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Gates' Last Day At Microsoft

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the keep-it-clean dept.

mrogers writes "Today is Bill Gates' last day as a full-time employee of Microsoft. After 33 years at the company, the one-time richest man in the world will be retiring at 52 to spend more time guiding the charitable Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What would you buy him as a retirement gift?"

41 of 467 comments (clear)

  1. Ooh! Oooh! I know! by clang_jangle · · Score: 5, Funny

    What would you buy him as a retirement gift?"



    A shiny, new laptop loaded with Vista, of course. He's earned it!

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
    1. Re:Ooh! Oooh! I know! by stretch0611 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What would you buy him as a retirement gift?"

      Nothing. I have already given him enough money by paying for his OS when I want to run linux.

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    2. Re:Ooh! Oooh! I know! by bloodninja · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The man should be given a Nobel Peace Prize. Windows has done more to make technology available to non-tech experts than anyone else.


      The man should be given a Nobel Peace Prize. Windows has done more to make money for techies due to the unnecessary complexities imposed on non-tech experts than anyone else.


      There. I corrected it for you. No you dolt. Press control X. Everyone knows that. Pay up.

      I credit Windows for bringing the price of consumer hardware down, especially Vista. Just think, if Vista were not so HW-heavy would we have today Dual- and Quad- core processors and _Gigabytes_ of RAM for so cheap? People who use an OS that does not need all that (Ubuntu, for instance) can literally have a system that is four times as powerful as they need, for the same adjusted cost of what a regular system would have cost only three years ago.

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    3. Re:Ooh! Oooh! I know! by texaport · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ten years ago I bought some shares of Microsoft stock shortly after the release of Windows 98 -- I'd buy him a gift with every penny he earned me as a shareholder since that day.
      If you had just bought 36200 shares of MSFT stock back then for $999,844 plus a $362 commission, it would now be worth ONE MILLION DOLLARS today.

  2. A Mac by Dolohov · · Score: 5, Funny

    (I mean, judging from Microsoft's product lines for the last twenty years, it's what he really wants...)

  3. Retirement Gift by ilovegeorgebush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blatantly a tux toy.

    For all my *NIX & FOSS zealotry, I can't help but respect what he's brought to the world. His & MS's achievements have been broad and they've paved the way for multiple industries. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this on a Linux box if it wasn't for Windows :)

    --
    ilovegeorgebush
    1. Re:Retirement Gift by jimicus · · Score: 4, Informative

      What has Bill Gates personally achieved? Note that personally ripping off the ideas of others is not an achievement.

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/15/could_bill_gates_write_code/

    2. Re:Retirement Gift by rishistar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Linux also benefited greatly from the fact that MS became de facto on the cloned PC market. All the other major vendors an the time had an apple like hardware and OS that were sold together. As IBM never got an exclusivity deal on MS-DOS, clones could run it, and thanks to this 'standardisation' the price dropped on the hardware thanks to the benefits of competition on the same hardware. Without that low cost of hardware Linux would not have taken off, and its extremely unlikely that as many people would have computers, internet access and slashdot accounts with which to slag off Microsoft.

      --
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    3. Re:Retirement Gift by stretch0611 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...MS's achievements have been broad and they've paved the way for multiple industries. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this on a Linux box if it wasn't for Windows :)

      I do not agree with that assumption. First off, Unix was not created because of MS and/or Windows and Linux was created as a Unix clone, not specifically to compete with windows. If the pc hardware was not around it would have been built on different hardware.

      Next, even without MS, IBM would have still been looking for an OS for its new computing platform. Because it was IBM, which at the time was the de facto standard/monopoly, there still would have been a clone market even without MS's help. If the clone market did not provide enough cheap hardware, there would have been cheap hardware from either the computers running CP/M or even the home market (Amiga and/or older 8bits computers)

      Linux evolved from someone's desire to clone minix, not from a need to use something other than windows.

