Slashdot Mirror
Paul Allen's Microsoft Experience
theodp writes "Just in case Microsoft bashers don't have enough ammo, Robert X. Cringely has a couple of interesting tales in this week's column. The first explains how Bill Gates used Paul Allen's moonlighting at MITS to justify awarding himself 64% of Microsoft's stock vs. Allen's 36% (and Gates' failure to adjust the shares after he accepted a $10/hour part-time MITS job). The second heart-warming tale concerns a conversation Allen reportedly overheard late one night (as he was finishing up DOS 2.0) between Gates and Steve Ballmer discussing how to get Allen's Microsoft stock back if the Hodgkins disease Allen was battling killed him. Yikes."
oh come on, this isnt news this is flamebate, get it off the front page!
Any Bets that Allen uses Linux now?
echo YOUR_OPINION >
I think you need to read the penultimate paragraph of Cringely's article before dismissing this as just another personal attack. What he is suggesting is extraordinary - so extraordinary that I find it hard to believe, but it's certainly news that he wrote it. By any standards, it belongs on Slashdot.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
First of all, Cringely doesn't even attribute this information to a real source in his article, so there is no way anybody can even verify this. He just says two good sources, which mean almost nothing.
The second thing is, this sort of planning happens all the time at every big company. I know most of the slashbots probably never worked a real job, but it's good planning in the corporate world to know plan for where such a huge share of stock is going to go.
In short, this article is such a hack job looking for biters, I don't even know why it was posted to slashdot. Wait, actually this was a perfect article for slashdot.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Try reading the article. Allen in no way "cries". Generally, he has kept his mouth shut, and the only way this article was written was based on third party information and other research. He has shown a lot of class over the years... but it is easy to take a cheap shot, isn't it?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Let's say, hypothetically, Allen had died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1982, as discussed in the story. At that point, he owned 36% of Microsoft. The shares, as his personal property, would have been deeded out in his will (let's say to hypothetical party X), gone through probate, and then X would have them. How would Balmer and Gates have "gotten them back"?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Not that I like Bill or his business tactics, but to be fair to him, isn't it true that the B&MG Foundation has donated a few billion dollars to worthy causes? Not to mention Bill's public and well known intention to give away as much money as possible before his death? I mean, sure, the guy is a shark in business.. but he's not exactly Darth Vader, y'know..
If you have dealt with MS for any length of time. Truth is, this stuff is putting BG in a better light than what he truely deserves. One interesting note, is that most people who are invited to BG's birthday only go, because it would be an insult to not go. Few really wish to go. Basically, BG is a SOB. Few who have worked with him, have a kind word to say about him.
OTH, many love going to Paul's because he really is a nice guy.
I wonder if this is the root of all of Bill Gates's philanthropy - giving to assuage the guilt wrought by past malfeasances. Like this.
:?
Couple that with the fact that Ballmer is clearly a psychopath (*ducks*) and the Gates-Ballmer leadership looks quite scary. Microsoft truly are evil.
iqu
Lets keep perspective before we feel too sorry for him.
Recent internal Microsoft memos confirm that the company, despite popular belief, solely exists for the purpose of acting as whipping boy for the website slashdot.org. Sources confirm that the company has recently held meetings about finding new ways to stir the coals including mention of developing more stories that involve reasons to despise the company's execs. Gates was recently quoted as saying, "We're not getting any great flamebait anymore, they're all pretty apathetic and mundane these days. They're just repeating the same stuff. We need some fresh blood out there!" Sources close to the matter, indicated that leaks were being set up for personal information about the companies founders to "put a face" on the object of the vitriol, and to drive and develop Microsoft's interests at Slashdot through the coming years.
;-)
When asked for comment, Slashdot posters likened the news to an extension of Microsoft's embrace-and-extend methodology that the company applies to product development. "We won't be duped by this one, we can't let Microsoft to develop a monopoly on sarcastic and derisive commentary." Other posters used lots of exclamation points and mixed caps, and thus were excluded from this press release.
