Now looking for a Google replacement.
If you can tough it out for a bit... My plan is to wait a few more years (for shit to really hit the fan) and then introduce a search engine that's a simple form on a page.
It's going to be huge.
I wish I was being sarcastic. :(
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:5, Funny)
All the cool kids used Alta Vista.
You weren't one of them. We used Asta la Vista [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:3)
Indeed! it used to be great. Before they went all out commercial.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:3, Insightful)
All the cool kids used Alta Vista.
I used to use Alta Vista as my main search engine, back when they supported boolean queries (the "NEAR" keyword!). When they dropped that capability, I abandoned them. Google didn't really become better than Alta Vista. Alta Vista became worse than Google.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
There. Fixed that for you. No, seriously. I'm not kidding.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
I remember when Alta Vista came out with natural language searches. You could ask it What's the name of President Clinton's cat? And it would give you links for where to buy socks.
The thing I remember about alta vista is that when I searched for "UDP proxy", for example, all I got was a hundred pr0n links without a single link to anything actually relating to UDP or proxying. I think it was just about then when I switched to google.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
People have such ridiculously selective memories about Alta Vista. Yes, it was once awesome, but it sucked because it had no search algorithm, it just matched keywords. This worked fine at first, but people (and by people I mean porn sites) pretty quickly learned that all it took to game the system was to put huge blocks of tiny text at the bottom of every page containing every keyword they could think of. Pretty soon, it didn't matter what you searched for, you got back the same 10 porn sites. So yes, Google became better than Alta Vista, because they figured out a system that was at least marginally difficult to game.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Pretty soon, it didn't matter what you searched for, you got back the same 10 porn sites.
You know, I think I only got a porn link from an Alta Vista search if I was explicitly searching for porn. At least, that was in the days when it had boolean search criteria, which I almost always used (e.g. "Fractional NEAR (differintegral OR calculus)"). Maybe it went even further downhill than I thought after they abandoned the boolean query.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
I used to use Alta Vista as my main search engine, back when they supported boolean queries (the "NEAR" keyword!). When they dropped that capability, I abandoned them.
I'd completely forgotten about that, it was quite useful. Are there any modern search engines that support a NEAR-type search parameter?
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
All the cool kids used Alta Vista.
I remember around 1996-1997 when Altavista turned to absolute shit, didn't matter what you searched for, at least half of the top 20 results were porn, porn and more porn.
Of course, that was back in the days when search engines often just assumed that pages were honest about their own content so just having a huge block of keywords in the same color as the page background at the bottom of every page meant you'd show up in searches for those keywords.
When I first heard of the basic idea of how Google's search algorithm worked I was actually a bit surprised, even as a teenager at the time I had kind of assumed every major search engine worked in a similar way. I suspect I was far from alone in that assumption...
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Uh, no.
Search was their first product.
Google Groups was later. End of '01 perhaps?
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
After or as they bought out deja news....
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:1)
Evil compared to what? Mother Theresa and Ghandi perhaps, but compared to Facebook and the worst of the worst that is Microsoft they are still saints.
And you do know that almost every single complaint is filed by Microsoft, either by proxy or in the open as partners against Google? This has even been documented and verifiead as a fact (even by Microsoft) so its no tinfoil crackpot theory.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:4, Interesting)
Evil compared to what? Mother Theresa and Ghandi perhaps, but compared to Facebook and the worst of the worst that is Microsoft they are still saints.
Actually, I'd class Google as a saint compared to Mother Teresa [wikipedia.org], who believed that suffering was good, and ensured it was widespread in her "hospices", and publicly stated that poverty should not be alleviated because it also was a good thing.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
I'd class Google as a saint compared to Mother Teresa, who ...
The new Reverend Dr Hyde I presume.
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:3)
As far as not giving out painkillers in her hospitals, maybe she should have, but I think it's hard to make the case that she was providing something worse than the alternative. I don't think it's fair to say "This person was trying to do something good, but she should have been doing it better, so it's not good."
