Microsoft Investors Call For Bill Gates To Step Down As Chairman 218
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: (Score:5, Insightful)
"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"
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Having read all of their correspondence beforehand, Gates was always one step ahead of the plotters.
Re: Bill Gates' response: (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not about plotters, he doesn't HOLD A STAKE in the company that deserves as much power as he holds. They are correct to replace Gates before even looking at Balmer's replacement as Gates hasn't held Balmer's feet to the fire nearly hard enough in the last 7-10 years.
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He holds billions of stakes.
Re: Bill Gates' response: (Score:5, Funny)
Vampires beware!
Re: Bill Gates' response: (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Bill owns about 4.5% of the stock ... the people trying to oust him control about 5%.
Bill Gates is essentially a minority shareholder, but exercises clout like he still owns half the company.
And maybe people are thinking that if Ballmer is going, this is a perfect time to put the company in the hands of someone beholden to the shareholders, instead of Bill Gates. And, long term, it's hard to argue with that.
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Wait, what?
While I just love jumping in on the Microsoft stomping, thinking that 'shareholders' will drive MS into anything but the ground is really delusional.
Or, are you just being sneaky?
Re: Bill Gates' response: (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.
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Sneak on to Gates as he sneaked on to us
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5% is not a minority share holder.
And the Top 20 own 5%, not the three trying to oust him.
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OK, you're right. 5% is not a minority sharholder. %5 is a percentage.
Someone who holds 5% of the stock in a company however IS a minority shareholder. That's going by any definition. [businessdictionary.com] I can find, anyway.
Minority != Minor (Score:2)
5% is not a minority share holder.
Anyone with less than 50% of the voting rights is a minority shareholder by definition. Minority shareholder != Minor shareholder.
Re: Bill Gates' response: (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill will prevent a new CEO that "remakes" the company via massive layoffs to save costs - which has never once worked to "turn around" a software company, but no one ever seems to learn that. Presumably the activist board members want just that, not realizing it would kill the company in a few years, or perhaps not caring (hey, what's 100k jobs gone if I can boost the stock 10% before it crashes - we'll know when to exit). Heck, even as an old school /.er I find it hard to root for potlatch on that scale.
Bill had a pretty good track record for the shareholders during his tenure - all the same things than made /. create it's own special icon for him. Makes me wonder if the heart of the dispute is as cynical as the above, or something more interesting.
[ BTW: If you're new to the game: "synergy" means "layoffs" and "turnaround CEO" means "lay off most everyone". Look for those terms in a merger near you (and run). ]
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To the shareholders - be careful about what you wish for.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1423642.stm [bbc.co.uk]
There are plenty of stories of "New blood" turning solid businesses into manure.
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Re:Bill Gates' response: (Score:5, Informative)
or to have them ritually [newscientist.com] mutilated [salon.com].
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"Now if you don't mind, I have to go save thousands of African kids from getting malaria."
It's just too bad that he couldn't have save thousands of Linux kids from getting SCO lawsuits.
That said, these "three investors" just want to jack up the short term stock price. They'd rape their own dead grandmothers' if it would raise the stock price. They saw the price jump after the Ballmer announcement, and are hoping that some buzz can do a repeat in the short term.
More than anyone else in the world, he is emotionally attached to Microsoft because it is his baby, and wants the best for it in the
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That's actually a good argument to be rid of him though.
He is nominally in control, but owns very little of it now (~5%), and spends most of his time not doing microsoft related things. If he wants to come back to microsoft that's one thing. But he's got other things to do - and microsoft needs to look out for shareholders of the other 95% of the money.
That said, I think it's somewhat silly - Billg's big job right now is helping to find a successor to Ballmer, which, as a 5% shareholder he is certainly en
Or prevent them... (Score:5, Insightful)
...from looting Microsoft.
Re:Or prevent them... (Score:4, Interesting)
yeah.. just put elop as the chairman, see how it goes.
guaranteed that within 2 years he has sold the company to oracle(if you use stupid counting system then windows is a "burning platform" that needs to be ditched asap..).
thing with gates is that he has so much money he isn't tempted to butcher the company for some cash. put someone else in charge with even lesser share of the company and no personal interest in the company and he'll start looking for how to extract cash for himself.. and that actually screws the shareholders(common shareholders) a lot more.
Re:Or prevent them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or prevent them... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
They're also a good source of Omega-3s...
Re:Or prevent them... (Score:4, Informative)
As a result, he is odds-on favourite [ibtimes.co.uk] to become the new CEO
That said, your second point is exactly right. It's in nobody's interests (except these three shareholders) to put Microsoft in the hands of these asset stripping vampires.
