German geek Neid of the richest kind
Bill Gates will soon turn fifty and most of the natives I know are absolutely thrilled about this. This will give them yet another opportunity to slam the hell out of him, you see. They despise and resent him. They resent him because he’s a visionary (they do not believe in vision), they resent him because the whole Microsoft philosophy has always been to keep it simple for the man on the street (they do not believe in simplicity and despise the man on the street, too), they resent him because he is a dyed-in-the wool philanthropist and has given away practically everything he has made (they are not capable of such generosity and therefore do not believe that others could be) and most of all they resent him because he is fabulously rich and successful. They resent him because they are neidisch (envious). Neid is a big problem here. All natives are naturally neidisch and don’t even try to hide it.
