Bill Gates — Things to Think About

For high school and college graduates, here is a list of 11 things they did not learn in school.  In his book, Bill Gates talks about how feel-good, politically-correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.  You may want to share this list with some you know.

RULE 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.

RULE 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem.  The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.  He doesn't have tenure.

RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.

RULE 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now.  They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rainforest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters.  You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10: Television is NOT real life.  In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. The answer to the eternal question "Is it better to be a jock or a nerd?"

Consider the following: Michael Jordan makes over $300,000 a game.

That equals $10,000 a minute, at an average of 30 minutes per game. With $40 million in endorsements, he made $178,100 a day, working or not. If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 everynight while visions of sugarplums dance in his head. If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there.  If he decides to have a 5-minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it. He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage.  He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends. If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000), it would take him a whole 12 hours. If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.  He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round.

Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), he will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st. If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year. He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100-meter dash in the Olympics. He'll make about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.  While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600. In his last year, he made more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined. However, if Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 250 years, he'll still have less money than Bill Gates has today

Game over.  Nerd wins.

And more importantly, how many people does Micheal Jordan employ compared to Bill Gates?

How many jobs opportunities new businesses did Jordan create compated to Gates?

Do computers in schools teach more children an essential skill for the future or does watching a basketball game?

Once again, nerd wins!