Let them eat brioche...
Quoth Bill Gates, dismissing MIT's proposed $100 computer for the world's poor: "Geez, get a better computer".
Obviously, there is no room for a $150 Windows XP license in a $100 computer, nor even for the probably $30 or so Microsoft charges its favored OEM vendors like Dell, hence Gates' spite. But his response also has shades of Marie-Antoinette, who, when informed the people were rioting as they could not afford bread, supposedly dismissed them by saying "Let them eat brioche, then" (not cake, as it is often mistranslated into English).
From our comfortably satiated 21st century vantage, this reply is often perceived as a sign of cluelessness, whereas at the time, it was understood, probably rightly, as a calculated insult and a sign of callous disdain for the plight of the poor. Naturally, this enraged the people and it is fair to say she was hated far more than her affable husband, King Lousi XVI. The quote is apocryphal, by the way, and may well have been planted by her enemies, but suspicious as the French were of "L'Autrichienne", they may well have believed the worst coming from her.
If Mr. Gates does not want his head figuratively handed to him on a silver platter (unlike Marie-Antoinette, in whose case it was all too literal), he had better watch what he says in public.
Obviously, there is no room for a $150 Windows XP license in a $100 computer, nor even for the probably $30 or so Microsoft charges its favored OEM vendors like Dell, hence Gates' spite. But his response also has shades of Marie-Antoinette, who, when informed the people were rioting as they could not afford bread, supposedly dismissed them by saying "Let them eat brioche, then" (not cake, as it is often mistranslated into English).
From our comfortably satiated 21st century vantage, this reply is often perceived as a sign of cluelessness, whereas at the time, it was understood, probably rightly, as a calculated insult and a sign of callous disdain for the plight of the poor. Naturally, this enraged the people and it is fair to say she was hated far more than her affable husband, King Lousi XVI. The quote is apocryphal, by the way, and may well have been planted by her enemies, but suspicious as the French were of "L'Autrichienne", they may well have believed the worst coming from her.
If Mr. Gates does not want his head figuratively handed to him on a silver platter (unlike Marie-Antoinette, in whose case it was all too literal), he had better watch what he says in public.
posted by Fazal Majid at 2:23 PM
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