Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What I loved about Paul Allen

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 122 posts

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#81

Post by runciblespoon »

DenisM wrote: post #75
TomVDB wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cnet.com/news/paul-allen-gates-ballmer-tried-to-... > Paul Allen: Gates, Ballmer tried to 'rip me off' > "One evening in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill's office and paused outside to listen in," he writes in his memoir. "It was easy to get the gist of the conversation. They were bemoaning my recent lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft e…

Thanks. Did we ever hear Gates’ side of the story? I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone by issuing more stock to the remaining productive collaborators. That would depend on the scale, and method used to calculate the proportion, and of on obtaining consent from the diluted party.

@DenisM: “I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone” ..

Cutting a business partner out of his fair share while he's in the middle of battling a life threatening disease, a good reason. I guess you went to the same school of ethics as Gates :]

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#82

Post by Aeolun »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #43
2_listerine_pls wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Does it matter? The point is that they didn't do it. Yes, it could've happened, nobody is disputing that, and nobody is disputing that it would've been a shitty thing to do. But at the end of the day, it didn't happen. You're arguing a hypothetical and adding even more hypotheticals on top. Nobody will know why it didn't happen, what the motivating factors might have been, but we all know that the conversation took p…

Presumably at least one person knows why it didn’t happen.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#83

Post by no_one_ever »

brubrant wrote: post #78
pwang wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly the same feeling I had back in 2010 when I knew I had to quit my job and start pushing Python for data analysis.

And are you really, really successful or the rest? :)

Well, judging by the account name, this is probably Peter Wang, the CTO of Anaconda, Inc. So maybe that answers your question.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#84

Post by samort7 »

gus_massa wrote: post #20

From the caption of the first photo: > Here we are in school. That’s Paul on the left, our friend Ric Weiland, and me on the right. In case you are wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ric_Weiland

Wow. I can't imagine what it is like to be surrounded by people of that caliber in my day-to-day life. Don't get me wrong, I have some great friends. But nobody that I really could see myself starting a business with or people with such intelligence and ambition.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#85

Post by __blockcipher__ »

DenisM wrote: post #75
TomVDB wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cnet.com/news/paul-allen-gates-ballmer-tried-to-... > Paul Allen: Gates, Ballmer tried to 'rip me off' > "One evening in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill's office and paused outside to listen in," he writes in his memoir. "It was easy to get the gist of the conversation. They were bemoaning my recent lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft e…

Thanks. Did we ever hear Gates’ side of the story? I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone by issuing more stock to the remaining productive collaborators. That would depend on the scale, and method used to calculate the proportion, and of on obtaining consent from the diluted party.

Heh, you can find apologists for anything these days huh

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#86

Post by tinkerteller »

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.

This is well covered in many books and articles. The back story, as I understand, is that Allen was checked out from Microsoft even before he got sick. He was going through relationship and other personal issues and went through long stretch of times travelling through Europe. Gates and Ballmer felt at the time that Allen received far bigger chunk of share of their success than he had actually worked for. You have to remember that Gates and Ballmer were both putting in 14-18 hours a day and many times not even have time to shower while Allen was touristing in Southern France for months with no indications of his commitments to the company. Even while at the founding of Microsoft, Allen's contributions to BASIC interpreter was not in balance as Gates but he did received same share of company because it was his idea. There are several authors who limit Allen's major contributions to Microsoft as: (1) Pointing out potential of microchips to Gates (2) be older face to partners like IBM (3) write small chunk of code in BASIC interpreter (4) suggest packaging apps as "office suit". There are few authors who believes that Allen did wanted to stay engaged but was sidelined by Gates when he started forming leadership team. This combined with his relationship issues and then sickness pushed him out of the loop.

There are lot of parallels to Zuck and Eduardo except that Allen was lucky enough to be at right place and right time to overhear the plan to dilute his stack and prevent it before it was executed.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#88

Post by dexterdog »

runciblespoon wrote: post #81
DenisM wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Did we ever hear Gates’ side of the story? I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone by issuing more stock to the remaining productive collaborators. That would depend on the scale, and method used to calculate the proportion, and of on obtaining consent from the diluted party.

@DenisM: “I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone” .. Cutting a business partner out of his fair share while he's in the middle of battling a life threatening disease, a good reason. I guess you went to the same school of ethics as Gates :]

Many companies can die with the dying partner if the remaining partners are not able to capitalize and run the business in his absence.

Re: What I loved about Paul Allen

#89

Post by jmspring »

Isamu wrote: post #16
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.

As someone who has spent time at Microsoft, Ballmer did good for the company post-gates for awhile, but hit a plateau. He continued too long and thus brought in the stalled time that some refer to as the Ballmeriam era. And have qualms about how things were handled during that time. I have no public opinion on that.

That said, Ballmer addressing employees, he bled the company on his sleeve. Even having disagreements on how things were, the genuine feeling coming from him - in person or on video - was actually contagious - for a time.

Things are not black and white.

My only knowledge of Paul Allen outside of stories about Vulcan ventures was knowing people that worked at one of his properties having to sign NDAs, which is understandable.

No one is black and white. Faults should not be washed over, achievements over blown, hopefully we all add something net positive in our finite time.

Post reply on HN