(It's a joke guys, I'm not intending this as flamebait
Your comment is generic enough, but also specific enough to Cringely, that it could be made regarding any of the many 'articles' by 'Cringeley' (not his real name) that have been posted to Slashdot. He is a hack writer of the same journalistic stature as Matt Drudge or the National Enquirer.
But he posts contrived paranoiac screeds that the 'Slashdot community' just laps up. Yay banner impressions!!
As I said above, same as it ever was, in the case of Cringely.
Stories about corporate backstabbing would be much cuter with yesterday's pink skin. And ponies.
Evil sig is livE.
From TFA:
Climb high enough in the organization, and it becomes clear that Microsoft's success has not always been based on legal or ethical behavior.
I have to admit, we need more of these articles out there. Here in Slashdot we know all about it, so we'd get the typical captain of the obvious or "no sh*t sherlock" responses, but we need the general public to read more of them.
I'm about as anti-Microsoft as you can get. I hate them. I hate them for making bad software and forcing zillions of people to use it instead of letting those people make a choice. I hate them for essentially undermining the best qualities of capitalism.
Many times I've wanted to believe "this is the end" and Microsoft is finally going to have the reputation in the general, non-techie public eye that they deserve to have. Heck, I'm still hoping the Vista debacle will be that trigger.
But to believe that one lawyer in Iowa is going to bring them down, when the full weight of the U.S. Department of Justice couldn't do it, and the E.U. is still trying to do it, is wishful thinking. Maybe Cringely just had to end with something dramatic.
The Internet is full. Go away.
Now we'll speculate as to why he would position himself this way, about how anti-establishment he implicitly is, how visionary and rightous he is about the computer industry. By stooping so low, he is only hurting himself and attributing intent to people who obviously have better things to do. Whatever, most of us already take his pieces as entertainement anyway. Doesn't mean he didn't cross a line and isn't responsible for his actions. I don't think he's important enough anymore to be noticed by the mainstream press, but his opinions are not merely disparaging, they can be attributed to plain and simple mischief. What's infuriating is not that he wrote it, it's that people will link to it and discuss it while it's not deserving of any attention. Fool me once, you can't fool me twice as the post-modern saying tells us.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. Proverbs 13:22
I know some will disagree with this, but being an owner of serveral technology companies, one of which doing classified work, ownership is something I have to worry about. If, God forbid, something does happen to one of my partners, and that ownership is given to the family, or lands in probate court for years, it has a chance of seriously hampering operations of the company. For one thing, the family is not involved in the operations, and could make incorrect decisions, or worse, sell off their ownership to anyone with the finances. Now, I do have some say in the sell of ownership, as a clause of the original agreements, and they do too, but these kinds of things really are a problem to fight. It sucks having to entertain those thoughts, but it is necessary. I think Cringley is always looking for fodder on Bill any chance he can, myself, I could care less. I use Macs as my primary machines, but have a Dell/Windows for games (if I ever have time for them) and my database sandbox is on Redhat AS 4.
After Ballmer stepped in, support for fringe platforms (i.e. not strictly PC-compatible) was pretty much dropped, up through 2.0, MS-DOS ran on quite a variety of 8086/8 boxes.
Now to think of it, MS dropping Xenix happened about this same time frame.
If I shot someone yesterday, but I gave an old lady on the bus my seat today, would that make me a good person? Or would I have to give a million seats away.
Trying to cast Bill Gates as a 21st century Robin Hood (takes from the richest and gives to the poorest) to defend the various critisms of him is suspect at best. In fact, I like calling it, the Gates defence, being a subset of the chewbaca defence.
Giving money away, if you have enough of it, is easy. Being truely forgiven for past sins (and in this case, personal attacks), isn't. As much as your wife/gf/etc. would like a diamond ring everytime you fuck up, it doesn't cut it (unless the fuck up was buying a terrible gift, then the new one also acts as an "I'm sorry."). That and they would eventually run out of fingers. Of course, there are always gold diggers as the exception.
