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Bill Gates to Step Down from Microsoft
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 15, 2006 04:00 PM
from the i'm-sure-you-have-more-to-say-than-i dept.
from the i'm-sure-you-have-more-to-say-than-i dept.
Geoffreyerffoeg writes "According to Microsoft PressPass, Bill Gates will be leaving his role at Microsoft in July 2008. He'll be staying with the company, but is also moving to a more fulltime position with the Gates Foundation. 'Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates' daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company's chairman and an adviser on key development projects.' CTO Ray Ozzie will assume Gates' role of Chief Software Architect, and CTO Craig Mundie will also take on more leadership responsibility."
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Why Ballmer Should Leave Microsoft 341 comments
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the announcement of Bill Gates' departure from the top spot at Microsoft, CNN Money is carrying an article arguing that Steve Ballmer should step down as well." From the article: "Since Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000 in favor of Ballmer, the company has floundered technically and strategically. As the company's chairman, chief software architect and supposed visionary, Gates deserves blame for missing the wave of Web-based software that has propelled Google and Yahoo. But Ballmer has made gaffes of his own in his longtime role as head of the company's business side. They include an undistinguished push into business applications to compete with Oracle, financial maneuvers that have failed to stir the stock - which has slumped 16 percent so far this year - and continuing antitrust problems in the United States and Europe."
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Bill Gates to Step Down from Microsoft
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Holy Sh*t (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be my final post with slashdot, i'll be moving to digg for my news after today.
This guy wants to quit his day to day responsibilities to give away his money to the less fortunate and all you guys want to do is bash him. Hey, I like Linux, I own a Mac and have tons of Windows experience, but just because you don't like his business practices or his OS dosn't give you the right to belittle him. Will you manage to give away 80% of your fortune before you die? Didn't think so fucktard!
Give the guy a break, he's one of the few modern day humanitarians!
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.oneak.net/)
You must be new here, etc. etc.
Thing is, the Slashdot-crowd is becoming increasingly singleminded when it comes to issues such as Copyright Infringment, Micro$oft (never forget the dollar sign, or you'll never blend in!) and the Bush Administration. I blame the moderation system. Pimping Linux and Booing Bill, if done with some degree of artfulness, is a surefire way to get modded up. Why take the contrarian position if your point of view is going to be modded "Troll" or "Flamebait" in a matter of nanoseconds?
For what it's worth, I agree with you. Microsoft's business practices can be questioned (though they're not much worse than other companies in similar situations), but the humanitarian efforts of Bill Gates should not be underestimated or scoffed at. Sure, he's still filthy rich despite how much he has given, but if he was as evil as many slashdotters would like to have it, why wouldn't he keep it all? Or spend the money to build an evil headquarter in an inactive volcano?
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:4, Funny)
(http://frontal-lobe.net/)
Because it's much more evil to build it in an active volcano - and more expensive, too.
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi, I'm posting anonymously because I've moderated in the thread.
I use a modified threshold for viewing comments (-2 to 'funny', for example), and I view only at level 5. Of the messages currently modded +5 for me, there are seven posts that are positive or congradulatory regarding Bill Gates. There are three posts that are simply factual (clarifying his role as Chairman, for example), and zero posts that bitch about Gates/Microsoft (in other words, posts that are following the "surefire way to get modded up).
I think any population as large as the Slashdot crowd is going to have it's supply of vocal morons, but there are quite a few thoughtful people around as well.
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.kibbee.ca/)
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:4, Insightful)
the quote "Don't forget, for every Bill Gates, there have to be many "less fortunate" to be exploited^W marketed to" just bleeds ignorance.
1. Almost all of the people he is trying to help via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wouldn't be helped by American tax dollars anyway. And before you say "foreign aid", remember that the money we give to other countries goes to the
2. I'm not going to defend goods/money laundering, but do you really live in such a fantasy world that you think that if the US Government had a bunch more money that anything would be better? They would waste it on more earmarks and pork barrel crap and we would still have the same problems. The amount of funding going to important areas is basically kept to as high as it can be without cutting into the politicians pet projects (read, pork for their state) but they won't put it low enough to piss people off, because they might then catch on to the scam.
