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What's right with young people today

BILL GATES

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 11:53 AM EST 07/04/08

They're less experienced, and usually possess less knowledge than their elders. Yet, throughout generations, young people continually develop ideas and problem-solving techniques that shape the world. We must work to ensure that this trend continues ...Read the full article

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  1. R Wolovet from United States writes: Bill Gates is right about the lack of math and science study in the schools. In the U.S. most science professors are not American either. I believe that the reason is that financial rewards are skewed. Compare the earnings of movie or recording stars, professional basketball or football players, or lawyers and financiers with those of scientists or engineers. The result is for those going to colleges and universities, more will choose law or finance than math or science.

    A friend of mine who was a physicist with patents to his name went to law school at night at the age of 40, became a partner in a law firm and earns multiples of his former salary. Not many will be Gates, Bryn, etc., and the math, science and engineering are considered more difficult courses of study. That is why the U.S. has a special immigration provision to let science talent in.
  2. Cynthia C from Canada writes: Maths and sciences are important, sure, but the arts are equally so. It's very sad that many young people today know nothing of composers from previous centuries, or even groan when they hear a symphony. To many young people, music isn't really music unless they hear it on the radio stations THEY listen to. I'd say the same thing about writers, historical and geographic fact. Aren't people who study the liberal arts creative too? I also think many older people aren't taking younger people seriously. I've sent many media releases regarding the two blogs (Prospere Magazine at http://www.prospere-magazine.com and Shorty Stories at http://www.shorty-stories.com ) I update most frequently out to places like the Globe and other media outlets, yet I've never really heard back from anyone. Maybe it's the older generation who have issues with us?
  3. All About The Money from Canada writes: I disagree with Gates. I find young people have no ability to think for themselves - even after a university education that is supposed to teach exactly that.

    Their thinking is controlled by the received wisdom and by advertising and by their peer group. Their attention to manon at such a tender age is also concerning. What will they be like when they own assets to be protected?

    No only do they not think for themselves, they apply group-think control methods to drown out those people who do. The web has not increased public discourse ... it has allowed people to congregate with others who have their same opinion.

    They do not know how to argue a point of view. They think everything is subjective - there are no facts - therefore everyone is correct.
  4. Kiki Riki from Toronto, Canada writes: Is this all he has to say to young people today? I struggle to see this guy as a significant influence despite all his money... His idea, his message... there is nothing unique here. His organization is a big part of the comercialized world that's making young people braindead. Just turn on the TV...
  5. Cynthia C from Toronto, Canada writes: Kiki, computers don't have to make kids brain dead. Kids just choose to use programs that make them that way. When I was eight, my parents got the family our first PC. It was a 640K DOS machine and was probably close to top-of-the-line back in 1987. Four years later, Mom and Dad got a CD-ROM. The CDs we had for it included one related to health, another one from TIME Magazine and also an encyclopedia (and either the TIME CD or the encyclopedia had audioclips that included JFK's inaugural address and MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech. I spent HOURS reading articles from those CDs. We were also one of the first households to go online. While I didn't have full Internet access in 1993, I was able to dial into the North York Public Library's catalogue system to see if books I wanted were available.
  6. Leaving Sooon from Canada writes: What would truly be powerful now is to combine the sciences with the arts -- geomatics, remote sensing and geophysical methods applied to anthropology, fisheries science with social policy, environmental law, music therapy, etc.

    The "arts" are extremely important as are the sciences (which we forget are not just math and computers!). And this is from a scientist! It is not the science of climate change that is now blocking our implementation of change, it is political science, history, sociology, diplomacy, and geography.

    I do not agree with Gates where he says that school should train more for the business world. This is not where the creativity and thinking outside the box ideas he espouses are normally encouraged. Universities are for education, not training.
  7. Cynthia C from Toronto, Canada writes: Leaving Sooon,

