Markets blanched（失去顏色）when Bill Gates announced last week that he would now spend less time running Microsoft, and more time spending his 50 billion bucks on good causes. Would the world economy collapse？
Gates, still the world's richest man, is simply following what his Dad calls "the curve（曲線）of his biography" and living up to Gates Family Values.
Bill Gates the elder, a retired lawyer, has been running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from its inception（開端，起初）. It was his idea. But at 80 he is getting on a bit to be running what has become the biggest philanthropic（博愛的）operation in the world.
He explained the family creed（信條）when I met him in his Seattle office： "Make the money, yes, but then use it for the common good." It is a patrician（貴族）, Tory "wet" notion of capitalism（資本主義）： grab all the money for yourself, but then spread it around as you see fit.
"We can do things no government can," says Dad. "Rich and poor, we are in this together. Profit（唯利是圖） is a very selfish principle. The question is what you do for the people who do not prosper（興盛、發(fā)財）."
This does not sound much like Bill Gates. Dad admits that he did once fear that his son had fallen for the unmitigated（十足的）ruthlessness（冷酷無情） of a new generation which grabs without giving. "There have been changes in the national psyche（精神）, and they are not for the good," he says.
But now young Gates realises that he can be bigger than mere（只是） business. With his plan to transform "world health within a generation", he will be the tycoon to out-perform（表現(xiàn)出色）the UN. Dad is delighted（高興的）.
Note：
微軟宣布，從2008年7月開始，董事會主席比爾·蓋茨將不再負(fù)責(zé)公司的日常管理，而把更多時間用于比爾及美琳達(dá)·蓋茨基金會的全球健康和教育工作。
Gates, still the world's richest man, is simply following what his Dad calls "the curve（曲線）of his biography" and living up to Gates Family Values.
Bill Gates the elder, a retired lawyer, has been running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from its inception（開端，起初）. It was his idea. But at 80 he is getting on a bit to be running what has become the biggest philanthropic（博愛的）operation in the world.
He explained the family creed（信條）when I met him in his Seattle office： "Make the money, yes, but then use it for the common good." It is a patrician（貴族）, Tory "wet" notion of capitalism（資本主義）： grab all the money for yourself, but then spread it around as you see fit.
"We can do things no government can," says Dad. "Rich and poor, we are in this together. Profit（唯利是圖） is a very selfish principle. The question is what you do for the people who do not prosper（興盛、發(fā)財）."
This does not sound much like Bill Gates. Dad admits that he did once fear that his son had fallen for the unmitigated（十足的）ruthlessness（冷酷無情） of a new generation which grabs without giving. "There have been changes in the national psyche（精神）, and they are not for the good," he says.
But now young Gates realises that he can be bigger than mere（只是） business. With his plan to transform "world health within a generation", he will be the tycoon to out-perform（表現(xiàn)出色）the UN. Dad is delighted（高興的）.
Note：
微軟宣布，從2008年7月開始，董事會主席比爾·蓋茨將不再負(fù)責(zé)公司的日常管理，而把更多時間用于比爾及美琳達(dá)·蓋茨基金會的全球健康和教育工作。