For every bill gates there are LESS, less fortunate people. New industries are created (example, a huge section of the IT market), and tons of new jobs are created. Just because there arent as many people as wealthy as him does not mean he has done something bad.
Also, maybe you should get into your head just what "less fortunate means".
We are so pampered in the US and don't understand that "less fortunate" here basically means "not living comfortably". "Less fortunate" in say, Africa, parts of Asia, parts of the middle east, etc means at risk of death a lot of the time.
Quite frankly, I am glad that the money is going someplace other than the Government, just about anywhere else would be better.
Constant Pie econonics is FUD
Re:Holy Sh*t (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday October 16 2002, @01:31AM)
He's not leaving (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He's not leaving (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday February 13 2006, @07:11PM)
Yeah, nothing like some black humor from geeks disconnected from reality!
I picture some zealots crushing his tomb stone and leaving a note with the words
"... and so, at last, Mammon fell, and this final puny sign of his evil rule was shattered!" -- From the Book of Mozilla, 8:12
Re:He's not leaving (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Re:He's not leaving (Score:4, Interesting)
Anticipation of that is why he is going into the "philanthropy biz."
It's SOP for those who know their tombstones deserve crushing. Some of them even go so far as to hide their tombs (See Alexander, Temujin, most of the Pharoahs, etc.).
KFG
Re:He's not leaving (Score:5, Funny)
This man has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down
Re:He's not leaving (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.vino2vino.com/)
Re:Speaking of monopolies... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Bill Gates didn't give one cent to charity until after the trial started.
2) The foundation is not Bill Gates.
3) Bill Gates does not take money out of his pocket to give to charity. He gives stock to the foundation which then sells the stock and gives away the money. Bill is giving away POTENTIAL INCOME not money he already has.
4) Bill still gives away a smaller percent of his fortune then most regular americans do, he just happens to be obscenely rich due mainly to his lack of "business ethics".
5) The bible is peppered with sayings about how the poor man who gives away a shekel is more moral then the rich who gives more. The phrase "give till it hurts" comes to mind and I don't think anybody is arguing that Bill is hurting.
6) Many otherwise sick, deranged, sleazy, people have given lots of money to charities. Osama immediately comes to mind as does Ken Lay and a countless drug lords in south america. Giving away some small percentage of you money does not undo all the harm you have done. People who have gotten ill gains frequently give a lot of money to charity to try and win public support.
7) If I make 30K a year and I give away 10% of my income I am going to suffer. That three thousand dollars would be three months worth of rent in most places in the US. If I was worth a 100 billion dollars and I gave away 90% of money I would still have 10 BILLION DOLLARS. If I gave away 99% of my money I would still have a billion dollars. Can you live on a billion dollars? I know I can.
So excuse me if I am not all that impressed that Bill G after charging monopoly prices to billions of people gives away two or three percent of his earning to charity. I am glad you are so impressed though. His PR machine must be working.
Re:Speaking of monopolies... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
He gave to charity long before the trial. Stock does have a real value. So giving away lots of stock = giving away lots of money.
He's already given away over 60% of his net worth which is way more than any regular joe I know.
His foundation is his AND his wifes. Yes she has a lot to do with it but where does the money come from. Hint...NOT FROM HER!
Their foundation (I just learned this today form NPR) is funding 90% of the world effort to get rid of polio. That's one effort of many but if they succeed at just that one it will be huge.
It matters not what you think of MS and how he got his money. He's doing a lot of good things with it. His wife doesn't get all the credit either. His father also had a lot to do with it growing up.
Re:Speaking of monopolies... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bill Gates didn't start selling off his Microsoft stock until he retired as CEO of the company. As it turns out, he was a busy man and managing giving away billions of dollars is ridiculously difficult. It wasn't until his father and his wife showed up on the scene and he stepped down as CEO that he was able to manage the process.
2) The foundation is not Bill Gates.
No, its the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. She brought a mid-level manager salary and a room full of IKEA furniture worth of assets to the party.
