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Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

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21–30 of 152 posts

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#21
post #5

Whichever poster it was the other day saying that this was the optimal time to send out bad news as a company seems to have been astute.

I wonder if companies are going to shuffle the books a bit to push losses to this quarter and the next so they can blame the virus?

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#22

Also stepped down from the Berkshire board as well. Given that he stepped away from a day to day role in 2008 and then stepped down as the chairman in 2014, I'm guessing he's focusing on his foundation. He's still the 8th largest shareholder according to Bloomberg's records(103,000,000 share), which is pretty impressive given that the 7 entities above him are all funds. Incase you wanted to know who the remaining 12…

Whats the advantage or strategy behind having someone from Marriott?

I can't speak for them, but I'd imagine an international hotel chain would have some unique views on things like travel trends.

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would he be the most qualified person for that?

Likely because of the work the Gates foundation has done on infectious disease across the world.

Also it seems like the sort of proposal that 45 would be willing to consider.

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#26
post #8
post #5

Whichever poster it was the other day saying that this was the optimal time to send out bad news as a company seems to have been astute.

Friday afternoons are generally a time when they'll dump out bad news.

Much better when you have a pandemic going on. A friend of mine who is a CFO told me this sort of thing is used by CFOs in all companies to "clean the balance sheets" of bad news. Basically writing off things and taking losses with the excuse "the disaster has really hit us hard but we expect to emerge stronger than ever."

The reason for this strategy is that it is difficult for an aggravated shareholder to prove that the thing they are writing off was their fault. It is a giant get out of jail free card for contradicting any previous guidance or other statements simply "because disaster."

As a result, the statements from companies on their Q1 results will be a lot of "we've been hit hard by this disaster" and they will dump a lot of things off their balance sheets that they should have dumped off prior to this, take a hit in their stock price but no one will be "guilty" of causing the stock price hit, "because disaster."

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#27

With Gates' departure, the Board will consist of 12 members, including John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, D…

I mean, it is pretty diverse for a corporate board. About a third women, couple people of color including the CEO and chairman. That's well ahead of the curve.

Somewhat diverse by race and gender. Completely non-diverse in terms of socioeconomic status, which may have been jayzalowitz's point. (Or may not. Maybe there wasn't a point except some drive-by snark. It's hard to tell with a post like that.)

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#28
post #9
post #7

The optimist in me wants to believe that this means he's about to be appointed as the head of the national coronavirus response. There's probably no better qualified person in the world to manage the coordinated effort.

Why on earth would he be the most qualified person for that?

Window's viruses.

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#29

Also stepped down from the Berkshire board as well. Given that he stepped away from a day to day role in 2008 and then stepped down as the chairman in 2014, I'm guessing he's focusing on his foundation. He's still the 8th largest shareholder according to Bloomberg's records(103,000,000 share), which is pretty impressive given that the 7 entities above him are all funds. Incase you wanted to know who the remaining 12…

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

#30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the advantage or strategy behind having someone from Marriott?

I can't speak for them, but I'd imagine an international hotel chain would have some unique views on things like travel trends.

I doubt it has anything to do with travel trends anymore than GSk being there has anything to do with pharma. These are business executives whose specific domain of expertise is business, not travel or pharma or banking, etc.
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