I saw this image posted the other day. And it stopped me in my tracks. What a question. Would you choose a cool million bucks, or a year hanging out with the guy who built Microsoft? At first, I assumed it was some kind of a joke, because not choosing the money seemed crazy to me. But I kept seeing the comments light up with folks who’d choose Bill.
I think people are talking about choosing the man over the money because they believe that Bill Gates’ wisdom is worth a million bucks.
Here’s my question.
Do you really think Bill Gates has enough wisdom that it could be worth more than what you could accomplish with that amount of money? What topics would you be picking his brain on? Business? Investing? Management? Are those ideas worth it?
If you took $1,000,000 you could find that wisdom in a bunch of different ways and have enough money to change the world while you did it. You could do so much good. Or just invest in starting your own company.
At the end of the day, you might get some ideas from Bill. Great ideas, awesome ideas. But you won’t get execution, and a million bucks gives you room for an awful lot of execution.
Because Bill Gates was never and is not now infallible. He was never, and he is not now the source of eternal knowledge and enlightenment.
The thing is, this sort of post looks harmless. And I know it’s a hypothetical question. And I know people are going to think I’m over reacting, or over analyzing. But I don’t believe that’s the case.
I don’t believe it’s harmless to engage in hero worship, or to elevate people like Gates, Musk, Jobs etc., to being this mythic figures who we should all give everything to be like, learn from and emulate.
People are still people. And they’re always in danger of being wrong. I’m wrong all the time, and I’m a long way from being anything like Bill Gates.