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

Does it surprise anyone...

[Frosty Piss]

...That Gates and Ballmer are scheming cut-throats?

Re:Does it surprise anyone...

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul Allen has $13 billion. Please excuse me if I find it difficult to feel sorry for him.

Re:Does it surprise anyone...

[mwvdlee]

Nope.
It's just nice to hear it confirmed by somebody with first-hand experience.

Re:Does it surprise anyone...

[thsths]

The two good points are made, can we close the discussion now, before it gets ugly?

Re:Does it surprise anyone...

[hairyfeet]

Oh it wasn't just him, I remember a story about how Jobs fucked Woz out of something like $1500 by saying that the game that Woz wrote that Jobs sold to Atari had only netted $300 (and thus making Woz's half $150) when it actuality it had sold for something like $3000, and this was supposed to be his friend..

I bet if someone did a full psyche work up on most successful CEOs you'd find that damned near every single one is a sociopath because to reach that level of success and power one has to be willing to fuck EVERYBODY, friends, family, workers, everyone they come in contact with. So is it any surprise that Gates did what probably every other top CEO did and fucked his colleague? Sadly we reward sociopaths when it comes to business.

Doesn't make him any less of a douche, it just gives him a hell of a lot of company, Jobs, Ellison, I bet every major tech CEO that has reached the billionaires club has a hell of a lot of fucked over friends left in their wake.

Re:Does it surprise anyone...

[AVryhof]

.... or $1 a year.

That's how you sell an autobiography

[MrEricSir]

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.

Re:That's how you sell an autobiography

[Daengbo]

Gates was always ruthless, egotistical, and manipulative in his dealings with others -- possibly even sociopathic. His recent change is just Robber Baron Guilt playing itself out like it always does. No one wants to go down in history the way he was going to go. You've got to distract the public, donchaknow?

Re:That's how you sell an autobiography

[timeOday]

Telling the truth isn't mean, and you don't get to be the richest guy in the world by sharing. You get there with a combination of perfect luck, extreme talent and motivation, and by using every trick in the book. If you didn't, somebody else who did would be #1.

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:That's how you sell an autobiography

[rolfwind]

Well, yeah, a scandalous book might sell more, but does Paul Allen really need the money?

Re:That's how you sell an autobiography

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah, a scandalous book might sell more, but does Paul Allen really need the money?

Just in case he doesn't, I'll be torrenting the PDF ebook scan all night.

Re:That's how you sell an autobiography

[Daengbo]

Sociopaths are really good at mimicking normal emotions. In this case, it looks like guilt, but it's really just as self-serving as ever.

Re:I would never have guessed!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

But but he said his stuff was always cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:He understood?

[Frosty Piss]

I wonder why...

He's clearly still bitter about being pushed out of MS around the time he had the cancer...

Paul's the Good Guy?

[mpapet]

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

Re:That's how you sell Slashdot.

[by (1706743)]

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..."

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.

Robber Baron Guilt

[wombatmobile]

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.

Re:Robber Baron Guilt

[lucm]

> Their "charity" is a sneaky form of hubris.

I agree on this one but I would say this is something recent.

A good friend of mine is working for some AIDS-related NGO in Africa and she told me that the Gates foundation is using the same nasty methods than made Microsoft what is is today, crushing the "competition" and using their big bucks to do some arm-twisting and whatnot so things are done their way. Knowing that Warren Buffet pledged to give billions to that charity (while refusing to put his own children in his will) is not good news for her.

However some insanely rich people did some good in the past. Think about Rockefeller, who had cut-throat business practices but also gave billions for science and education. The research centers he built and financed were responsible for eliminating a lot of diseases in the south of the USA (such as the ringworm). Also his money was crucial for the development of the University of Chicago. The Rockefeller foundation was created in a way that prevented interference from Rockefeller business and it was managed by consensus, so one single guy could not run the show. It is still active today.

In the case of Rockefeller it was possibly a religious thing; for many baptists it is a virtue and a lifestyle to make a lot of money, to save every cent, and to share a large part of this money with the needy. As for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, seeing how they gave nothing until very recently, one could wonder if they are not simply trying to buy themselves a good name or a good conscience.

Re:Robber Baron Guilt

[dunezone]

Knowing that Warren Buffet pledged to give billions to that charity (while refusing to put his own children in his will) is not good news for her..

Thats because Warren Buffet doesn't like the idea of transferring wealth from one generation to the next. Warren Buffet wants his children to be independent from him and make it on their own. Ever hear of those stories where the children of the highly succesful tend to be screw ups? Because they were handed everything and never understood the idea of making it on their own. Additionally, they weren't written out of his will, they just wont receive a large amount of wealth, same thing is happening with Bill Gates children.

Stock Dilution: Remedies?

[Compaqt]

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.

Re:What about DONKEY.BAS?

[eples]

Yeah, that, and the BASIC interpreter itself. Not a small thing.

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.

Re:Say it ain't so!

[mldi]

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.

Re:Say it ain't so!

[TheSeventh]

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 . . .