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Paul Allen Rips Bill Gates In Autobiography
itwbennett writes "Bill Gates was guilty of 'mercenary opportunism' when he schemed with Steve Ballmer to dilute Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's equity in the company while Allen was recovering from Hodgkin's disease, according to Allen. In his upcoming autobiography, 'Idea Man,' which is excerpted in Vanity Fair, Allen paints a portrait of Gates as brilliant, focused, driven ... and ruthless. According to Allen, Gates in the early days twice sought larger equity in the company on the grounds that he 'did more.' Allen says he acquiesced each time, both because he understood his partner's reasoning and to avoid major conflict."
...That Gates and Ballmer are scheming cut-throats?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Saying nice things about people never sold anything. If he said nice things about Gates, would the book even be on Slashdot?
If you want your autobiographical book, newspaper, magazine, etc. to sell, you have to be at least a little mean.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Who could have ever pegged Bill Freaking Gates as a ruthless opportunist? Who exactly thinks this is news?
he understood his partner's reasoning
So... what, it wasn't a problem years ago, and now that he has a book he wants to sell it is? Pass.
Saying nice things about people never sold anything. If he said nice things about Gates, would the book even be on Slashdot?
If you want your autobiographical book, newspaper, magazine, etc. to sell, you have to be at least a little mean.
So when is Taco going to do an autobiography?
How much content is ACTUALLY true i wonder? True though like " MrEricSir" says saying nice things don't sell. A good capitalist knows how to make a buck.
Bill Gates always claimed that his stuff was cheaper than everyone elses, and he barely made any money at all. Thats why he has made the Forbes greediest list for such a long time, his priest-like oath to poverty. I heard the story about how Allen would be pale, vomiting, and shivering over a console, while Gates tells Ballmer, that if he doesn't put in a full 60 hours a week, and get the project done on time, he forfeits 80% of his stock. Gates didn't contribute any code, not much for ideas, but he did have the company. Oh, and he had more greed than any of the others. Some also described him as a sonofabitch. But you never heard that from me.
Is Paul the good guy in this scenario? Nope. Not even close.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Calling Bill Gates ruthless and greedy, this is controversial? It seems rather a compliment compared with what other labels you could legitimately attach to him.
Have a nice time.
About how he diluted your shares so you only have $10 billion dollars.
Paul Allen Awarded Patent: Ripping Bill Gates, Via Autobiographical Publication
Yep, you got so screwed that you only became a billionaire instead of the richest person on earth. If only we could all be so fortunate.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Gates is likely to be that bad - and worse. A lot of hard-driving type-A company founders/co-founders are like Gates (Larry Ellison, Henry T. Nicholas of Broadcom) are known to be first-class pricks. And so what? Without Gates' drive it is highly unlikely Allen himself would have made Microsoft into the company it is today and he certainly wouldn't be the filthy stinking rich boot-licker who is opportunistically taking advantage of the position Gates endowed him with in the first place by talking smack about his old buddy.
Paul Allen is complaining because Bill Gates wanted more equity since he "did more"? Paul Allen, for a long time the 2nd richest man in the world who pretty much stopped working at Microsoft in the early 80's and instead sunk a ton of money into failed tech companies and professional sports teams, was upset that Bill thought he DID MORE??
This guy's only smart business decision of his life was to partner with Bill Gates, and after that point his greatest business claim to fame is to lose more money on new ventures than anyone in history (Vulcan might as well be running their corporate furnaces on $100 bills...)
He has been involved with philanthropy in the U.S. Pacific Northwest for 20 years, largely through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, handing out more than $1 billion in grants and funding for local projects.[1]
Last year he pledged his remaining wealth (USD13.5B) to charity.
Allen has been a philanthropist since Gates was at the height of his douchebaggery. You ... you're just an ass.
Put identity in the browser.
Nevermind the tax situation. I heard you are better off with a billion ($) in the UK than a billion ($) in the US. True?
His recent change is just Robber Baron Guilt playing itself out like it always does.