Misleading Headline (Score:5, Informative)
The headline is a bit misleading.
THREE of 20 of the top investers have demanded Gates step down.
Non-news.
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Um ya... actually the words "Microsoft Investors" in the title imply any integer above 1. The more interesting thing is how much financial and boardroom clout those insurgents might be wielding.
Re:Misleading Headline (Score:5, Informative)
Um ya... actually the words "Microsoft Investors" in the title imply any integer above 1.
Yes, well, the headline implies more than a few.
Actually, *I* own 100 shares. So if *I* as an "investor" seek Gates' removal, does that warrant a story at Slashdot?
The entire group of 20 investors onws ONLY 0.5% more than Gates holds all by himself. So what percentage do you think 3 of those 20 owns?
The headline *IS* misleading.
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The headline implies more than one investor. What you infer from the title is due to your own thought processes, which apparently caused you to be mislead. This isn't about the count of investors agitating for the change, but rather the influence they wield, as covered quite well by others in this thread.
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Gates holds 4.5% of the company stock, and the "three investors" combined hold about 5%. Sounds like a pecker contest to me.
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Um, no. You are wrong, the people who modded you Informative are wrong, and you are part of the problem here. The three investors are part of a group of 20 that collectively hold 5%. Unless those three are an incredibly disproportionately large portion of the group of 20, their combined percentage will be tiny relative to what Gates holds.
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Good catch, nice to way to sensationalize a non-story. Editors should have looked at the article, since it says 3 of 20 in the very first line of the story.
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The headline is a bit misleading.
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in a Few Good Men: "are there any other kind?"
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No, you fool, the group of 20 owns 5%. Those three? Small fish, even combined, next to Gates.
Power grab (Score:5, Interesting)
When the investors take over the company, beware. This is what happened to HP.
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There's somethign to be said for keeping the founder at the helm but in the case of Microsoft I do believe Gates is part of the problem. I worked there from the mid-90's to the mid-2000's and a lot of the cultural problems started with Gates. They only became apparent with Ballmer because exponential growth came to a halt but they were there. Not to mention that without Gates' support Ballmer would never have lasted as long as he did.
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If Microsoft is lucky it's just a power grab. It's also possible that they think that Gates is excessively sentimental about wanting his baby to succeed, long term, as a company, and that they could make more money by cashing it out in the near term, or by sending it to the M&A chop-shop.
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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.
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Yeah, just imagine... they'd put profits over quality and the product would start to suck and its advertising would feel really patronizing, with lots of glitzy flash but little substance.
Man, I can't even imagine a world where Microsoft operated that way.
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Don't worry, you won't have to.
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Ballmer is CEO.
Gates is Chairman of the Board, not Chief Executive Officer.
MS doesn't have a President and I don't believe its a Chairman's job to put in those kinds of hours. That's why they hire a CEO.
The Chairman leads the Board of Directors and it is the Board's job to direct the CEO.
A titular role only? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill Gates is chairman in name only, is he not?
This would seem fitting since it is the company that be he built....it's kind of shitty to force people out of the thing they made.
Alternatively, perhaps Bill Gates will be to Microsoft as the Schwartzes were to Grey Matter...
Chatauqua Tour (Score:2)
If there were to be a no-Gates Microsoft aftermath, I propose a debate tour: Gates vs. RMS, 10 universities.
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I propose a debate tour: Gates vs. RMS, 10 universities.
This is the new Millennium . . . we don't watch people debate any more.
We lock them up in reality TV shows, and watch them spewing out frivolous drivel for hours on end, before voting on who we dislike the most.
Gates vs. RMS? I think one of the Kardashians would win that one. Even if they aren't on the show.
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it's kind of shitty to force people out of the thing they made.
I'm sure he was aware of that possibility when Microsoft launched their IPO 27 years ago, and compared to how many other company founders have fared after their company went public I'd say that Gates have lasted for a pretty damn long time. It's all part of doing business, a place were ethics and morals only are facetious words used in corporate PR bullshit.
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Yes, especially when Gates never did anything like that to anyone else!
Fools (Score:4, Interesting)
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read "The Road Ahead" and come back to us later.
Re:Fools (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I disagree with his business tactics over the years, Gates is a freaking genius.
I'm not sure whether he's a genius, but I had a lot more respect for him once I read this [joelonsoftware.com], which is Joel Spolsky's first-hand account of working for the man. He wasn't necessarily a genius, but he was a very effective combination of ruthless businessman and smart technical guy.