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates has kids? (Score:2)
Before Google, I used Altavista.
I am afraid that Google is a proof of the axiom that all power corrupts. While not seeing them as totally evil, the fact of being huge and rich has distorted their vision so that they cannot see the dark side of the things that they do, I think they still mean well, they think that they are "doing no evil". But their view is so distorted by the point that they are looking from that they have lost touch with what ordinary people think. They are so intent on open information that they cannot understand why people, quite honourably and innocently, want too keep some information private to themselves.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
Mr GetYourPrioritiesInOrder Esq.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:1)
Actually, most schools do force you. And then the whole lock-in thing.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:3)
Maybe on your planet. On my planet, everyone assumes and uses MS Office files. My battle is down to trying to get people to use 2007 (doc/xls/etc) files, because not all of my computers have new MS Office installed. And even that battle is being lost. I could swear that new PowerPoint purposely makes "compatible" saves bloated and damages things (formulas/animations) in conversion.
I dare you to start responding "I've chosen to use open software" to every MS Office attachment you see in your inbox. See if you can last more than an hour before you are forced to use MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
When they stop you from knowing you have a choice, they stop you from making a choice.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
Nice work, son.
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
Re:Free advice for big fan of free learning! (Score:2)
Dear Mr Gates,
I have noticed how fond you are of the excellent efforts of the Khan Academy to disseminate knowledge to anyone for free.
I'm very excited to have found two more projects that should really be up your alley. You will probably want to donate billions to them right away!
They are very much in line with what the Khan Academy is trying to accomplish, but they are working at another perspective of knowledge.
They are about fascilitating the dissemination, creation and construction of knowledge and information on computing hardware:
http://gnu.org/ [gnu.org]
http://linux.com/ [linux.com]
They are Free and Open instructions for computers (machines to process data with). With these free of cost and Free as in freedom software projects and the excellent efforts of the Khan Academy, all the children of Earth (with access to computing hardware - that is yet another avenue you could look into) can really get a leg up.
Sincerelly,
Dr Pointer-Outer-Of-Obvious-Ironies-Dinkelspiel
Haha, nicely done!
Re:The question is... (Score:2)
VASTLY better than every other damn story featuring a video of Timothy Lord shilling something.
Re:The question is... (Score:2)
When Mercedes Benz designs an S-class with the douche bag VP option, that way the car can do all the douchy things your VP would while you drive to work.
Re:first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:first (Score:1)
Re:first (Score:2)
I can't wait for you to leave slashdot.
Does that mean that you are intent on leaving Slashdot before he leaves?
Re:is this really news? (Score:2)
If I had the $$$$ that I assume this guy must have...I'd have quit a LONG time ago....and spend the rest of my life enjoying my money...traveling the world, bedding new babes, basically one long party the rest of my life.
But, I guess to each his own...everyone has something different that makes them happy. Whatever it is...DO IT...life on this planet is short, make sure you have no regrets on your deathbed.
Re:is this really news? (Score:2)
He's a better man than I am I guess.
If I had the $$$$ that I assume this guy must have...I'd have quit a LONG time ago....and spend the rest of my life enjoying my money...traveling the world, bedding new babes, basically one long party the rest of my life.
But, I guess to each his own...everyone has something different that makes them happy. Whatever it is...DO IT...life on this planet is short, make sure you have no regrets on your deathbed.
Who says he isn't enjoying his money and bedding "new babes"? Nothing whatsoever in working a job, even as a hobby of sorts, precludes someone from having an active sex life.
I got a HUGE settlement when I was 18 and spent some years doing exactly what you said. While it's fun for a while, eventually you get bored and need more than that. Finding what it is that fulfills you can be difficult but for this guy, it seems helping get decent education to others is part of it. I found mine and he found his. That's truly the power of money; it allows you to more easily find that which you desire most to accomplish.
Re:is this really news? (Score:2)
As Somerset Maugham said:
"Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five."