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."

Comments

Paul's the Good Guy?

[mpapet]

Is Paul the good guy in this scenario? Nope. Not even close.

Re:That's how you sell an autobiography

[exomondo]

Not to mention at the bottom of the article:
According to Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Allen's portrayal of Gates "in the book is already making waves within the tight circle of early Microsoft alumni, with several people who know both men privately expressing confusion about Mr. Allen's motivations for criticizing his old business partner and questioning the accuracy of Mr. Allen's interpretation of certain events

Re:Oh poor Paul

[Daengbo]

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.

Re:Yep - He did it to Steve Jobs

[saleenS281]

You mean right after Jobs lifted his GUI and mouse from Xerox?

Re:Yep - He did it to Steve Jobs

[UnknowingFool]

My understanding of the history goes like this:

• Apple got permission from Xerox corporate for a private meeting with PARC engineers.
• Apple paid for two meetings and use of Xerox ideas with $1M of Apple stock.
• PARC engineers didn't like the idea but complied.
• Apple engineers were shown the Star and got to ask detailed questions about how it worked and concepts.
• Apple would take the ideas and later build the Mac on it.

  The Mac was not an exact copy of the Star. The Xerox Star system however was far from complete. It didn't have drag-and-drop, windows could not overlap, etc. Apple did use the idea of menus, using a mouse as a pointer, etc.

• Apple did not steal the source code from Xerox.

  Part of the deal worked out with Xerox was that Apple was shown Smalltalk. However, Xerox built the Star using another own language called Mesa. Even if Apple got the source code and an emulator, it would be useless as the Mac OS was written in assembly.