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    4. Re:Retirement Gift by snoyberg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Without that low cost of hardware Linux would not have taken off, and its extremely unlikely that as many people would have computers, internet access and slashdot accounts with which to slag off Microsoft.

      So I would have had a 4-digit UID? Damn it Bill Gates!

      --
      Thank God for evolution.
  4. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When can we look forward to a day without Ballmer? That would truly be a day to celebrate.

    1. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      But it's so much fun to watch him run Microsoft into the ground. Don't take that away!

    2. Re:So... by Gewalt · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Bill Gates has been bullied around by Steve Ballmer ever since Windows 1.0. The reason Gates' work is never realized is because he's never been in charge. He has done precisely what Steve has told him for years. And Steve ruined his entire image and turned Microsoft from a beloved entity into a corrupted and one of the most hated companies.

      I would LOVE to see Ballmer on the way out instead of Bill. Most of what people really dislike about Microsoft is Ballmer's doing, Gates just didn't have the spine to stand up to him and reel him in.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    3. Re:So... by Zwicky · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know you're joking ("funny cos it's true" humor?), but - and maybe I'm not giving Ballmer enough credit here[0] - I really can't see Ballmer keeping Microsoft afloat in the long-term. Call it a gut feeling. The man is but an ogre really.

      If anything saves Microsoft - aside from its stockpiles of cash - it will be Bill's advice imparted on his one-day-a-week-on-Microsoft-business.

      I am certainly not enamored with Gates by any means, but I do recognize that (in my view) he was the brains behind the outfit: Ballmer is Robin to Gates' Batman; Cashman and Dobbin? "Holy developers, developers, developers, Cashman!"[1]

      Personally unless Microsoft pull something exceptional out of the bag I expect to see them decline as 'market leaders'. I am interested in hearing others', perhaps more informed, thoughts.

      Anyway that's how I see it from my point of view but IANABA (business analyst).

      [0] Stop laughing, I'm trying to be impartial :)
      [1] That right there is why I don't write comic books.

      --
      "Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
    4. Re:So... by Hojima · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bill Gates

      The WSJ has an article looking at the struggle Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had in switching around their Junior/Senior relationship.

      Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.

      Once Gates leaves, "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle," Mr. Ballmer says. "Use him, yes, need him, no."

      Linus Torvalds

      Ballmer is also known as a vocal critic of competing companies and their products. He has referred to the free Linux software system as a "[â¦] cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." Ballmer was trying to articulate his concern that the GNU GPL license employed by such software requires that all derivative software be made open source.

      [edit] Lucovsky/Google

      In 2005, Mark Lucovsky alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became highly enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair and threw it across his office. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer allegedly said, "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google," then resumed trying to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft.[14][15] Ballmer has described the incident as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place."

      Cut directly from wikipedia (probably one of the reasons Microsoft wanted to merge with yahoo)

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    5. Re:So... by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Remember "It ain't done 'til Lotus won't run"? That's not apocryphal.

      Indeed, it's a myth without the slightest shred of credible evidence to back it up.

      "DOS ain't done until Lotus does run" would be a more accurate reflection of reality.

      Hell, I ran into undocumented functionality with the first non-trivial Windows program I tried to write. It was a little utility to manage and assign icons in Program Manager, but I could never figure out how to extract the icon resources from executables because... it wasn't documented anywhere. At least in 1990 or so when I was doing this.

      Undocumented functionality, in and of itself, is in no way evidence of "monopolistic abuses". It is completely normal in any non-trivial piece of software.

    6. Re:So... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Funny

      So Bill Gates has been held hostage at chair point.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    7. Re:So... by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Look at how many PCs sold VS how many copies of Vista,and that will tell you the true story. When my 67 year old mom who don't know squat about computers comes to me and goes "What is Vista and why does it suck?" you know you have a problem. Also look at the emerging markets of green PCs and netbooks,neither of which will EVER run Vista. And how many billions are they losing on the x360? I know Sony lost 3.3 billion on PS3 and after that recall and warranty extension I doubt they are doing better.


