Even Bill Gates can't sell a bogus Vidalia in Georgia

Multibillionaire Bill Gates has the Microsoft empire, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and investments all over the nation and the world.

But here in Georgia, even one of the best-known corporate giants and philanthropists on the planet isn't bigger than an internationally recognized institution of our own: the Vidalia onion.

A Wednesday story in Bloomberg News reports that a Georgia farm owned by a Gates subsidiary has been placed on probation after Vidalia farmers reported (gasp) ordinary onions with the Vidalias, which Bloomberg called "the Bordeaux grapes of the onion world." As indeed they are.

If we may shift the metaphor from wine to the digital world, it looked to the Vidalia farmers as if their Gates-affiliated neighbor was trying to peddle the onion equivalent of Windows Vista. Then came the clincher: a truck from another Gates-affiliated farm, this one in Florida, shipping in yellow onions which were later found improperly stored along with Vidalias.

The farm has been placed on probation by the state agriculture department; it could also have incurred a fine, but the department reported that onions worth more than $100,000 went bad during the investigation, and Commissioner Gary Black "felt that spoilage that took place was discipline enough."

Produce News writer Chip Carter probably spoke for most of the local farmers when he told Bloomberg, "Don't think for a second that this is 'Hee Haw' days."

In other words, these folks didn't just fall off the onion truck.

Family-friendly fare

You could rate this one a solid G, as in good for the whole household. It also might prove very good business.

Netflix, the Internet and mail-order video service, announced Tuesday that it will allow all new parents among its approximately 2,000 full-time employees up to a year of paid family leave.

"Netflix's continued success hinges on us competing for and keeping the most talented individuals in their field," Tawni Cranz, the company's chief talent officer, posted on the company website. "Experience shows people perform better at work when they're not worrying about home."

As a corporate example, as a demonstrably family-friendly policy and as a powerful recruitment tool for talented young adults in the starting-a-family age range, Netflix has just produced, if you'll excuse the expression, a blockbuster.

Of course, like Google and other digitally based service providers, Netflix is in a field that can allow for this kind of flexibility without serious strains on productivity.

But that doesn't make it any less a shrewd move, especially given the competition for talent.

This story was originally published August 6, 2015 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Even Bill Gates can't sell a bogus Vidalia in Georgia."