Robber baron's don't get guilt. Their "charity" is a sneaky form of hubris.
Am I the only one who thought of The Social Network when I read this article. That sounds like the same thing Zuckerberg did to Eduardo.
Is it common in big companies to dilute out the smaller players so that they won't be stuck with them forever?
Really, does anyone get to where Bill Gates is right now without screwing a couple people in the process?
Legend has it Steve Jobs asked Bill Gates to write GUI software for the Mac. In a nutshell, Bill Gates thought, "Sod that" and stole the idea and subsequently Windows was birthed. Could be the reason why Apple are so anally secretive to this day....
Hodgkin is the most sympathetic.
bjd
We hear this all the time. Successful business leaders are smart, extremely hard working, driven, greedy sociopaths. These MS guys of course are the most extreme of them all. Seems most tech business is this way.
There's a species of small marsupial in which the males compete so fiercely, even suicidally, for mates that the ones who survive the fights all die anyway after their first mating season. They're burned up from the constant, intense, no holds barred fighting, and the toll of their raging hormones. They plunder their own bodies for the energy and strength to win. Take them out of this environment and away from the fighting, and they can last as long as 5 years, same as the females.
Just what has Gates, Allen, Ballmer and company proven with all this ruthlessness, this extreme Protestant Work Ethic? That the ultimate measure of success is money? That education is not everywhere useful? Sad. What have they accomplished? Brought cheap computing to the world, which is something. But not availed themselves of it terribly well. Strangely for a tech company, MS has never been known as particularly innovative. They've been better than most at choosing among and running with ideas, not coming up with them. Gates is a Rockefeller sort, not an Einstein. They also try to grab, claim and lock down things. Many of their actions are done without much regard for ethics, as that whole OOXML fiasco showed. They really seem not to get it about DRM, and have aligned their views with, of all organizations, the RIAA's! Stupid. Perhaps if they respected education and philosophy more, they would act in more enlightened ways. Note that the early days of MS, as Allen describes it, is death marches and hell bent hacking, not research and definitely not study except where it had immediate practical application. It is Google that has been markedly more innovative.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
http://zeroslashzero.limewebs.com/?p=283
http://zeroslashzero.limewebs.com/?p=283
Is there any defense to stock dilution? I think this is a pertinent question, because a good number of /.'ers might be working for startups with stock as part of the package.
Are there standard contracts which prevent this, or should everyone have to hire a lawyer to pound out custom contract$.
If everybody's share is getting diluted at the same time, I guess that might be OK if the value is increasing.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
While it's interesting to see that the rumors were true, I'll point out that Bob Cringely scooped this five years ago.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060330_000890.html
Bill Gates is no philantropist but rather just a rich dude avoiding paying taxes and making even more money than before by investing in Monsanto and other fine establishments. How investing in pharmaceutical and GMO and making big money is in any way connected to philanthropy is beyond me.
Bill Gates is just the same old greedy bastard who couldn't care less about unfortunate people. He just have a better PR army whitewashing his every move in mainstream media.
HTTP/1.1 400
The innate yearning of a human to spot the winner is something interesting to behold. We some how hold up Paul Allen in conversations above me as 'the first loser'. I think this goes back to some primate instinct. Because he was 'bettered' by Gates, Gates is the awesome winner, and Paul the loser we trash talk? I'm sure tons of people here would like to be him
Paul Allen rode Bill Gates to his riches,
This part is certainly true. But calling Bill Gates the better man? He really was a mercenary opportunist. Have you missed all of the Microsoft-related news of the past 30 years? The picture Paul Allen paints of him doesn't surprise anyone, because it fits perfectly in the picture Bill Gates painted of himself over the years. He's trying to change that picture now, but that doesn't mean that the past suddenly didn't happen.
I mean, being kind-of-an-asshole to Allen was the best thing Gates ever did over his life.
I also have to question portrayal of both Gates and Allen as competent programmers. What is described as their outstanding accomplishments, is something any decent programmer of that time would have to do every day, and most did that without the atrocious design that Microsoft is known for, ever since.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Well, I justify Gates on this one.