      Trust me,I am no Linux or Apple fanboi,having used and made money off MSFT products since the days of DOS and Win3.1. But the simple fact is even teeny boppers that don't know the difference between a PC and a VCR come with their parents to get a new PC and I mention Vista I get an EXTREMELY loud EEEEW!,like I took a crap in front of them or something. Even my local Wal Mart has been making it clear that on every sale of a laptop they'll at no extra charge put XP on it just to keep from losing sales. And after being given a copy of Vista for being a beta tester and giving up after nearly a month to get that POS to run decent on my 3GHz Celeron I gave up and gave it away,only to find out later that it keeps changing hands like a bad fruitcake. So far I've had 4 people install it just to go "Yuck" a week or two later and go back to XP and pass it off to someone else.


      The simple fact is inertia can let them go for awhile. But I've had more businesses lately start asking about "This Linux thing"(which for some reason they insist on calling Lienucks no matter how many times I correct them) than I have ever had before. If Win7 doesn't come out a lot more like XP and a lot less like Vista then I predict that those with money will be switching to Macs and those without will either pirate XP or come to someone like me to build them a PC from scratch with XP on it. I just hope that after Jan 2009 I'll still be able to find XP OEM cds or I might be buying a lot of used barebone systems just for the XP CALs. But so far my customers are willing to pay extra NOT to have the Vista "experience" on their new PC. And as always this is my 02c from out here in consumerland,YMMV

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    8. Re:So... by Jarik_Tentsu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.

      Really makes you think - what happens behind the closed doors?

      Ballmer: We will create a monopoly. The next version of Windows will not run any non-Microsoft software! Muwahahaha!
      Gates: But that is wrong! That destroys the market!
      Ballmer: What did you say to me boy!?
      Gates: B-B-But that'll lower the quality of our product. W-W-We need to take care of our customers!
      Ballmer: *narrows eyes* You've been reading Slashdot, haven't you boy?
      Gates: N-No!
      Ballmer: Don't make me use the chair on you...Have you forgotten all I've taught you?
      GateS:N-No!
      Ballmer: Then tell me, what matters?!
      Gates: Developers?
      Ballmer: Indeed. Now run along now. And if I hear any of this nonsense again, I bring out the chair.

      ~Jarik

  5. Last day, huh? by Foddz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please tell me they're giving him the high tech 'security walk'!

    1. Re:Last day, huh? by azuredrake · · Score: 5, Funny

      Heh, this made me laugh. Can you see Gates being escorted out slowly by the HR head, all the young employees chanting "Dead Man Walking" as he goes by? That'd be truly bizarre.

      --
      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  6. 640kb!!!! by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Funny

    A 386SX with 640KB of memory.

    --

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    1. Re:640kb!!!! by brouski · · Score: 5, Funny

      That should be all he'll ever need.

      Oh wait, You don't mind me karma-whoring off you, do you?

      --
      Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
  7. The ability to seperate himself truely from.. by gQuigs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft and proprietary software. What is good for Microsoft and proprietary software conflicts with a lot of good charitable work.

    Giving any poor organization the first copy of Microsoft software for no cost isn't going to help them in the long term.

    To do this, he needs to get rid of his stake in Microsoft stock.

    1. Re:The ability to seperate himself truely from.. by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Charity is a pretty good spot to recoup karma, IMHO. Certainly better than hookers, blackjack, and coke.

