Gates opening

Net Results:With midsummer this year touted as the point of his retirement (or is that semi-retirement?), Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates has been doing a sort of victory lap of keynote speeches, writes  Karlin Lillington.

Gates always does the main keynote in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, and he generally speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos. But people listened to those speeches in a different way this year because they were swansongs for a particular kind of role and profile he has had for a long, long time.

Yes, after July 2008 he will still be among the world's wealthiest men and will also have the world's wealthiest foundation - the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation has some $38 billion (€25.7 billion) in assets, with about that amount again to come in over multiple years thanks to a 2006 incremental donation of Berkshire Hathaway shares from Warren Buffett.

But he won't have the pivotal role he currently retains as Microsoft chairman and key visionary, despite stepping down as chief executive a few years ago.

After July, his speeches will be more the utterances of a globetrotting statesman for charity than "state of Microsoft" addresses. Even in the less business-focused role Gates has now as "chief software architect" and chairman, any Gates speech is picked over for indications of the direction the software giant is going to take next.

That's what made his Davos speech particularly interesting. Gates has begun to use public opportunities to address global health and education issues - areas more germane to his foundation - rather than to speak about Microsoft.

At Davos he advocated "creative capitalism", arguing that businesses should step in and work with governments and organisations in impoverished areas to eradicate disease and poverty.

"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well. I like to call this idea creative capitalism," he said.

The basic idea is to harness self-interest - the driving force of capitalism - so that it motivates business to bring benefits to the poor, while

also benefiting those with the cash.

This is not a new idea. Four years ago, Salesforce.com's chief executive, Marc Benioff, co-wrote Compassionate Capitalism: How Corporations Can Make Doing Good an Integral Part of Doing Well along pretty much the same lines, but applied also to local communities.

But Gates, with his foundation, can set examples and create motivational forces to get companies to think in new ways, though he primarily calls upon governments to create the tax and incentives climate that would encourage businesses to do good.

One can certainly view such a call with scepticism. After all, it took Gates a long time to use some of his own vast wealth for charitable causes and a long time to set up the Gates foundation. And why should governments create incentives to further benefit already wealthy corporations? Why not have the governments give that money directly in aid?

On the latter issue, I'm not all that sure that direct aid is the best way to benefit the needy. We all hear the stories of aid vanishing into the pockets of bureaucrats and oily officials and never reaching those who were supposed to be helped.

Under new oversight legislation that scrutinises corporate accounts, I think I'd have greater confidence that more might be done, with accountability, through capitalist muscle.

I've been critical of Gates in the past (as well as of the general tight-fistedness of the technology industry as a whole when it comes to charitable giving), but the man is clearly passionate about the causes he now advocates.

I admire how he and Melinda are steering the Gates foundation, and the fact that they have committed vast sums to great and unsexy problems: eradicating malaria ($7.8 billion so far) and tuberculosis ($900 million by 2015).

Gates is relatively young. He remains a powerful figure and, though he is wealthy enough to retire to a cocooned life, he's chosen to tackle big, ugly issues, and to do so on the ground. It's not the retirement most would choose. Fair play, Bill.

Blog: www.techno-culture.com