3) Bill Gates does not take money out of his pocket to give to charity. He gives stock to the foundation which then sells the stock and gives away the money. Bill is giving away POTENTIAL INCOME not money he already has.
Stock is not potential income - it has real value. Just because it fluctuates according to the market doesn't mean that its meaningless - by that argument, being paid in dollars isn't real money either because your salary fluctuates daily relative to the euro. The fact of the matter is, all of Bill Gate's money is in non-liquid assets. All rich people's money is in non-liquid assets, except for a few old-school European banking families, and their real assets are debtors note which are less liquid than stock is.
4) Bill still gives away a smaller percent of his fortune then most regular americans do, he just happens to be obscenely rich due mainly to his lack of "business ethics".
Patently untrue. His foundation has distributed substantially less money than he has given them, but that's by design. First - believe it or not, giving away billions meaningfully is hard. Most philanthropic projects look for grants in the million to ten million range. Each one has to be vetted and held accountable to their use of the money, or you're doing more harm than good with it. A management structure to handle that is amazingly complicated. At the same time, giving away all his money to various charities is incredibly harmful - for a decade, charities will receive tens of billions of dollars in extra income and then it will just one day stop and those charities will effectively stop functioning. Part of the purpose of the foundation is to ensure reinvestment of the estate to make sure that it can be a force for good over the next century.
5) The bible is peppered with sayings about how the poor man who gives away a shekel is more moral then the rich who gives more. The phrase "give till it hurts" comes to mind and I don't think anybody is arguing that Bill is hurting.
You can't spend money that fast. Seriously. BillG could say today "I'm going to spend 10 billion dollars in Africa by the end of the year" and the only way he could do it is to literally drop it out of airplanes. BillG has announced the intentions of his estate and he will give it all away, but in a structured and meaningful way instead of just wasting it.
6) Many otherwise sick, deranged, sleazy, people have given lots of money to charities. Osama immediately comes to mind as does Ken Lay and a countless drug lords in south america. Giving away some small percentage of you money does not undo all the harm you have done. People who have gotten ill gains frequently give a lot of money to charity to try and win public support.
Osama kills people. Ken Lay knowingly destroyed the financial security of tens of thousands of employees and countless shareholders. The CEO of Dow Chemical knowingly covered up waste dumps which poisoned hundreds of thousands of people. The leadership of oil companies knowingly apply political pressure to force a continuous state of war that affects close to a billion people. WalMart leadership (and Apple's if you believe the recent news stories) leverage sweatships and effective slave labor to pad their profits. If you assume every charge
Re:Speaking of monopolies... (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? You honestly think it doesn't matter how you get the money as long as you give two percent to charity?
Re:Speaking of monopolies... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~pluther)
Chairman... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~Spy+der+Mann/journal/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 10, @01:50AM)
He's replacing Ballmer!?!? O.o
Re:Chairman... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~Slithe | Last Journal: Saturday February 24 2007, @07:21PM)
o -- Joke
o -- You
-|-
/ \
Ballmer's response (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.liquidshells.net/)
"I'll fucking KILL him!"
Government's Response (Score:5, Funny)
At which point Dick Cheney said "Go fuck yourself!",
and shot Ballmer in the face.
Ha! Didn't see that plot twist coming did you?
Man, this stuff writes itself.
Re:Government's Response (Score:4, Funny)
(http://latakia.dyndns.org/blosxom/blog)
Re:Oh shit (Score:5, Insightful)
You happy Slashdot??! (Score:5, Funny)
Meet the new Boss (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Funny)
(http://ltk.livejournal.com/)
Signed, Steve Jobs
-- PS: I'll fucking kill you.
Re:Thank you (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank you (Score:4, Funny)
(http://ptth.net/squish/ | Last Journal: Monday October 01, @11:26AM)
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday November 04 2006, @11:33PM)
Frankly, I think the PC became popular in spite of Bill Gates, not because of him.