      The "Charity" is a front. It makes for-profit investments and has pledged not to review its investments for their ethical acceptability. Everything you need to know about the Gates foundation can be summed up by their response to Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation, an LA Times investigative article (I know, I was as shocked as you must be) which tells the story of the Gates Foundation's investment in big oil that is killing people in the places in which they claim to try to be saving them. This is my favorite paragraph:

      The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France â" the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

      Now, keep in mind that the Gates Foundation is not restricted to making holding investments, they are allowed to make them for profit. The profit ostensibly goes right back into charity, right? But here's the issue. As of January 2007 (when the article was published) they'd spent nearly twice as much on sucking oil out of the region (killing people in the process) than on actually helping anyone! And let's not get into what percentage of that money spent is actually applied effectively...

      Bill Gates is not interested in helping anyone. Remember how the idea of a presidential bid for Gates was floated in the media? That was not a mistake. It was a test. It did not go over well; millions of the best-connected people on the planet certainly spoke their mind on the issue on every public forum they could find. Now, he is sitting on top of one of the largest fortunes on the planet, in charge of doling out money both to the greedy companies raping the land, and to help people who are being harmed by them. If you follow the money, though, you can see where priorities lie.

      Gates has placed himself in a position of power which makes his former position at the top of Microsoft look like the elementary school yard bully on top of the pitcher's mound winning a game of king of the hill, and this is not a cause for celebration. He is not there to do good deeds.

      --
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    2. Re:The ability to seperate himself truely from.. by corbettw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bill Murray once observed, if you want to be rich and famous, try being rich first. See if that's enough.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
    3. Re:The ability to seperate himself truely from.. by dhavleak · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't you think this is a little unfair?

      I mean, its obvious that most of BillG's wealth given to the foundation must have been MS stock (or some stock anyhow). Given that, the foundation will just bleed dry if they don't invest for maximum profits. And the more profitable their investments, the more impact the foundation can have.

      Now owning stock in some company that does bad/evil stuff hardly makes you the perpetrator of the crime. I mean, the company is not going to behave different with/without the investment from the foundation. It makes to difference to them who actually owns their stock (unless it's a question of controlling stakes, proxy votes etc. -- and that didn't seem to be the case in the article you linked).

      On top of that, it's really unfair when you say

      Now, he is sitting on top of one of the largest fortunes on the planet, in charge of doling out money both to the greedy companies raping the land, and to help people who are being harmed by them.

      Because again -- he did not dole out money to the company -- he has not made a loan or a gift to these companies. He's simply using the profits generated from their share price appreciation. And poetically, it goes into the people being harmed by this corporation.

      I'm not sure where you got the presidential campaign thing from. And why you're so cynical about his intentions. Have you heard his Harvard speech last year?
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXCVYtYWVyU
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Q1T70VwfM
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXKrQBxJViQ
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rh9Aj7WsKE
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnHkUDxfmXE

      And have you seen the progress being made by GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization)? They have already prevented over 2.5 million children's deaths in the third world. The Gates Foundation was an active partner in creating and funding GAVI.

      When you listen to Gates talk about solving problems for people in the most wretched of conditions, you'll realize -- he's got a different and fresh perspective compared to people who have worked in this field before. He's got a lot to learn from them, but he brings unique skills to the table, and a unique problem-solving ability.

  8. Perfect present by electricbern · · Score: 5, Funny

    An account on Slashdot. But no trolling, please.

    --
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    1. Re:Perfect present by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 4, Funny

      But no trolling, please.

      What's the point if you can't troll?

      Shitcock!

      --
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  9. I got him a charitable donation by amliebsch · · Score: 5, Funny

    A donation has been made in his name to the Human Fund.

    --
    If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
  10. Possible Retirement Gifts by Eberlin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1. A gaming rig so he can keep pwning n00bs.
    2. an iPhone, a mac, and an iTunes account.
    3. some GOOG stock 'cause you gotta take care of that 401K SPECIALLY after retirement.
    4. A seat in the OLPC project's board of dudes that make decisions...it's only a matter of time.
    5. Ubuntu...and by that I mean "humanity to others" -- actually, a wish of good luck as he concentrates more in philantrophy. As much as I (and c'mon, I can't be alone here) enjoy Microsoft bashing, I think the Gates foundation could (continue to) actually do a lot of good.
  11. Gift Card by PawNtheSandman · · Score: 4, Funny

    $25 gift card to Applebees.

