I hatez microsloth. In only a way a programmer can hate code.
The microsloth way of doing things is permeated throughout the entire electronics sector. What they are doing is criminal. Leaving doors (attack vectors) blatantly open for krackers to use. It is so bad that stupidity cannot account for what was done.
And yes, I know many people that look up to gates. They see no wrong in what he has done, although the trail of destruction is quite obvious. What he did to the program industry. What he has done with vaccines. Ugh, It is so much easier to believe he was born a rots-child and bought his way into the computer industry.
However, I know a lot of people that actually know him. And they all say he is very smart. So, that really leaves out all the "oops" arguments.
Oh absolutely, he is not dumb - he has several doctorates from a Swedish university that revolve around AI and cybernetics - if I recall correctly.
So yes, we always enter into investigations of this kind with suspicions of either 'stupidity' or 'evil' and so the balance is tipped towards evil here. The only caveat is that I know that denial is at the root of both stupidity and evil, with many who are in great denial no longer understanding their own predicament. Super wealthy are typically surrounded by sycophants who will never challenge them, so their denial goes all the more unnoticed. I don't have absolute proof of pre-meditative evil on the part of Gates - but I don't need that to know what the fruits of his actions are.
On that note though, there was the case of one of his own 'personal engineers' who lived at his house being arrested for child porn trading.
"Super wealthy are typically surrounded by sycophants who will never challenge them.." Our neo liberal capitalist system turns out to be the perfect habitat for psychopaths and sociopaths... So the top of the international business world has about 8 times as many psychopaths and sociopaths than the average. The psychopaths can't help themselves and a sociopath emulates the psychopath because of success...