We should really thank IBM, for creating a PC design that (unlike Apple's) could be "commoditized", and then Compaq, for creating the clone industry. That's what really led to the popularity of the PC, not the mediocre software that ran on it.
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.jbrowse.com/)
Gates - creates world's most successful company, becomes world's richest man, leaves day job to spend billions on charity.
Us - Made lame borg jokes for 5 years, finally released a browser that's better than IE if you ignore all the unfixed copy/paste bugs. Convinced a few people that Unix sucked less than Windows.
Dude, I think *he* won.
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:4, Interesting)
You left out 'shapes computing the world over' (on the desktop).
Gates kicks ass. He'd be the perfect role model if it weren't for some of his less savoury feats.
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://penopticon.com/)
And congratulations to Bill for having the sense to move on with his life. Microsoft may not be the most ethical of companies, but they are no Enron. Bill Gates is no Kenneth Lay. If you want some other perspective, compare Gates with Jobs [wired.com]. I don't know what Larry Ellison is doing these days, but in the past, his main "philanthropic" ambition was to donate to an anti-aging research foundation.
Cant forgive Ozzie for Lotus Notes. (Score:4, Funny)
That said, I think it is time to sell off the rest of my shares, since the man who gave the world Lotus Notes is now the Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. Sorry Ray, you are a good guy, but I cant forgive you for Notes, my man.
Re:Politics (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.hyperborea.org/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 11, @05:30PM)
Oh, crap [wikipedia.org].
he must not be evil, after all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:he must not be evil, after all (Score:5, Insightful)
Cleaning up his act? (Score:5, Funny)
Captain to leave the ship? (Score:5, Funny)
Resume (Score:5, Funny)
On a more serious note, there are a lot of people with large emotional investments pent up in disliking Mr. Gates. The transition is going to be tough. It's almost like Inigo Montoya at the end of The Princess Bride. Maybe they should turn to piracy?
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.poromenos.org/)
Spelling, probably
Oh, no! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://adam.blinkinblogs.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 20 2006, @06:46PM)
who knew (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.atomjax.com/)
Who would have guessed that Bill Gates was also Spider-man?
I'm no fan of Mr. Gates's morality in general (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.informationr.us/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @09:38AM)
Well, that's plenty of notice.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether You Hate or Love Him... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair weather and calm seas on your new journey...
MBC1977
(US Marine, College Student, Future Business Owner, and Good Guy!)
Re:Whether You Hate or Love Him... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://mp3bat.com/)
I wouldn't say that. He more or less make computers standard or in a sense... Got everything to run on the same operating system.
If you want to talk about making computers affordable... Then you'll have to give the credit to the Intel, AMD, and Cyrix price wars of 1995-2000.
(Although if you think about the saying "What intel giveth, microsoft taketh away." then maybe they caused a bit of motivation in that price and speed war)
Re:Whether You Hate or Love Him... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday January 13 2006, @01:30AM)
Things in the world happen due to a wide variety of causes and conditions. No single person stands at the head of any major change. There is no driver, or alternatively, every person is a driver. People who buy into some change are causing it as much as the person who is selling some change. It takes two to tango. You can't reasonably attribute the outcome of an intricate dance to a single person.
Another thing is that we don't know what would have happened without Gates. What if without Gates personal computers proliferated even faster? It's an unknown. Because it's an unknown, we can't compare a known outcome against it in a reasonable way. If you could be certain that without Gates it wouldn't have worked out, and with and only with Gates it would work, then you'd have a slightly better position to assign all the credit to Gates. But still you can't satisfactorily assign all the credit for a major social change to one person for reasons outlined above.
Thanks Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Bill (Score:5, Informative)
(http://onlineslangdictionary.com/)
"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature." (Source [venganza.org])
Correlation does not imply causation. Denigrating his generosity on account of when he was generous is just plain rude.
Doubtful (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 22 2004, @11:14AM)
just wait until he notices his company following antitrust law, behaving ethically, paying to license code they use.
he'll swoop right in and put a stop to that real fast
He has a LOONG way to go to catch up with EARL (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.webgeekworld.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 27 2006, @07:47AM)
From robber baron to philanthropist (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:From robber baron to philanthropist (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? He's doing good, isn't he? Why do you care about the motives? Do you hate Bill Gates more than the good he is doing (this is not a rhetorical question)?