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Great idea! (Score:3)
I've supported Microsoft for many years and I still believe they do some things right but on the consumer side they are lacking to say the least. They need new blood that will change the face of MS. They need to continue what they do for MS developers but improve their approach to their users. Innovation is key in today's technology market and MS needs to show they can still innovate at all business levels.
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>> I still believe they do some things right
Really? like what? I'm genuinely asking/interested.
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Once you get past the UI, Windows 8 and Server 2012 are pretty damned good products. Of course, everyone focuses on the UI because its what people see but you have to remember that Windows does have a lot of other components behind that UI. Office is much the same way, although it's a bit bloated in places. I got to play around with Azure a bit too. I don't know how it compares to competitors, but it is a nifty platform.
Then there's other products like Xbox which seems to have done quite well, including Kin
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Did you notice that even your own list of what yu think are the best Microsoft products needed to include caveats for each?
Seems to me all you need is better experience with the alternatives.
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What you're trying to argue makes no sense whatsoever. Everything has it's caveats, including everything from Apple. All the flavors of Linux feature a multitude of caveats, many of which are worse than anything you'll suffer with Microsoft. Let's take Office as an example. I use OpenOffice at home and have used iWork for a couple of years. They're both pretty good, but nowhere near as good as Office, even with it's quirks.
So really, the decision comes down to which products offer the fewest compromises, or
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It's at a point where people are grasping at straws to find fault with the company.
When I see the General Sherman giant sequoia [wikipedia.org] I think "Now that is one motherfucking huge tree!", I guess you just shrug your shoulders and go "meh, straw"
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By resorting to ad hominems rather than any fact-based or even subject-based argument you only validate my point further.
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Did you notice I never said any of them were perfect? The iPod is nice and easy to use, except for the price. Linux is cheap and works on a wide range of devices, but many distros have poor support. You can find a caveat for anything. In general, I think Windows 8 is pretty good, it just happens that its flaws are in the most pain in the ass location but 95% of the OS is really good for anyone intelligent enough to realize that even a fatal flaw doesn't mean the rest of the product isn't well done.
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I wasn't arguing that absolutely all parts of it are rubbish, but I was arguing as you also correctly point out, that its fatally flawed.
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Once you get past the UI, Windows 8 and Server 2012 are pretty damned good products. Of course, everyone focuses on the UI because its what people see but you have to remember that Windows does have a lot of other components behind that UI. Office is much the same way, although it's a bit bloated in places. I got to play around with Azure a bit too. I don't know how it compares to competitors, but it is a nifty platform.
Then there's other products like Xbox which seems to have done quite well, including Kinect, and the Surface Pro (RT not so much).
It's easy to focus on the bad because it tends to be in the most obvious places that affect the most people, but there's still plenty of good at Microsoft. Even Internet Explorer has come a long way since IE 6.
I don't think that's what bothers the investors though. Its things like being a major player in the smartphone market. Laugh at the iphone. Ignore iphone. Surrender market willfully to iphone, then android. Scratch like hell to catch up to the iphone and android. Settle for crumbs left on the floor. Ditto tablets. Ditto cloud. They don't lead, they follow. And follow rather poorly at that. To an extent, that's been their MO since Gates: let others create the market, then use muscle to take the market. But
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In my experience Exchange 2013 on Server 2012 is an unstable POS. We have this at work, serving a small number of mailboxes and about once per month, it goes haywire, requiring a reboot.
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Of course, everyone focuses on the UI because its what people see
Everyone focuses on the UI because that's what gets in the way. The improvements in Windows 8 are not earth-shaking, and not nearly large enough to overcome the awfulness of the UI.
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I was responding to the guy asking about *some* things they do right. I never said they do everything right or even that they do most things right. I pointed out a few things they've done right with recent products, as well as the issues keeping people from using them in spite of them being done right.
All 3 are money runners. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Bill Gates is Microsoft's largest shareholder which gives him considerable power. Unfortunately, he lost interest in Microsoft years ago.. That's why he allowed a close personal friend (Steve Ballmer) to remain CEO for 13 years with no regard for how well he did the job.
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Bill Gates is Microsoft's largest shareholder which gives him considerable power.
Largest share holder, holding a grand total of 4.5% of Microsoft shares. If all other share holders want to change something, they could and over power Gates' shares.
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- the founder
- a corporate fund (hedge, mutual, pension, etc.)
- an investment bank
- a government entity
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Do you have the slightest idea of what it takes to own 4.5% of a company like Microsoft
About 12.465 Billion USD?
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Keep in mind that he has a deal or contract or something where he sells a ton of his shares back every year. He started with 49% and is down to around 4%. Supposedly he'll have nothing by about 2018 if he stays the course.