In summary, you can't buy forgiveness, only earn it.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
If the point is to get people to subscribe, well, (1) this kind of juvenilia makes me even less likely to subscribe, (2) it stinks to let people pay money and thereby get the privilege of vandalizing the site, and (3) if they want people to subscribe, they might want to do a more professional job of running the site (eliminate dupes, and get people to select science articles who actually know something about science).
Find free books.
Yes, I'll believe that Allen is disenfranchised with the executives in ms, but there was no evidence that the stories he told was the reason Allen sold his stock and quit.
The ambiguous line in my mind was:
"but it didn't go over well with Paul Allen"
Is Cringley asserting that, or is that what he heard?
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
From what I've studied of Microsoft over the years I'd have to say that if Paul Allen was still the guy in charge I might not be using Linux as my primary OS today. What originally drove me away from Windows and commercial software in general was the attitude that companies had when you had problems with their product. This all stems from the attitudes of the owners of these companies and most of all Bill Gates who is largely the founder and role model of the commercial software industry.
This bad attitude is at the center of the poor customer support, poorly designed and implemented products, and general lack of concern for what effect they're having on their customers and society at large. If Paul Allen had kept the reigns of the PC revolution the entire world could be a very different place now.
By being so extremist in his position Bill Gates created his own worst enemy in the form of free opensource software. It was his influence that created the need for a counter-influence. Someone more centered would never have created such a strong counter-culture.
Apple had a similar experience between Jobs and Woz though so maybe it's just something that was bound to happen.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Or you could just download the newest version of Slashdotter, which has the Ponies theme supported out of the box.
Or you could just change the extensions.slashdotter.stylesheet preference in about:config to "fool". But that way, you don't get the bugfixes in the new version.
I have this story about, um, Richard Stallman... or maybe Linus Torvalds. I am not staking my reputation on the accuracy of the story, but I am saying I have it from two good sources. I'll just throw it out for you to consider. Ready? Here it goes:
So there was this goat, right? One night... [please visit my blog for the rest!]
I know few people here like or appreciate Gates, but must we make shit up to slime the dude?
How ignorant (or perhaps downright legally retarded) do you have to be to consider questionable business tactics on par with the holocaust, Cultural Revolution, the gulags, etc.? I'm not sure what's more disturbing: that one person was dumb enough to actually say it, or that a number of people agree with it. Not making a good show of intellect for Slashdot here, guys.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
From wikipedia article on Paul Allen: Much of Paul Allen's philanthropy has been dedicated to health and human services and toward the advancement of science and technology. The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was established in 1986 to administer much of the giving. Through the Foundation, Allen awards nearly $30 million in grants annually. Approximately 75 percent of the Foundation's money goes to non-profit organizations in Seattle and the state of Washington. The remaining 25 percent is distributed to Portland, Oregon and other cities within the Pacific Northwest. Allen also contributes through other charitable projects known as venture philanthropy. The most famous of those projects are the Experience Music Project, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and SETI. Paul Allen's total philanthropy as of 2005 is estimated to be over US$815 million. The University of Washington has been a major recipient of Paul Allen's giving. In the late 1980's, Allen donated US$18 million to build a new library named after his father, Kenneth S. Allen. In 2003 US$5 million was donated to establish the Faye G. Allen (his mother) Center for Visual Arts. Paul Allen also was the top private contributor (US$14 million) and namesake of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (completed in 2004). Throughout the years, Allen has contributed millions of US dollars to the University of Washington Medical School, most recently US$3.2 million for prostatitis research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Philanthro py
But yes Gates has given away more of his money and is therefore a better person... I guess?
NJ Local Music Scene
Or they could have had multiple classes of stock. Like Google. Where Larry and Sergey and other insiders have special stock which gets 10x votes.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
This is a non-article. It has a pompous title, "Prisoner of Redmond", followed by some tittle-tattle from 20-30 years ago that only gives one side of the story, then it cuts to today and a court case that has no real connection with the rest of the article. The end is pure opinion: "Based purely on character (or lack of it), I confidently predict that Microsoft is going down."
