I’m a hacker. Hacking is my raison d’etre you might say. I come from the open source community side, so it’s no surprise that my view of Bill Gates has never been that rosy.

I watched Bill’s presentation from CES today. I thought it was a bit dull, nothing revolutionary there, but then it is a consumer crowd, rather than technologists so that’s fair enough I guess.

But as I watched something strange happened. I had been reading yesterday about the Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation’s support for the “14 big health issues.” As I watched him I thought about who this super rich man was, I noticed he was wearing quite a nice shirt. Age has improved his appearance vastly. I’m a bit of a nervous presenter, so whenever I watch a smooth presentation I’m always jealous. Then I realised that I have begun to respect Bill Gates.

Shock! Horror! I have friends (who may even comment) how out of sorts this is. It’s quite revolutionary. The key of course is that this respect isn’t for a fellow technologist, but for a businessman.

Of course, I was a young fool to be so dogmatic and blinkered in my unkindness towards Mr Gates, but at least I’m starting to see more of the bigger picture.