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What I loved about Paul Allen

gatesnotes.com

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Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#11

Post by ProAm »

wwarner wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

True, but not fair, to Gates OR to Allen. "After a few years all that passes. Bill and I have always been friends, even through the ups and downs" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/02/paul-alle...

I didn't say if it was fair or unfair, it's always the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Similiar to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and the Breakout game incident.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#12

Post by [deleted] »

wwarner wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

True, but not fair, to Gates OR to Allen. "After a few years all that passes. Bill and I have always been friends, even through the ups and downs" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/02/paul-alle...

[deleted]

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#13

Post by adventured »

captain_perl wrote: post #3
ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

Me too. My understanding is the minute Allen overheard that, he walked out of the Microsoft office and never went back. Hence why whenever you heard about him, it was from his yacht. I bet Gates and Ballmer have remembered that every day for 40 years.

That's false. Paul Allen remained on Microsoft's board of directors for two decades, continued to be involved with Microsoft for four decades, as well as being a major shareholder for its entire existence.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#14

Post by gtycomb »

"... Popular Electronics. It featured a new computer called the Altair 8800, which ran on a powerful new chip. Paul looked at me and said: “This is happening without us!” That moment marked the end of my college career and the beginning of our new company, Microsoft. It happened because of Paul."

What a magical moment, those youthful fancies. I know that very spot they stood and it still is the same I guess -- all the traffic on either side of the newsstand, street singers, students running to their classes, eating places to decide upon, bookstores ... and the ideas that bloomed from there are so many.

Bye, Mr. Allen.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#15

Post by Nomentatus »

ProAm wrote: post #11
wwarner wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but not fair, to Gates OR to Allen. "After a few years all that passes. Bill and I have always been friends, even through the ups and downs" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/02/paul-alle...

I didn't say if it was fair or unfair, it's always the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Similiar to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and the Breakout game incident.

"No remark without remarkableness" - which makes me curious: what do you think the remarkableness was, if not fairness or unfairness?

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#16

Post by Isamu »

ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

That's why it's a mistake to oversimplify public figures into "hero" or "demon" or whatever. They are always just people.

If Bill Gates is just a person and not a hero, you don't have to explain away any of his mistakes. You don't have to elevate him for his philanthropy. You don't have to make any judgments about him, unless it has any bearing on any decision or action you have to take.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#17

Post by 2_listerine_pls »

wwarner wrote: post #5
ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

True, but not fair, to Gates OR to Allen. "After a few years all that passes. Bill and I have always been friends, even through the ups and downs" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/02/paul-alle...

Just because the friendship remained, it doesn't make that particular event any better.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#18

Post by harryh »

mobileexpert wrote: post #8
ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

I don’t know the exact specifics, but the notion of co-founder vesting schedules exist today. This provides a simpler pre-agreed upon way to handle that kind of situation. If I recall correctly Micro-Soft wasn’t even a properly incorporated entity for the DOS deal making things like a founder needing to stop having an execution role for health reasons hard to deal with.

It's not clear that typical co-founder vesting schedules are really capable of handling this sort of event: a co-founder develops a major disease that limits their ability to work but does not halt it completely.

In most instances like this the co-founder is likely to continue vesting as normal. Whether all parties are happy with this arrangement or not is likely to vary significantly from case to case.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#19

Post by mixmastamyk »

ProAm wrote: post #2

The only thing I ever think of when Gates speaks about Allen is how they tried to reduce his equity when he got sick. It's something that has stuck with me for 20+ years.

Considering that he left at the end of 1982, contemplating the idea sounds fair. Believe they decided not to go through with it as well.
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