Neowin.net has posted Bill Gates’ e-mail to employees. While he writes a bunch of non-interesting stuff, one thing he did say was that Microsoft has doubled revenues in six years and generated over a billion dollars in profit every month.
IN PROFIT!!!!
EVERY MONTH!!!
That’s just damn ridiculous.
No wonder the man is retiring to work full-time for his charitable foundation. I don’t know how a person could go to bed at night knowing that his private corporation is generating that much money only to sit on it as a war-chest for the moment they decide to buy, I don’t know, Milton Berle’s joke file.
Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s fantastic what Mr. Gates and his wife are doing with their foundation. In 2005 alone, the Gates Foundation awarded almost $850 million in healthcare grants and almost $290 million in education grants. If you look at their financials from their annual report, you’ll see that the foundation has donated over $2.5 billion in the last two years. That’s just amazing. And Bill and Melinda Gates deserve all the kudos our society can offer.
But…
A billion dollars in profit every month? That’s not operating expenses such as salaries, benefits, and research and development expenses. That’s profit. Profit is given to shareholders, most of whom, I suspect, buy big houses with them. Though sometimes they donate to politicians…from both sides of the aisle.
Imagine for a moment that Microsoft decided to keep its business as is, except that it would go non-profit. It would pledge to donate all that EXTRA money to society, and not in some “We are the ones with the money so we will decide how it is spent” kind of way, but rather, in some sort of democratic way. MoveOn.org, for example, just held a vote among its members to decide where to focus its efforts this election season. Imagine if Microsoft held a vote every month, a vote that was open to the whole world (since they are a global company), and said, “Okay world, you decide where we spend our $1 billion this month.” Imagine how much good they could do.
And on top of that, imagine how many people would start supporting Microsoft even more conscientiously. If every extra dollar spent on a Microsoft product was being donated to serve the common good (ala Newman’s Own), much more money could be raised. Instead of everyone worrying about Microsoft’s “evil empire,” people would realize that buying into Microsoft is actually buying into a better future.
I know. This is all pie in the sky. But…
A billion dollars in profit every month!!!
Imagine what could be accomplished.
5 Comments
I’ve also read somewhere (can’t cite the source at the moment, so take this with a grain of salt) that Gates has been a huge funding supplier for the Discovery Institute, which is the bankroll behind the “Intelligent Design” hoopla. In which case, the MS “better future” might look like some strange amalgamation of medieval metaphysics and techno-progress. Maybe they could write glitchy software for that old deus ex machina thing.
Kyle the gates foundation is a charitable foundation meaning that its net worth is pretty much all for charity. That is something like 26 billion dollars, all for charity.
I don’t know about that, Justin. I mean, it looks like they spend $92 million on program and administrative expenses, so not all the money goes to charity.
But that’s beside the point, which is that the Microsoft Corporation makes over $1 billion in profit every month. And if Microsoft were to copy Newman’s Own and donate that to various charities, good things may happen.
Which brings me to Wyatt. The chance that they’d donate to stupid-ass shit is why I suggested a worldwide vote. Of course, the danger there is that we’d end up donating a billion dollars to Brangelina’s new baby, but hey, even those born with golden genes are gonna have some suffering too, right?
92 million out of a 26 billion seems about right for expenses. Newmans own is set up like a charitable foundation, microsoft is not. Why should a business, a public owned business, give profits to charity when their owner already gives more then most countries do. This is also what the gates have donated I wouldn’t be surprised if microsoft, as a company, donates money.
take a look to see if microsoft created the ipod.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=36099539665548298&q=microsoft+ipod
also, and adam would have to confirm this, but (gross profit) profit is what is made before you subtract operating expenses. At least that is what I learned at NSCC.lol
Sales (revenue) - the cost of goods sold (cost of producing or aquiring product or services to be sold)= profit
Profit - operating expenses (marketing,administative expenses ect)=operating income
then you have taxes and intrest expenses on borrowed money (if there is any in this case) when you take that out you get the net income
my point is that profit does not equal net income. I doubt they offer too many business classes up there but that is what I learned down here. Either way they make a lot of money but profit is before the operating expences not after.