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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?
It's news because of who is saying it.
Fair enough, but you have to expect a bit of animosity between Allen and Gates honestly. From what I understand those two didn't see eye to eye much.
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.
I wonder why...
He's clearly still bitter about being pushed out of MS around the time he had the cancer...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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)
So when is Taco going to do an autobiography?
"I wanted to be the poll option, but CowboyNeal sought the position, and I acquiesced every time..."
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.
That "nice things don't sell" says more about us than Mr. Allen.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
He understood, does not mean he agrees. One can understand the logic of the argument and not agree with the logic.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
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?
He understood, does not mean he agrees. One can understand the logic of the argument and not agree with the logic.
... going further (and OT as well), even agreeing with the logic doesn't imply acceptance (like in: "make a Sophie's choice")
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
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
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
I wonder why he would need to sell a book. I mean.. he's got 13 billion dollars or something.
By your own logic, that means that money isn't the reason (something which most other authors will also claim, although probably slightly less honestly). The only other one that comes to mind is to allow him to put the record straight about the relationships between himself, Gates and, to a certain extent, Ballmer. To some people, making sure the truth is known is important.
Of course, the book isn't about Allen and Gates, and I doubt it's even 'about' Microsoft any more than iWoz was 'about' Apple. They're just the elements that will generate the most interest and get people wanting to read more.
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
I'm sure you are not staving either way....
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.
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.
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.
Depends, you could be a billionaire in dollars, pounds or euros. And if that's not confusing enough, the word "billion" actually has different meanings in the UK and US. Americans say "billion" when they mean 10^9.
In the U.K., they say "billion" when they mean 10^12.
I was more responding to the anonymous posters implication that he's saying this now that he has a book to sell. He clearly doesn't need to sell the book, nor will he notice any more or less revenues from it given the controversy.
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.....?
Bill Gates is a greedy scumbag, news at 11. *yawn*
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
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