email chains making the rounds

Someone once forwarded me this “advice” that is purportedly from Bill Gates. Do you think Bill Gates said these things? Is there any evidence of this “speech” he gave to high school students, or is this a made-up email-forward-thing?

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they
did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,
politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no
concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the
real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You
won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it
opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they
are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your
clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were.
So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s
generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but
life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and
they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.
This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off
and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do
that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually
have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

I’m thinking about it because of how a bunch of people are talking about this nyt article on emerging adulthood (such as at maiki’s forum).