If you work your ass off to create the biggest Empire in history, while your partner is looking at the ceiling from his chair, I would be pissed off...
I'm sorry he had a nasty disease, but I don't think that was the reason for wanting him out.
It's no wonder why Allen is the least known of them. Gates was the ninja cutting throats out in the woods, what did you expected?
brilliant, focused, driven and ruthless, well - that certainly IS news!
This is so not true.
I don't see anything in the article saying Allen 'understood' Gates decision to bilk Allen out of his share of Micro-Soft ..
"One evening in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill’s office .. It was clear that they’d been thinking about this for some time. Unable to stand it any longer, I burst in on them and shouted, “This is unbelievable! It shows your true character, once and for all”
"In January, I met with Bill one final time as a Microsoft executive. As he sat down with me on the couch in his office, I knew that he’d try to make me feel guilty and obliged to stay. But once he saw he couldn’t change my mind, Bill tried to cut his losses"
“It’s not fair that you keep your stake in the company” he said. He made a lowball offer for my stock: five dollars a share link
Pot this is kettle...
He single handedly destroyed a whole industry and replaced it with the Microsoft ecosystem. It's telling that the only real innovation going on now is in markets that MS isn't dominent, search and the mobile sector.
Considering that he's willingly giving up half his wealth to charity, I'd say he's not bad. I don't know about his business ethics but I don't believe he's a bad person.
Steve Ballmer, on the other hand, watches you poop.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Didnt Zuckerberg do the same thing to Saverin? No wonder Bill and Mark are such good friend........but wait Bill will sue Mark for infringing on his "patented financial move" LOL
Truth is, much of the so-called "charity" is actually Gates pursuing his own financial interests.
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique
I heard about this originally a couple of years ago (maybe in a Paul Allen interview?), but while they were working on MS-DOS, he overheard Bill Gates discussing how to get back Paul Allen's company shares if he should die from his disease (Hodgkins), so that Paul's family doesn't have any control of the company.
One of the co-founders has a potentially deadly disease, but is still hard at work for the company, and Gates is trying to figure out how to screw him and his family over if he dies.
Yeah, Gates is not a bad person at all. Paul then mentioned that after this, he kept a close eye on Gates and what was going on, and planned on getting out as soon as he could, albeit with his Billions of dollars . . .
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
The Gates Foundation is legally required to spend $1.5Billion a year to retain it's tax free status. There's no charity involved. It's business.
Many PARC engineers, when they realized that Apple was actually doing something with the concepts that Xerox had largely ignored, promptly jumped ship and went to work at Apple on the Lisa/Mac.
Also, it wasn't Jobs that had the PARC-is-awesome epiphany. Jobs had no contacts at PARC, and never visited PARC until Apple's lower-level engineers suggested it. Jobs just facilitated the Apple-PARC exchange at the executive level.
Here is a reconstruction of the infamous conversation that Paul Allen listened in on:
Ballmer: The blue suits want a signoff on the hardware spec. Also, I've been meaning to talk to you about Paul.
Gates: It's super important that we start moving forward without Paul.
Ballmer: I agree. How much money in stock should Paul get on his way out the door?
(unintelligible)
Gates: 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Scandalous book is scandalous! (and that actually makes sense finally!)
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Is this not common traits of most billionaires?
He was originally VERY opposed to creating the charity and it was his Father and wife who convinced him to do it.
His kids are also not going to inherit much. Both he and his Father are quite active in insisting on high inheritance taxes because they believe the next generation should not inherit much wealth.
Considering how much he has, he really won't notice it at all in his lifestyle if he gave away 3/4 of his wealth.
He has been involved with philanthropy in the U.S. Pacific Northwest for 20 years, largely through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, handing out more than $1 billion in grants and funding for local projects.[1]
Last year he pledged his remaining wealth (USD13.5B) to charity.
Allen has been a philanthropist since Gates was at the height of his douchebaggery. You ... you're just an ass.