I'm no fan of Microsoft (Linux here) but you don't get to where Gates is today by being a man with no talent or qualities. I'm still waiting for a lot of Cringely's oh-so-confident predictions about Google and their alleged container-size data centers to pan out. He seems to have gone very quiet on that front lately. Spinning a highly dubious yarn from yesteryear is no substitute for some journalism. Just my 2 cents, but I think Cringely is getting lazy.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
I just want to point out to anyone who wasn't following the (pre-2001) anti-trust suit that it is not a crime to have a monopoly. It is perfectly legal and what all companies aim for. What Microsoft got in trouble for (before the Bush administration basically dropped it) was that they were using their monopoly power to limit competition and leverage their way into new monopolies, i.e. Windows-->Office, Windows-->Browser, Windows-->Internet Provider...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
To Mud, or not To Mud, that is the Question?
Is Cringley throwing mud?
Or is Cringley reporting corroborated facts?
Or is reporting facts equivalent to throwing mud when the facts are ugly.
I don't know.
You don't know.
But I'm not the one concluding that because the purported facts are ugly that they are automatically equated with Mud.
Given Bill Gates access to lawyers, and Cringley's relative poverty and valuable reputation, I'd say RXC is certainly erring on the side of caution and has good reason to have said what he has said. Bill Gates, and Paul Allen who is also party to this, may not be as litigious as, say, Tom Cruise, but who wants to find out first?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is such trash.
I mean other than the fact that the article is information from a friend of a friend whos like really really good friends with the friend of Paul Allen but it also sounds suspiciously made up.
Ahh hes sold shares that must mean he hates Microsoft. Nooo Bill Gates has also sold shares a hell of a lot of them. His total stake in Microsoft was less than 10% in 2005 thats been dropping for a long time and hes still selling. Doesnt mean he despises his company now does it.
What about the punishing work while ill? Maybe he actually got Hodgkins in 1982 but he was diagnosed in 1983 DOS 2.0 came out in March doesnt exactly leave a huge amount of time for his aparent slave labour and his heroic completion of the O/S.
Oh but he left the company forever, he must have had a bad experience at the hands of evil Bill. Not quite. He is still an advisor to MS to this day. Now sure that isnt exactly a large role in the company he created but how many people with billions of dollars would stay in any position at a company that, according to this site, drove you near to death and conspired to destroy you when you were there?
I mean his leaving couldnt possibly have had anything to do with the fact that he had to work really hard before, but was now a rich man recovering from a life threatening disease. Yeah I can imagine he was raring to jump back in to long shifts at MS, but theres no chance of that with evil Bill standing guard.
Finally, the oh so familiar, Microsoft is going down, comment. Take a quick look at just about every article that guy has ever written involving Microsoft. Nearly all of them contain some way of Microsoft going down. Nearly all of them are speculatory trash often including a list of 'funny' scenarios.
This is pure flamebait from someone clearly biassed against the company. I mean trying to get me to feel sympathy for the 6th richest man in the world who has spent a large portion of his entire life living off the company this site claims crushed him...
Oh and unlike his hearsay you can do a quick search in Google and youll find information backing up every point I made. (Some of which actually came from the site he used to support him, forbes.)
You're right, but there are always workarounds. Here's how I might do it.
Presumably Gates, Balmer and Allen had a certain class of shares, probably along with some other early investors, which were not held by the general shareholders.
So, for the fiscal year 1983 (after Allen left), they could create a new class of shares and match 1:1 with shares from the new class to shares in the old class, for people actively involved in the betterment of the company (not Allen) as an employee stock incentive. Then they could dillute the class of shares that Allen held, including Gates and Balmer's shares (but they don't care, they have the new class).
Of course, IANAPSM (I am not a professional stock manipulator), but it seems if there's a will there's a way.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think that pretty well reflects MSFT's corporate character. Petty, greedy, and paranoid.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
....and I don't do Windows.