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FTA: "Gates, who owned 49 percent of Microsoft before it went public in 1986, sells about 80 million Microsoft shares a year under a pre-set plan, which if continued would leave him with no financial stake in the company by 2018."
Commenting on an article you didn't read, a well honored /. tradition since 1997
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Unfortunately, he lost interest in Microsoft years ago.. That's why he allowed a close personal friend (Steve Ballmer) to remain CEO for 13 years with no regard for how well he did the job.
I would lose interest in business too, if I were worth $50 billion. At this point, he doesn't really have any reason to care about Microsoft, except as a nostalgia thing.
But generally speaking, I'd say BillG would be the person most capable of turning the ship around, just because the markets, the employees, and management would all respect him (deservedly or not).
Gates to investors.... (Score:2)
Bite my shiny metal ass.
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Except Gates doesn't own enough shares to do that.
He's been steadily selling off his shares for years, and I think he's down to 4.5% or so with the expectation that by 2018 he won't have any.
At which point, if you're a company trying to make long-term plans and possibly fix things, do you want someone with 4.5% of the shares to be able to wield as much power as Bill does?
The whole point of this is that Bill is perceived as being able to control a larger proportion of Microsoft than the number of shares he o
Gates should step up or step down (Score:3)
Pick one.
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Is this going to be like some kind of shoddy Microsoft elevator, which would send him up a few flights before crashing and sending him tumbling down again? :)
Wouldn't that be fair? (Score:2)
If Bill has his focus sharply fixed on the foundation, and that is where he directs all of his energy, then isn't it fair that he not have strong influence on day to day activity in the company.
"Bill, we need to make a call on Skype. 16 Billion dollar's at stake"
"Not now, I'm on a bullock cart touring an Indian Village."
"But Bill, you're the chairman."
"Ah, yes. Let me think about it. Well, I've thought about it. Buy Skype, but then make sure you follow up by buying Nokia."
"Got it Bill. You're the boss."
*cli
Gates interests might not be short term $ (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, investors do have vision, a desire to better the company, and a focus on long-term profits. What you're describing are speculators. Sadly, speculation has become a massive part of the stock market and has almost everything to do with the 90s shift of pensions to stock-based retirement funds managed by mutual and hedge funds.
The small bright side is that a lot more people are involved in the stock market and its benefits instead of it being limited to only the wealthy. The big down side are events lik
Real headline: Wall Street wants to loot Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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It's a vulture capitalist tactic. Wall Street is far more encompassing than that one strategy.
" It's why America doesn't make anything anymore,"
That not true, America makes a lot of things.
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Vulture capitalists don't count.
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... 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.
Just to be sure, shouldn't we take out the top 5%?
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It's 5x more work and once the 1% lose everything, it generally takes 100 years for a new 1% to become so arrogant again.
Actually, it's on the order of 200 years (no, I don't remember where I read that). Not that I'm saying you don't get crises in between (and different parts of the world may well be moving at different phases of the cycle). Still, go back around 200 years and you get a very forthright approach to dealing with an unacceptable elite: the French revolutionary one. Now, I don't advocate a general massacre of the 1%; I fear such a thing, as I've no idea at all whether I'd gain from the ensuing upheaval. But my re
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That would be a mistake (Score:3)
He is starting to earn a lot of good will, and that will reflect in the price as long as he is attached to the company in a role.
Of course he could step down to CEO; which would be hilarious AND helpfull
lolwut (Score:2)
"Lol wut? Right after I stepped down as CEO or whatever in 01 is precisely when MS went off the rails on a crazy train. I'm hijacking this bitch 100%. Everyone else get off"
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That is a pretty major bit of revisionist history. Microsoft started sucking well before 2001.
What this looks like (Score:2)
At the current and long standing rate his divestment will be complete in 2018, so he has been waving goodbye for a quarter century. By coincidence this is just after Steve Ballmer's long expected departure when his youngest child graduates high school.
Now Ballmer is cutting out early and so is he. At least giving the appearance. But wait - as a billionaire with his own investment groups that manage not only his vast wealth he could actually be the one calling for his own ouster. That way he can escape
Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg (Score:4, Insightful)
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".
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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.
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Someone with an ID that low probably isn't all that young. I created this one 13 years ago.
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Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg (Score:4, Informative)
they are ignoring the REAL POWER at Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Clippy is actually running the joint.
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"I see you are trying to run the company, would you like help with that?" -Clippy 2013
Re:they are ignoring the REAL POWER at Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
"I see you are trying to ruin the company, would you like help with that" - FTFY
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