My Dinner With Bill (Gates, That is)

“No, it wasn’t exactly My Dinner with Andre—the
classic 1981 filmed conversation between Wallace Shaun and Andre
Gregory (directed by Louis Malle) that ranged across a diversity of
existential topics—but listening to Bill Gates hold forth on
matters of business, economics, finance, world health, education,
and nutrition and physical fitness in a dinner arranged by John
Brockman’s Edge.org during last week’s TED gathering in
Long Beach was a memorable experience nonetheless.

“Richard Dawkins once said that John Brockman has the most
stellar rolodex in all of science, and periodically Brockman
organizes an Edge.org event that brings them all together for some
serious dialogue about the great issues of our time. There were
around 80 people in all, which soon broke up into small groups of
schmoozing and social networking. Check out the roster and
accompanying photos.

“When it was time to sit down for dinner there was a spot open
at the Gates table (we’ll call it), that included some
heavyweights such as Facebook’s Dave Morin, the Segway
inventor Dean Kamen, the actor John Cusack, Jared Cohen from the
U.S. State Department, Michael Tchao, VP of Apple’s new iPad
division, Arianna Huffington of HuffingtonPost, Bill Gates, and
your humble servant.”
Some Billg worship for your amusement– ed.

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