PGA
He actually carries an Ipod around whenever he has to sit in a meeting with Ballmer...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
A captain of industry is a greedy capitalist? I'm shocked, shocked.
Everyone but you is telepathic.
From the Article: "Based purely on character (or lack of it), I confidently predict that Microsoft is going down. It should be interesting."
Prehaps correct in the foretelling but completely off in the reasoning. If anything is going to kill Microsoft, it'll be OpenSource. Although, I doubt Microsoft will "die" but rather merely fade into an important but not critical role as IBM has.
I got a kick out of this:
I did that once myself. I didn't want to drive across the street from my office to the Taco Bell late one night so I just walked. It turned out that only the drive-through was open. So I took my turn between the cars standing in line. It took about half an hour before I got to the front of the line. I felt a bit idiotic standing there.
I never saw or heard of anyone else doing that until now.
I also used to regularly go through the drive-up line in the bank on my bicycle. But that didn't feel quite as wierd as standing in line at Taco Bell.
Usually founders of a company start with around 5% or so, and leave the rest for investors, and stock awards for employees.
;-) ) passes a resolution issuing 25 additional shares. Each original investor still holds 10 shares, and Bob gets 25. Each original investor will hold 8% of the company after the shares are issued; but they still have 10 shares each.
:) Usually, startup companies don't hold shares in "storage" for the purpose of raising money. A company may issue additional shares at various points in order to seek investors, but it doesn't really serve any purpose to have 'unowned' shares hanging out there, and it can lead to additional complications.
Stock dilution.
Here's how it works:
You (General Alcazar) have a company. GA Enterprises. You hold 100% of the shares. Lets say you want to raise money from an investor. Investor Bob offers you $50 for 20% of the company. Since you are the only stock holder, you can easily give him 20% of the stock, for a $50 investment. There are two ways you can do this, however.
1) Lets assume there are 100 shares at incorporation. You have 100 shares. You transfer 20 shares to Bob, so that you have 80 shares, and bob gets 20 shares. That's 20 %.
2) Lets assum 100 shares. You hold all of them. Instead of transferring 20 shares, however, you create additional shares. It's your company, after all; all you have to do is pass a resolution issuing 25 additional shares, and granting them to Bob. You have 100 shares, Bob has 25 shares. This once again works out to a 80/20% split. You haven't devalued your shares, because the assets of the company those shares represent have increase by $50, and if you are agreeing to Bob's proposal, you believe that $50 = 20% of the value of the company.
Now, lets say you, me, and 8 other people have equal shares in your company, GA enterprises. We each hold 10% of the shares. Bob offers you $50 for 20% of the company.
There are two ways to do this; each of the investors could give up 2 of their shares, through a fairly painful process of negotiation. Or, the board of directors (probably just you, see you started the company, and are a greedy bastard (just kidding, but it makes the example easier
Make sense?
Of course, during incorporation, different companies establish different policies on the issuance of new shares. Some require unanimous approval of all investors, some require a majority decision, some require voting (2/3? 1/2? 3/4?) by the board of directors.
I hope this clarifies things
Of course, most companies don't use pure stock dilution, either; because that devalues the founders shares too much. They'll often use a combination of dilution and stock splits, as you can dilute to create %% of new shares, and than stock splits to allow finer granulity in ownership.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I am going to examine each of these points one at a time. Some of them just make me cringe.
Disclaimer: I was a PC user up until a couple of months ago, when I got a powerbook. I've barely used another computer since.
10. Apple II Forever: The 1984 introduction of the compact Apple IIc, at a boisterous celebration in San Francisco's Moscone Center, is interrupted by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake. The party, called "Apple II Forever," doesn't miss a beat because loyal Apple II users are already shaken up by their belief the company is focusing too much on the Macintosh, even though the Apple II is generating the bulk of sales and profit.
