Gates to join Simonyi in Space?

gadgetopia writes "On Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin tells journalists in a live video interview from the ISS that "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"." Gotta wonder what that insurance premium is going to look like.

Comments

Lots of jokes, but...

[Aladrin]

Joking aside, I wonder exactly what would change should Gates not make it back to the Earth?

Would his empire fall, or would his second-in-command just jump into his chair and everything continues as usual?

Would there be a slew of 'secret' things suddenly appear? Would these secrets hurt or help the business? I could see it going either way... Secret projects would probably boost the company as speculation about them flooded the news, but secrets about Gates' personal life would do the opposite, I think.

I'm pretty sure MS stock would plunge, so not much speculation there.

Personally, I think we'd be worse off as Gates is sort of held personally accountable for everything Microsoft does, and I think he has a conscience. But if someone else took his place, there would be less personal influence and it'd be the company rampaging out of control. Short term horror, at least... Long term, it'd tear the company apart and be a blessing. But then, everything dies in the long term.