"... 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 th…
What I loved about Paul Allen
31–40 of 122 posts
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#32The 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.
It's certainly horrible behavior, but we must allow the chance that he has changed for the better.
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#33The 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.
And that is likely to help you not at all if another party with controlling interest decides to try to screw you. See the histories of Facebook and Zynga for a couple of more high profile and recent examples. Back when Microsoft was founded, I don't think there really was even the notion of vesting back the shares in your own company... you were either a partner in a partnership or a shareholder in a corporation. I'm pretty sure it was VC's who later came up with the concept of earning back ownership in one's own company.
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an interesting way of looking at it. I wonder if you're right in looking at it that way. i.e. if one co-founder cannot work as much as the other, should there be a change in compensation?
I think there's room for both compassion and contingency in compensation. You can make sure that "your people" (operating from the mindset of corporate feudalism) are taken care of, that if they die prematurely from illness or accident their families are taken care of, and that if they are rendered simply unable to work they and their families are not worse off than in the worst case, without giving someone multi-dig…
Another factor that makes a difference -- but perhaps should not -- is whether you are reducing them from $10 billion to $1 billion or $100k to $80k.
In the first case, you might think "eh, they'll be fine anyway." But the magnitude of the money is not directly related to what is a fair reduction.
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#35Growing up a poor kid in Seattle, Microsoft was always that shining beacon on the hill. The idea that anyone, if they study hard, can get a job at one of the most powerful technology companies on earth, was an amazing motivator and source of inspiration.
That beacon has grown a little bit dimmer.
And yet still, the impact Paul Allen has had on Seattle shall remain for generations to come.
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because the friendship remained, it doesn't make that particular event any better.
Had they gone through with it, it certainly would have been despicable. As it was, it was nothing more than a conversation that was hurtful to Allen. You can't indict someone for an action they didn't take, as though they did take it. It's entirely impossible to know if Gates would have gone through with that action. Allen retained his full Microsoft stake and yielded tens of billions of dollars from the Microsoft th…
> As it was, it was nothing more than a conversation that was hurtful to Allen.
Or maybe they didn't do it because got caught?
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#37The 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.
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Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#38The 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.
Gates probably could have did what the Zuck did, but it doesn't look like he did it because Allen was still very rich. Anyone with a controlling interest can dilute someone anytime?
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, some kind of disability vesting would make sense.
Re: What I loved about Paul Allen
#40The way he portrays Allen as a man he looks up to, and he choice of photos, is touching.