    That would be amazing, to combine arts and sciences. Women seem to dominate the social sciences/liberal arts in undergraduate studies in universities, while it's the men who're in the sciences. If you combine the two.....easily 50-50.
  8. Orest Zarowsky from Toronto, Canada writes: A famous quote comes to mind: "Who would ever need more than 640 KB of RAM?" - William Gates. The latest version of his company's OS absolutely requires a MINIMUM of 4 GigaBytes of RAM to run at an acceptable performance level. As for the examples of young innovators he cites, every single one of them is one of the 0.0001 percenters. Most of the young people today are doing very well if they get into the top 70%. And it has nothing to do with raw ability. It has everything to do with attitude and an incredible degree of self-absorbtion. I have worked with and mentored a fairly large number of these kids. Some at work, some through scouting. I don't need all the fingers of both my hands to total up the really outstanding ones. Out of the several hundreds I have worked with. What is most striking is the utter lack of interest they have in anything beyond their immediate world, and the rather large chip so many carry on both shoulders.
  9. El Gran Chico from Etobicoke, Canada writes: I think one of the reasons students in the United States and Canada aren't studying things like computer science is that so many jobs have been outsourced to India and China. Is there a future in IT here? And what will IT salaries look like here in 10 years?

    And alot of the jobs that remain here mean sitting in a cubicle writing code and being managed by someone you doesn't know half as much about the technology as you do. Not very fulfilling.

    Back when I started in IT in the 1980s, IT workers were treated like professionals. Now we are just labourers whose cost needs to be minimized.

    Perhaps it's not like that at Microsoft, but it is at alot of places these days.
  10. W. L. from North Vancouver, Canada writes: Of course we can use young people to solve the world's problems. Put two teddy bears in front of a class of grade 2's and tell them they are fighting (at war) with each other. Ask the class how we can get them to stop fighting.

    Send their replies to Harper and Bush and voila world peace!
  11. Sunny Gandhi from Baroda, India writes: Ya, Mr.Bill is right but still the probs are here for this thinking, today i have seen that so many young peoples have much to do but they dont have the environment...as i am doing job at my org.....But what the platform we get and what we want is differ..Plus Every Big Man i the world is telling we should do so and so for the young to encourage...but No body is doing so..
    Even if u ask to any person in the world no body is without dream and effort BUt still they have not been successfull bcoz of the abcence platform and money. So any one say that if he want to do for young... Just do..it not talk about it......Because to say and to do is diff......
    Old one always says.
    But Young one has to do it and they just do it.But name is givento Old one.
  12. Syed Abbas from Canada writes:

    R Wolovet: Greetings.

    Increasing tendency to go after law school or business and not after science and math indicates a change of the planning horizon, from longer to the shorter.

    Yes, you can make quick bucks by becoming a lawyer or a financial analyst. You can start printing money within 10 years.

    The payoff in science and math comes much later requiring patience, but it is more stable and many orders of magnitude higher.

    Can you name me a lawyer (or an MD or a financial analyst) who is worth over $50 billion?
  13. RD Lone from Vancouver, Canada writes: @ Syed Abbas: your argument is flawed as you are trying to use the couple people over $50 billion (such as mr gates) to support your argument. On the flipside, can you name a phd math or sciences grad who has over $50 billion?

    I agree with the premise that the really big money comes from being an entrepreneur, and that often people with in-depth knowledge of specific industries tend to be more successful playing this role. However, for every billionaire entrepreneur there are thousands in the poor house. Being an entrepreneur is not "stable" - I find your assertion that lawyers have a less steady income laughable at best.
  14. Sam Snead from Canada writes: Gates is right on the importance of technology. Technology is the biggest change factor in any society.

    Arts vs Science ... pass.

    The problem we are seeing is technology just doesn't pay the bills, lately. If you're capable in the tech arena, you can also use that ability to pursue more monetary rewarding jobs.

    For whatever reason, society at large doesn't view technology with the same value as in the recent past. Maybe it's because it has advanced so quickly, the perceived need is less.

    For instance there are emergency room doctors (sometimes) that are only paid 150/hr. Whereas lawyers are hard to find for 300/hr.

    But what Gates is addressing isn't as grandiose as to require philosophers to ponder. He is simply trying to get people back into Tech after they were scared silly by outsourcing.

    Would you put in 4-7 yrs hard education into a hard field, for about 80K/yr after 15 yrs experience? Nope wouldn't think so ... make more money driving a truck or plumber or welder or a bunch of other stuff. Yes, chasing tech is about pursuing interests but right now it is best left as a hobby.
  15. Web Developer from New York, United States writes: The premise of the article is missed in these comments... It states that YOUNG persons are best for this work and, to tell you the truth, from what I've experienced with the "young" in my nation -- we are screwed. This is probably the most self-centered, shallow, impatient and inconsiderate generation yet.

