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Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board

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

#71

Post by DonHopkins »

dave5104 wrote: post #35
goatherders wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can also represent the enterprise software needs for those industries.

Yes, but probably quite incompetently. And the Marriott board member probably knows how to make mediocre cup of coffee with the machine in their hotel room, but would be insulted if you asked them to make you a cup. But Microsoft has other experts who are competent to speak about those things (both enterprise software and good coffee), fortunately.

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

#72

Post by Marsymars »

dlp211 wrote: post #36
thinkingkong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the advantage or strategy behind having someone from Marriott?

Nothing. It's a way for the C-class to give each other more money.

I always find this paper kind of funny, showing that academics on corporate boards are correlated with both higher company performance and lower CEO compensation: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2226411

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

#73

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

sytelus wrote: post #53
chx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually you don't. The board is not something that directly affects employees lives.

They do. In a healthy company board is a sort of dampening force that steers CEO away from bad moves and advice him/her so that opportunities are not missed. Elizabeth Holms would be at much better place if board had excercised its authority. They are legally required to be part of almost all big decisions that are being made and they have the authority to at least bring in stockholder vote if they lose confidence in…

This kind of responsibility would remove a lot of trust fund babies from their pretend jobs.

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

#74

Post by urda »

chx wrote: post #34
daxfohl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of odd, being an employee there, I've never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.

Usually you don't. The board is not something that directly affects employees lives.

Yikes, no that's not how boards work.

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

#75

Post by rconti »

daxfohl wrote: post #20
chollida1 wrote: post #3

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…

Kind of odd, being an employee there, I've never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.

Padmasree Warrior, Reid Hoffman, Satyella Nadalla, I'd expect a decent number of people have heard of. The rest, no. But that's just my bias.

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

#76

Post by aianus »

staticassertion wrote: post #63
sytelus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. In a healthy company board is a sort of dampening force that steers CEO away from bad moves and advice him/her so that opportunities are not missed. Elizabeth Holms would be at much better place if board had excercised its authority. They are legally required to be part of almost all big decisions that are being made and they have the authority to at least bring in stockholder vote if they lose confidence in…

I think what they meant was that the board does not usually interact a lot with employees, or in a directly employee-facing way. Usually directors will interact with the board, both in terms of informing them and soliciting advice, and that turns into company direction, which funnels down through multiple layers before getting to ICs. Few people can have more impact on the company than a board, but it's very typicall…

> Usually directors will interact with the board

Did you mean "executives"? Directors and The Board are the same thing; it's The Board of Directors.

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

#77

Post by lacker »

sytelus wrote: post #44
daxfohl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of odd, being an employee there, I've never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.

Most of the board members seem to be partners at various investment firms. Many of them don't seem to even remotely tech people. It's kind of sad that the Microsoft board lacks any external visionaries.

At a huge company like Microsoft the board isn't really a great place for visionaries. It's much better at things like helping the CEO understand the thoughts of large institutional investors that provide Microsoft with capital. A visionary is better suited as a "special advisor" to someone... like the role that Bill Gates is keeping.

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

#78

Post by Marsymars »

burkaman wrote: post #65
darawk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he's been managing large scale responses to infectious diseases via his foundation for a decade or so now.

But he came into that position because he's rich, not because of any particular expertise, and he's been able to accomplish more than others for that same reason. He's done a lot of good, but there is not really any oversight into what his foundation does and no reason to believe he's doing the best possible job. He's just pouring a ton of money into a lot of very hard problems. If I had to pick someone, I would prob…

> He's just pouring a ton of money into a lot of very hard problems.

To expand on this, those problems take a lot of money to deal with, more than his foundation has, so in a lot of cases, the foundation effectively acts as force multiplier to get even more money on the problems.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/11/21133298/bill-g...

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

#79

Post by DonHopkins »

brk wrote: post #39
hinkley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To be completely serious, no it doesn't. I do not see an appointment of someone who is clearly both richer and smarter to be the frontman of the largest crisis to hit the country in recent history.

Yeah, he'd appoint Jimmy Carter before he appointed Bill Gates. And he'd appoint Ted Nugent before he appointed Jimmy Carter.

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

#80

Post by waterhouse »

aianus wrote: post #76
staticassertion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what they meant was that the board does not usually interact a lot with employees, or in a directly employee-facing way. Usually directors will interact with the board, both in terms of informing them and soliciting advice, and that turns into company direction, which funnels down through multiple layers before getting to ICs. Few people can have more impact on the company than a board, but it's very typicall…

> Usually directors will interact with the board Did you mean "executives"? Directors and The Board are the same thing; it's The Board of Directors.

Plenty of people have "Director" (e.g. "Director of Engineering") in their title without being on the board of directors.
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