The 11 Rules of Life attributed to Bill Gates has been circulating for over a decade, but it is a fake inasmuch as those are not Gates' words.
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Analysis: Whether you regard Gates' 11 Rules of Life as a much-needed dose of realism or an unnecessarily vituperative browbeating, the main thing you need to know is that former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates neither wrote those words nor delivered them in a speech to high school students, or anyone else.
I repeat: Bill Gates did not write it or say it.
As frequently happens when texts are repeatedly copied and shared over time, something written by one person has come to be attributed to another. In this case, the displaced text is a pared-down version of an op-ed piece by education reformer Charles J. Sykes, best known as the author of Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves, but Can't Read, Write, or Add. The op-ed was originally published in the San Diego Union-Tribune in September 1996. It began making the email rounds under Bill Gates' name in February 2000, and has continued to do so ever since.
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I'm guessing this false rumor may have been as a result of this cover story in Time which appeared a year before the rumor started:
BTW, the editors at SlashDot were apparently not impressed with Gates' 12 Step program:
Quote:
Gates' "Steps" are true yawners, either so obvious as to be useless, or full of the kind of incomprehensible cyber-jabberwocky news organizations like Time drool over.
Like "Insist that communication flow through e-mail"; "Study Sales Data Online to Share Insights Easily"; and "Use Digital Communication To Redefine the Boundaries."
My personal favorite is: "Transform Every Business Process Into Just-In-Time Delivery." Everybody must realize, Gates cautions, that "if you don't meet customer demands quickly enough, without sacrificing quality, a competitor will.) Talk about vision.
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It's always amusing reading how people react to false quotes/information...
ADG