bill

Let's talk money and hamburgers.

Sometimes you can spend a lot of money on a hamburger, sometimes very little. For example, at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, you can pay $18 for a very nice hamburger with exquisite french fries.

It is spectacularly better than the ones at the Golden State Warriors games, where, please believe me, the burger and fries are almost the same price as the Four Seasons and of a similar quality to the team in 2002. (And 2003. And 2004.)

These--and several other--thoughts on the finance/hamburger axis have been occupying my mind because of a fascinating speech and Q&A session yesterday at the University of Washington featuring Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The way the Seattle Times records it, one enterprising listener asked Gates how she could become as blindingly rich as him.

Gates explained that money hadn't been his goal. He just loved what he was doing. Even better, he could involve his friends in this thing he loved. Soon, he had more money than he knew what to do with. Which he described as "a responsibility."

But here's the meat of it. … Read more

In the tech news this week, Stephen and Brian bust me for buying an iPhone 4 on eBay to tide me over until there's a phone I really want--or until my Verizon contract is up. Nicole Lee joins us to talk about Nokia and Microsoft's new baby, the Lumia 800, and Sony's plans to get serious about making smart phones. Plus, stock advice from the gang, the coming nightmare that is the Stop Internet Piracy Act, and Computer Love.

Writer Walter Kirn tweeted something mid-summer that rang so poignant and true, I immediately "favorited" and re-tweeted: "The brilliant dark governing insight of social media is that most people prefer socializing alone."

Sure, all of this newfound sharing and real-time communication is awesome indeed. But the very same digital tools that heighten our reach and accessibility are somehow alienating us from each other more so than ever before. Human-to-human connection and communication, it seems, tends to get too intermediated by gadgets and gizmos.

Today, there's a new social network rolling out nationwide to help bridge … Read more

Steve Jobs has taken up most of the spotlight in recent days. And weeks. And months. And years.

He's even had a play written about him, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

Why hasn't anyone written a play about Microsoft's Bill Gates? Would there be insufficient drama? Would it be hard to cast someone in the role?

Please fear not. For tonight sees the opening of "Windows", a one-man, rollicking, standing-in-the-aisles Bill Gates extravaganza.

The L.A. Times tells me that "Windows" will grace the Odyssey Theater in L.… Read more

PageOnce is taking on Intuit (both Mint and Quicken) with an upgrade to its finance service that allows bill payment from your smartphone. Few other personal finance services offer bill pay, and none offer the detail that PageOnce does.

PageOnce dives into the detail on your bills to show you not just what you own on a bill, but for what: How many minutes on your smartphone bill; All your credit card charges. And this is without signing up for electronic billing at your bank or service provider, so you'll still get your paper bills in the mail as … Read more

The official Steve Jobs biography commissioned by The Man himself dropped online and in stores today, and apparently the guy was kind of a jerk.

Today we dive into some minibytes from the 656-page book that you may not have heard yet--details about Jobs' upbringing and relationship with his father, his obsession with Yo Yo Ma's cello, and how a Cuisinart inspired the first design of the Apple II.

We'll also cover the stories you'll find below in the first half of the show, and talk about Jeff's controversial article about the death of portable gaming consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita.… Read more

Some people simply won't read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs because it has 656 pages, meaning it requires strong fingers--and nerves--in order to make it through the whole thing.

So with various media organizations obtaining copies by Wikileaky, Watergate-like subterfuge, I thought I'd create a little scorecard to tabulate all of the tiffs, digs, revelations, affronts and full-frontal stabbings that have dripped out so far.

Each of them I have given a score: The "What A Surprise" score. A score of 1 means that surely most sentient beings expected this. A 10 means that … Read more

No one ever imagined that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would have sipped on a brandy, punched each other on the shoulder, and giggled a lot.

However, the latest extracts to emerge from Walter Isaacson's biography of the late Apple CEO suggest that their philosophical differences were human, not merely technological.

In excerpts obtained by the Huffington Post, Gates reportedly described Jobs as "fundamentally odd," which I know one or two people might consider Gates.

Gates also reportedly added that Jobs was "weirdly flawed as a human being." Which seems weirdly flawed as a statement, … Read more

Apple's iPhone 4S is one expensive smartphone to produce, a new study from IHS iSuppli has revealed.

According to the research firm, which opened up Apple's latest smartphone to see what's inside, the 16GB version's bill of materials is $188. The 32GB version's parts jump to $207, according to iSuppli, while the 64GB option sets the company back $245.

iSuppli estimates that each unit costs Apple $8 to produce, therefore pushing the price of the devices up to $196 for the 16GB model, $215 for 32GB, and $254 for 64GB.

With a carrier contract and … Read more