Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates to Step Down from Microsoft
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."
Time to sell off my M$ stock...
-Shippy
That borg icon finally got to him ... should be ashamed of yourselves!
Same as the old Boss.
Thank you Bill, for everything you've done for the industry and the world.
Give the boy credit, for planning to devote his time to charity work.
I bet he just wants to make sure he makes it into heaven after all...
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
July 2008 - is that before or after Vista ships?
Jesus said to his disciples: "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" - Luke 22:36
What part(s) of my resume should I brush up when applying for the job of "master villian and arch-nemisis of WonderTorvalds?"
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?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Whatever will we do with the Borg-Gates icon?
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
"I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility"
Who would have guessed that Bill Gates was also Spider-man?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
But his morality is the only morality that company has. At all. This move will make Microsoft into more of a money grubbing, profit-centered, fuck anybody who gets in our way, sociopathic corporation. And they didn't have very far to fall to begin with.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
....to create a new Microsoft icon for /.
I felt a slight chill as I read the article, realizing that if Bill Gates is stepping down, he must be getting kinda older....which means I'm getting kinda older.
It's been an interesting ride through the years with Microsoft.
Thanks for everything, Bill, and best of luck with your philanthropy. My city in particular (Windsor, ON, Canada) has benefitted from the B&MG foundation with new computers in our library for public use.
Anyone can walk on water....think WINTERTIME.
Let's see:
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.
-----
Gates DID make computers affordable.
Fair weather and calm seas on your new journey...
MBC1977
(US Marine, College Student, Future Business Owner, and Good Guy!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
I would just like to say thanks to Bill for his continuing work with the Gates foundation. I don't see the other multibillionares (Google guys, Redhat guys, Ellison, Jobs, etc) stepping up to the plate and making any commitment EVEN CLOSE to the level he has. All I see those guys doing is buying fighter planes, boats, sports teams and big houses. Good luck Bill!
Just a picture of a chair. It'd be beatifully subtle, but sufficiently childish.
He's going to stay chairman.
He's replacing Ballmer!?!? O.o
What, a software magnate running for President? Yeah, right! As if that would ever happen!
Oh, crap.
So how long can he stay out of the game? Not long I suspect.
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
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.
He's got a loooooong list to clear out before he can get positive on karma.
Read radical news here
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.
Bill Gates is doing the same thing that Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, and the other 19th century robber barons did - he is transitioning from the persona of a despised, cut-throat, take-no-prisoners monopolist to that of a benign philanthropist, and spending the billions he acquired in order to ensure his legacy. And just like the robber barons the 1800s, I have no doubt that Gates will be viewed as a wonderful benefactor of humanity a hundred years from now. Only the historians will remember how many people and companies he mercilessly crushed to create his fortune.
Gates is still ambitious.
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.)
When asked about his thoughts on this position change, Ballmer was quoted:
"I'll fucking KILL him!"
Yes -- brilliant! You've captured the essences of the Slashdot v Microsoft "drama".
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. 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.
Is this sig nificant?
Like him or not, Bill Gates did a lot for personal computers, and honestly, those of us who use them and even the world. MicroSoft wrote a lot of good compilers and a lot of good programs, and while many may gripe, windows, windows98, windowsNT and windowsXP were pretty damn good products.
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...
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.
What part(s) of my resume should I brush up when applying for the job of "master villian and arch-nemisis of WonderTorvalds?"
:P
Spelling, probably
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Those of you calling Gates "evil", "villainous", etc, in order to belittle his philanthropic activities, consider this: ;-)
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?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
This is the beauty of capitalism. No matter how rich and powerful you are, you still get fired when you screw up.
Man when I read this I had images of Bruce Wayne and Wayne corp.
He just needs more time for his superhero alter ego.
People always bring this up so what the hell I have karma to burn....
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.
evil is as evil does
I think Gates is doing something no-one else can do. He's redistributing wealth from the first world to the third world and doing what he can to make the world better.
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.
Wait, here's an actual answer: a whole hell of a lot of them. People have this misconception that because somebody has a lot of money that they are evil. Here are some billionaires that have given, or have promised to give, a huge percentage of their estate to charity: Warren Buffet, John Huntsman, Sr., Ted Turner, George Soros, Eli Broad, and Alfred Mann.
Also, don't forget the old robber barons (and family) who created some incredibly great things through their gifts to charity: Andrew Carnegie, John_Rockefeller, John_Rockefeller, Jr., Leland Stanford, etc. Stanford, Carnegie, and especially Rockefeller, Sr. were huge assholes in the way they gained their wealth, but gave much of that back to the people through important and enduring social and cultural institutions.
These are just people I can think of off the top of my head. There are plenty of people that I'm forgetting. My point is that you can't simply characterize a person by how much wealth they have, either in a positive or negative way.
Rich people are just that, people. Some are assholes, some are really great people. Some of them recognize that they are fortunate to be where they are and want to give back to the community. Don't be ignorant and assume otherwise.
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.
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
"It matters not what you think of MS and how he got his money."
Really? You honestly think it doesn't matter how you get the money as long as you give two percent to charity?
evil is as evil does