Skip to footer

Reddit user: Bill Gates was my Secret Santa

For one Reddit user, it was the Secret Santa surprise of a lifetime. 

|
AP
Microsoft co-founder and chair Bill Gates.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Back in 2009, Internet hive Reddit founded its own multinational, cross-cultural Secret Santa gift exchange. Last year, the event drew 44,805 participants from 130 countries, good enough for a Guinness World Record (online Secret Santa division). This year, it has reportedly attracted Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In a post yesterday on redditgifts.com, a user named Rachel recalled opening a 7-pound package containing a book, a stuffed cow toy and a donation card – made out in Rachel's name – to Heifer International, a nonprofit. Also included: A picture of a smiling Bill Gates holding the cow and the donation card. 

"Never in my entire life did I imagine, ever, ever, ever that Bill would get me. I am SO SO thankful for the time, thought and energy he put into my gift, and especially thankful for him over-nighting it," Rachel wrote. "I feel SO shocked and excited that not only did I receive a gift from Bill, but it was perfectly and EXACTLY tuned into my interests." 

The only embarrassing fact, in Rachel's view, is that she'd put an iPad on her wish list – probably not the gift the co-founder of the company that makes the Surface tablet (an iPad competitor) is inclined to fork over.

A quick note here: We're not generally cynical or hard-hearted people. Moreover, if this is a prank, it was perpetrated by someone with amazing Photoshop skills. Still, we feel we should point out – since the world is full of social media hoaxsters – that Bill Gates has not yet stepped forward to confirm his participation in the Reddit Secret Santa program. 

In related news, Microsoft, following in Apple's footsteps, recently announced it had 83 brick-and-mortar retail stores up and running in the US. "We have welcomed more than 362 million customers to our full-line, specialty and online Microsoft Store properties in more than 200 markets worldwide," the company said in a press release. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Reddit user: Bill Gates was my Secret Santa
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2013/1220/Reddit-user-Bill-Gates-was-my-Secret-Santa
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe