Microsoft Investors Call For Bill Gates To Step Down As Chairman

rjmarvin writes "Now that Ballmer is on his way out, flak for Microsoft's middling stock prices and lagging mobile innovation is starting to land on Bill Gates himself. Three of the company's top 20 investors are lobbying the Board of Directors, pressing Gates to step down as chairman. The stockholders believe his presence would handcuff the next CEO's ability to re-make the company with new strategies and sweeping changes. They also think Gates wields a disproportionate amount of power relative to his financial stake and day-to-day activity within the company. No word yet from Gates or the board on this internal strife."

Bill Gates' response:

[themushroom]

"Yeah, about that... Go fuck yourself. Now if you don't mind, I have to go save thousands of African kids from getting malaria. Back at 3pm"

Or prevent them...

[Antiocheian]

...from looting Microsoft.

All 3 are money runners.

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the top 3 are hedge fund money runners.

They are NOT interested in Microsoft's long term health, but in having someone at the top to give their 40%+ return in a year and who the fuck cares what happens after that. If the money runners had their way, Apple would have been liquidated in '98.

That's what these people are all about.

They are not techies. They are Wall Street scum bags.

MS is in the "Cash Cow" phase of its life. It will end. What they need is a 'visionary' who is NOT tied to Wall Street (a la Jobs) but never the less, knows the roots and corporate culture of MS - Gates is the ONLY one who can make the next leader taken seriously.

Re:Fools

[Anonymous Coward]

read "The Road Ahead" and come back to us later.

Re:Or prevent them...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm pretty sure that large-scale shareholders consider small scale shareholders to be sort of like krill. Numerous; but not really worth much except to be filtered out and devoured in numbers large enough to be tasty.

Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg

[SJHillman]

Not exactly. Steve Jobs was *the* driving force behind Apple over the last decade or so to the point where the two are almost synonymous. Microsoft, on the other hand, hasn't relied on Bill Gates as the lead visionary and motivator/taskmaster in a long time (and never to the same extent). Jobs was the face of Apple, Gates was/is the face of "don't pick on the nerd, you'll work for his rich ass one day".

Gates interests might not be short term $

[EMG at MU]

I'm certain they want him to step down because they want to focus on short term profits. Investors have no vision, no desire to better the company, no reason to do anything besides focus on short term profits.

Real headline: Wall Street wants to loot Microsoft

[tekrat]

It's as simple as that. The 3 hedge fund managers are interested in looting the company's bank account, saddling the company with outrageous debt, and then cutting it up and selling off the pieces. It's the Mitt Romney strategy. Or rather, and more accurately, the standard wall-street tactic. It's why America doesn't make anything anymore, and the greedy bastard 1% fuckers should all be lined up against a wall and executed.

Re:Power grab

[Anonymous Coward]

What MS needs is a phrase that was uttered ages ago:

Developers, developers, developers.

Yes, Windows is doing well in the enterprise, but one can only coast on that so long. The Xbox is doing fine, but the games are on the platform because of its momentum, not because there is some draw making it better than the PlayStation.

MS killing Technet hasn't done any good to help with market share.

Re: Bill Gates' response:

[gstoddart]

thinking that 'shareholders' will drive MS into anything but the ground is really delusional

As opposed to what they're doing now, with a series of products nobody is buying and for which they're taking huge write downs? Or that hardware makers are informing Microsoft they'll no longer make products for?

It's hard not to think Microsoft isn't being driven in to the ground now.

Or, are you just being sneaky?

Not at all. I'm saying welcome to the stock market where shareholder value seems to be what drives everything, and long-term planning be damned.

If you don't want a bunch of stock owners yelling about how badly you're doing ... don't go public.

Bean counter time

[p51d007]

They want Gates out of the way because he still has "power" over the company, to a point. Mostly, the shareholders want him out, similar to the way they wanted Jobs out, so they could cut cut cut, to prop up the stock price.

Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg

[Zero__Kelvin]

". Microsoft, on the other hand, hasn't relied on Bill Gates as the lead visionary"

Try to be serious. Gates ran the company. Nobody who has ever read "The Road Ahead" would ever describe Gates as a visionary. We are talking about the guy who said that the Internet was just a fad. His only great insight was that there was a huge pool of people who knew little to nothing about computers whom he could potentially exploit if he simply modeled his company after an organized crime syndicate.