Let me put this very simply. Fuck your philanthropy. These sociopaths get rich by screwing over everyone they can, putting thousands out of work, destroying other companies, making other people poor, not paying taxes that could be used for social services, and then use foundations and charities in their later years to hide their wealth which they realize that no human being could spend himself anyway. Saying "I'm sorry here's a nickel" after leaving a swath of death and destruction is not commendable.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
UUhhhhh??? Excuse me....you mean that foundation of his which pushes Monsanto's GMOs all over the planet?? Or those mercenary armies his foundation finances for the coltan in Africa? Or the privatization of the nation's schools for the bankster class?
Or perhaps you are referring to Microsoft's donations to David Rockefeller's (and Henry Kissinger's and Richard Perle's) "American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc."???
Let me get this straight now....are you suggesting Gates hired some dood to copy Gary Kildall's CP/M OS and call it DOS? Or that he only got the DOS monopoly from Akers from IBM 'cause his mom and Akers were friends and sat on some of the same boards? Or that Gates' uncle happened to be the VP of First Interstate Bank, where Gates got his startup financiing?? Or that Microsoft routinely licensed, than copied, others proprietary software code into their Windows' OS?? Geez, sounds about right, don't it.....?
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Bill Gates is a greedy scumbag, news at 11. *yawn*
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
it's not like they actually give anything away...
you nutter, you
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061048&cid=35681060
(Hairyfeet's SUCH a dumbass, he doesn't know the diff. between STATICALLY ADDRESS IP BASED banners & DYNAMICALLY ADDRESSED ONES using host/domain names!)
LOL, I mean, ok - listen to his b.s. ALL YOU WANT, but only AFTER you read the URL from this website above, lol!
APK
P.S.=> Just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2EZ'", but then again? "Pwuffesuh HaiwyPheet" is only an "ITT Tech Boy" techie... lol! apk
and being a sociopath, is still better than you giving (nothing?) and being a rage nerd. Seriously, did you meet Bill in a dark alley one time, and he did bad things to you?
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2061048&cid=35681060
(Hairyfeet's SUCH a dumbass, he doesn't know the diff. between STATICALLY ADDRESS IP BASED banners & DYNAMICALLY ADDRESSED ONES using host/domain names!)
LOL, I mean, ok - listen to his b.s. ALL YOU WANT, but only AFTER you read the URL from this website above, lol!
(He sure is a "big talker" though, isn't he? Ripping others' work but he can't show he's done better... & he CERTAINLY SHOWED he is a fuckup in his "tech know-how" above!)
Another instance of his "big talking b.s." is here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2029850&cid=35450222
He says "automating McDonalds would be 'easy'" but he's NEVER DONE THAT... I have (one of the programmers for them, Boston Market, & Burger King's "bump bar" system).
APK
P.S.=> Just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2EZ'", but then again? "Pwuffesuh HaiwyPheet" is only an "ITT Tech Boy" techie... lol! apk
I'm with you on this one (look at my sociopaths comment farther up), but in this case, I was pointing out that Allen wasn't a douche and that Gates wasn't a great man as was posited.
Put identity in the browser.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2062904&cid=35684474
Nuff said, & THAT? That was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2EZ'"
APK
True, but greed can be a powerful thing. Considering his actions compared to other super-rich billionaires, it does stand out. After all, he could just sit on it. Yes, I realize there's some major tax breaks for giving to charities, but those breaks have limits. Giving away at least half (and trying to convince other billionaires to do the same) is going above and beyond.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
How exactly does that make him a bad guy? I don't know the tone of the conversation but if they're fairly compensated then everyone wins. Gates keeps control of the way "his" company is growing and the family gets money. I don't see it as a bad conversation in of itself.
Some best friend Paul Allen can be to his friend Bill Gates. Allen is in the top richest men in the world according to Forbes because Gates took him to the top. Now he is blasting Microsoft and Gates in his new book. Maybe Allen was the idea man but Gates was the brains behind the success of Microsoft. I think even if Bill Gates did some bad things to Allen in the long run Allen made out in the overall scheme.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org