Unfortunately, nothing is forever, not even the Apple II -- although it comes close. On Nov. 15, 1993, more than 16 years after it was introduced, and with over 5 million units shipped, Apple quietly drops the last of the line, the Apple IIe. As a gesture to the faithful, Apple continues offering Apple II technology through an expansion card for some early Mac LC and Performa models.
What type of computer
sells well
for 8 YEARS?
I mean, seriously, am I the only one that thinks that's one hell of a long time for them to be selling what's essentially the same computer? It most likely got too expensive for them to keep selling it, and they dropped it.
9. Portable predictions: Apple chief Steve Jobs is lauded for his forward thinking, but he misses the boat on notebook computers. "(Smaller portables) are OK if you're a reporter and trying to take notes on the run," he tells Playboy magazine in February 1985. "But for the average person, they're really not that useful, and there's not all that much software for them, either."
He eventually changes his tune but Apple's first stab at a laptop, a 15.8-pound behemoth dubbed the Macintosh Portable, isn't much to write home about. Apple finally gets it right in 1991 when it introduces the truly portable PowerBook. Despite the PowerBook's popularity, a dozen years pass before Jobs declares 2003 "the year of the notebook" for Apple. "Many users are going to wonder why they even need a desktop computer anymore," he says then.
I'm not that old, and I can't really remember 1985, so I can't say for certain. But I gather from his quote that all the "portables" in that day resembled somewhat different hardware and software configurations to their desktop equivalants. I doubt that the macintosh in that form could be minaturized to a "portable" in 1985, either.
By the 1990s, there were companies selling laptops with 68k processors, that, with the addition of a ROM chip ripped from a mac, could run Mac OS. This arrangement was, obviously, very expensive for anyone who wanted an apple laptop, yet these clones were still selling. Did apple really have a choice about it?
8. Consumers cool to Cube: Never one to shy away from hyperbole, Jobs pronounces the G4 Cube as "simply the coolest computer ever" at Macworld New York in 2000. Apple gushes over its latest creation: "An entirely new class of computer, it marries the Pentium-crushing performance of the Power Mac G4 with the miniaturization, silent operation and elegant desktop design of the iMac. It is an amazing engineering and design feat, and we're thrilled to finally unveil it to our customers."
It doesn't turn out to be all that cool. Although praised for Jonathan Ive's innovative industrial design, the Cube fails to catch on with creative professionals because it's too expensive ($1,800), not powerful enough (450 MHz) and hard to upgrade. The Cube is put on ice in July 2001.
The cube was cool. Admit it. It had problems. I can admit that. It wasn't selling, so it was cancelled.
I will take a break at this point to point out that two of these three are nothing other than apple discontinuing products because they weren't selling. Yeah, shocking, isn't it.
What's next? Oooh, a real one.
7. Death to CRTs: Introducing the flat-panel iMac at Macworld San Francisc
"Long after the oil has run out, after the banks called in their loans, on the deserted Anerican streets, the few stragglers scuttle about to Fortress-like McDonald's only accessible through the drive-in"
Nah, the Chinese will wake up to find they've go nothing but paper back by nothing but oil, without oil they've only got paper! We'll all be driving through the MacDonalds on our magic pink ponies, silly.
"I'll have a Big Mac, Large Fries and a Tinkerbell will have a bail of straw".
"Trott up to the Window, Please Mr Taco"
The pony in front lifts its tail and takes a dump.
"Oh and add a chocolate milk shake to my order"
Almost all rich people run a charity or two, and they're not running them for the good of others.
Donating money to charity is a good way to buy good publicity, and you get a good tax writeoff on money you donate. There are also a thousand and one other scams people can pull, like charging their expenses back to their charitable foundation.
Also large corporations donate their own products (microsoft is especially guilty of this) and claim tax breaks based on the retail prices of those products. In the case of software, the production cost is minimal, and in any other industry it will still cost the company less to produce than the retail cost, just that the margins are much higher with software.
Donating of products serves as self-promotion, increasing brand awareness and market share, while costing the company significantly less than they claim to have donated.
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