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Malcolm Gladwell on 50 years of Jamaican independence.

Kim Bhasin transcribes an interesting passage from Malcolm Gladwell:

"[Bill] Gates is the most ruthless capitalist, and then he wakes up one morning and he says, 'enough.' And he steps down, he takes his money, he takes it off the table.

"I firmly believe that 50 years from now, he will be remembered for his charitable work, no one will even remember what Microsoft is.

"And of the great entrepreneurs of this era people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. Who's Steve Jobs again? There will be statues of Gates across the third world."

Gladwell points to one thing he believes all the greatest entrepreneurs have in common:

"The greatest entrepreneurs are amoral. It's not that they're immoral, it's that they're amoral," he explained, referencing a 2011 article he wrote for the New Yorker about L'Oreal's dealings with Nazi Germany.

"They are completely single-minded and obsessively focused on the health of their enterprise," said Gladwell. "That's what makes them good at building businesses, but that's what also makes them people who are not worthy of this level of hagiography."

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12:21 PM Jun 07 2012

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