  12. Re:I would get him. . . by rs79 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Taking DOS which was bought, and advancing it to Windows and then NT "

    NT was a clean-room effort spearheaded by Dave Cutler who did Vax VMS; that's why NT sorta works.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  13. Re:Obligatory: A Gold Watch ... by XenoPhage · · Score: 5, Funny

    "... that runs Windows ..." ... ME. Enjoy your watch, Bill!

    Upgrade the pain! Make it run Vista... All the gore of WinME with the added pain of UAC!

    "You are trying to check the time, Allow or Deny?"

    Of course, you'd need to upgrade the graphics card and memory in the watch. Oh, let's not forget more storage space. And it'll probably need a faster processor. ... Maybe a sundial is easier...

    --
    XenoPhage
    Technological Musings
  14. The *real* question is... by information_retrieva · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...did security walk him to the door after his exit interview?

  15. Bill Gates last day video by Aaron+England · · Score: 4, Informative

    Obligatory video from CES 2008 for those who haven't seen it. Here's to you Big Bill. Thank you for your sense of humor and your charity. And thank you for inspiring so many including myself to pursue a career in computers and technology.

  16. Re:I would get him. . . by Foofoobar · · Score: 4, Funny

    MS has good programmers...

    ...unfortunately they don't let any of them touch the code.

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  17. Re:the #1 portable media player on the planet.. by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 5, Funny

    Odd, looking at the brown Zune I could have sworn it was a number two.

    --
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  18. Re:What about... by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 4, Funny

    Better yet: a 30 foot tall armour plated robot penguin that launches high explosive packed herrings while shrieking "DON'T FEAR ME!!!!" through a 10,000 watt speaker system, programmed to seek and destroy.

    Seems fair...

    --
    Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
  19. Re:Maybe a commodore amiga by tekrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Irving Gould is as responsible for the death of the Amiga as Bill Gates, maybe more so. As much as I adore my C=64, 128, Amiga 1000 and 2000 w/Toaster, Commodore never had the slightest clue as to how to market the Amiga.

    In 20/20 hindsight, it was the first true multimedia machine, and could playback video at decent framerates (the DCTV add-on was truely amazing for its time), however Commodore tried to market it as a business machine. As if they had a chance of competing with IBM for that marketshare.

    Only too little, too late did they make an inspired version, the CDTV (and later the CD32), which made the Amiga a component of a home entertainment system, (which only now are Microsoft and Apple trying to do), but, typical Commodore, they cheap'ed it to death, and then never threw any money at actually marketing it. As such, almost no one has ever heard of the thing.

    Newtek sold more Amigas than Commodore did, by rebranding it as a 'Video Toaster System', and many of those toasters are still in use today (although to be fair, many are also being offloaded on eBay).

    But to say that Bill Gates killed the Amiga is to distort history as badly as most people do when they think that Bill invented the computer. Or think that Windows is the only 'PC' there is.

    (God, to think that I'm actually defending Bill Gates, a person I'd like to have shot out of a canon more than any other individual in history....) Look what you've done to me, damn you!!!

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  20. Re:A handshake. by intx13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How does this myth stay alive? There were personal computers before Bill Gates: Macs. There were personal computers during the early rise of Microsoft: Macs, OS/2, Suns. There were personal computers throughout the Bill Gates glory days: Macs, Linux, (and Suns, kinda). And there are personal computers today. And there would have been personal computers without Bill Gates.

    That's not to say his contributions are worthless, but let's not start patting him too hard on the back just because he's retiring. He used questionably ethical business practices to produce and sell products of questionable quality.

    On the plus side, he's going to spend the rest of his life giving away enormous sums of money to charity - there's not much to dislike about that!