Bill Gates: philanthropist, nerd, beer baron
CarlosSlim posts
Carlos Slim to hook Mexico up with 'millions' of laptops
Carlos Slim, who is (debatably) the richest man on the face of the planet, has recently pledged to do some good with all that fundage, and we'd say that donating "250,000 low-cost laptops to children by the end of the year and as many as one million in 2008" is a fine start. Noting "digital education" as the key for turning much of Mexico around, he is aiming to "initially put the laptops in libraries and schools" and hand them out to students afterwards. Moreover, he suggested that his company (Telmex) would be there to help set up wireless networks for the machines to connect to, and as if these plans were enormous enough, he's also looking to establish "early stimulation" preschools within four years to give "poor children training at a young age in math, language, and computers."[Via Wired]
Carlos Slim edges out Bill "Fatty Fat Fat" Gates as world's richest person
It was probably inevitable, with Bill Gates handing out his cash right and left, and Microsoft's stock in pretty much a holding pattern for most of the 2000's, but it's still sad to see our man Bill get knocked off the top spot on the "world's richest" list. His replacement is no stranger to tech though, Carlos Slim built his fortune in the Mexican telecom biz, and has amassed an estimated net worth of $67.8 billion, thanks to a surge in the shares of America Movil. Slim's fortune represents 8% of Mexico's gross domestic product, and whatever he lacks in geek cred he more than makes up on the streets with that entirely gangster name of his.[Thanks, Emiliano M]