    As I write this, the kid above me is pounding his feet as he walks around his apartment. He's been asked to stop. His reply to the management here? "No one has ever complained before, why should I?".. This is the first generation of kids that were raised by frooty moms and dads who refused to say "NO" to them. Now look what we have. You can see them driving recklessly around as they do. You can see them slipping through the day - waiting until 5pm as they do. And you can see them partying it up, buying things they cant afford and driving cars their parents still cant afford (but have the brains not to buy them at least).

    We're screwed folks.. This generation doesnt want math or science, or God forbid - the arts... They want money and they will cheat, lie and steal to get it. They even said so themselves. Read it for yourself:
    http://www.ja.org/about/about_newsitem.asp?StoryID=435

    Or go out in public and interact with them to experience it. Good luck to all of us.
  16. Andrea C from Canada writes: I wish someone had provided better career information to me in the late 80s and early 90s. The reports I had suggested that editors made $40k a year and that engineers and computer programmers made $45k. The chance to do something exciting, like edit a magazine, seemed worth giving up $5k a year. But it turns out that those were just entry-level engineers. The government reports put team leaders, managers and so on in another category. If I'd known that I'd graduate to earn $24k while my engineer friends got $48k -- and they now earn more than $100k -- I would have made different decisions. I did go back and do another degree that changed my prospects, but I wish I'd done applied sciences as my bachelors. I can always write at night.
  17. William Chan from Canada writes: Bill Gates make cliche points regarding youth and innovation. You need sound fundamentals before you can think out of the box. It really depends on the field you are in. For example, for programming and math some of the people in this field are very young. But when did they start. Maybe when they were 12 or 13 like Bill Gates. So by the time they start their company they already had 7-8 years experience. Sergey Brin and Larry Page had well over 13-14 years coding when they started google. Whereas as a Lawyer or Doctor will only begin his or her career in their mid twenties. Because they only started learning law or medicine in their early twenties. Don't expect them to be brilliant or make earth shattering changes fresh out of school.

    ,
  18. jon smith from Melbourne, Australia writes: I have spent a lifetime of self funded R&D, years researching music technology - clasical/jazz composition and theory and came up with many new things, yet due to poverty of such isolated work I turned skills to computing, got a science degree, and dip in computers and started work as a software engineer. I turned my attention to R&D in a more technical avenue hoping that it can provide $ to continue, and i have a few startling ideas that im pursuing - being able able to incorporate the music research (algorythmicly etc). But as realist i can also say that it ends up being a back yard project, however i do understand that inspiration knows no age or circumstance it is a raw elemental force that comes from the deepest reaches. Discoveries may be created yet never realised beyond thier creator, or perhaps conceived but never realised to conclusion - however this does not make them any less potent, life the way we live it and survival and the choices we make in it is far more important than the outcome of our endevours. You can water one spot all you like hoping to bear life and i bet a flower ends up growing somewhere else 'probably in the doog poo by the fence' all best - John
  19. E. Biggs from Canada writes: Kids are what we make them. I have friends at both ends of the spectrum. The kids of some of my friends have no interest in anything other than the hip hop scene and hanging with their friends and sports. I look at the kids then look at the parents who go to work hang with friends and do and talk the sports bit.

    I have friends who are interested in a variety of things repair motors, financial world and the aviation world. They bring their kids into most everything they do and have a good time doing it and their kids are straight A students and are as smart as a tack. One 11 year old son of a friend in the latter group sat and explained to me the difference between a lycoming and continental aircraft engine. Utterly amazing, but the father involved him early in this sort of thing.
  20. E. Biggs from Canada writes: I am told that India graduates approx 70,000 engineers a year and many of them are from familes who are not wealthy.

    These kids are taught to have a desire to excel and get ahead, then you wonder why our high tech stuff is going to India and we are outsourcing to them. Yup they get paid less than here but are catching up fast.

    Why are we so lazy and stupid that we cannot learn from them.

    If they are the immigrants that we are bringing into the country then
    I hope the entire country is speaking Hindi or whatever. You snooze you lose.

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