Regarding what he did to other companies, he outcompeted them. I was at Novell and saw the errors at Novell cause it to fail, not helped at all by uSoft, so I have every reason to be bitter, but I'm not.
Bill Gates (or rather uSoft) was caught violating the rules on a number of occasions, and they were punished, but it's not as if uSoft was an Enron or manipulated the US govt. as some large utilities and the ILECs do. I suspect breaking weak govt. rules is standard fare at the titan level too, and I don't think you can deprecate uSoft or Bill Gates for taking no prisoners. That's what business is all about: structured warfare, and the goal is to win. He won.
By the way, I'm certainly no uSoft fan, and I have zero insight into what Bill Gates is as a person, but I can admire his achievements without being either incredibly jealous or bitter.
Ambition... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates has achieved what most people only dream of in terms of their life's ambitions. What do most people want? Money? Sure, but that is not the end of everything. Most (normal) people actually want to make a contribution to society/the world; to leave a legacy, if you will. (Granted, Bill has already done that.)
So when you have succeeded beyond your wildest ambitions, then what? Gates cannot actually spend his money on himself fast enough. There comes a point when you start to want to spend it on your legacy instead. Hence, the charity funding. But this is still ambition.
(Of course, I wish more people would reach that stage.)
Out of the frying pan? (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://ndansmith.net/)
In a separate statement, Steve Jobs announced (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Sunday January 02 2005, @11:51PM)
Typical of Job's Keynote addresses, the iWin app is ready for the market and has shipped-out.
Fashion designers everywhere are tooling up to meet the anticipated black turtleneck demand and are cutting the production of pocket protectors and short-sleeve dress shirts.
Steve Ballmer was last seen applying for a job with Disney.
The End of an Era? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday October 13 2006, @05:34PM)
Bill was rare in that he had vision and the ability to do technical things, and was a very driven person. He was the guy we all loved, then when he got rich he was the guy we all loved to 'hate'. But I remember what it was like before him, and he really did help change the world.
At this point the only person left from the original shakers and movers is Steve Jobs. Steve isn't much of a technical person, but he has been a visionary in the past equal to Bill. I have to wonder how much longer till he bows out?
And to be completely honest, it makes me wonder what the next bunch of 'snotty nosed kids' (as my compsci prof used to call Gates, Jobs, and Woz) will come up with. Every time an Era ends, a new one starts after all...
Gates = modern day Robin Hood (Score:5, Interesting)
The companies that Gates "crushed" were rich companies whose execs had become rich themselves.
So Gates took from those rich fat cats (through unethical means, according to the Gates haters), and is now giving to the poor. That makes him a high-tech Robin Hood. And just like the government tried to bring down Robin Hood, they tried to bring down Gates. What say you to that?
The beauty of capitalism (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
He is Batman (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.joystickgenie.com/)
He just needs more time for his superhero alter ego.
Gates Is Doing A Good Thing (Score:4, Interesting)
To get his massive wealth he's done things that were dishonest and even illegal (Microsoft never could overturn the illegal monopoly decision).
But - and this is the crux - if he didn't have that wealth he couldn't do the things he can now. The wealth would be distributed throughout many people in North America, where it'd be likely to stay.
Sometimes the ends *do* justify the means.
I find it bizarre to praise Gates - as a computer enthusiast for 25 years now (I'm 35) I've come to see him as a net negative in the industry. We've got a monolithic company, a software monoculture, a history of massive security holes and illegal product tying. I believe the industry has suffered greatly because of Microsoft.
But I still see his charity outweighs any negatives.
I'm thrilled as a stockholder (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 29, @07:20AM)
Gates has been asleed at the wheel
There have been no new products
Everything is slipping even by MS's squishy standards
No one believes what they say anymore when they talk about their priorities
It's all well and good for Gates to give away his money but I am damned sick of him giving away MINE.