Bill Gates will start scaling back his day to day duties at Microsoft, the mega international company he co-founded with Paul Allen 31 years ago in 1975. The transfer of responsibility will take about two years and although he will no longer be involved in the daily duties of the software company he will remain on as chairman.
Gates, 50 stated the he and his wife wish to spend the remaining years ahead of them focusing on their charitable foundation and philiantropic work and has the utmost confidence in those appointed to run his corportation that has dominated the computer industry for three decades, allowing Gates to amass a fortune that has made him the wealthiest person in the world with a personal worth of greater than $50 billion. Before the late 90’s tech bubble burst his fortune was valued at $84 billion.
Today, Microsoft made public the plan for other high-ranking executives to take on Gates’ duties. Under recent corporate reorganization the transition is expected to move smoothly.
Gates stressed that, although he will be giving up day-to-day responsibilities beginning in July 2008, he would still play an important role at the company, just not such a visible one. “I’m not leaving Microsoft,” he said. Gates also plans on remaining Microsoft’s largest shareholder and boasted, “I’m proud of that.”
All the player are already in place. Ray Ozzie, the company’s Chief Technical Officer will take over the reigns as Chief Software Architect. Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie will assume the role of Chief Research and Stragegy Officer and Brad Smith will stay on as Microsoft’s General Counsel.
Gates has utilized his fortune to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 which they have consistently used to help address and aid in trying to solve the world’s greatest problems, dealing specifically with environmental issues, global health and mass education. The foundation has assets totaling approximately $29.1 billion.
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer will now be the public face for the corporation and the day to day go-to guy for the upper eschelons within the corporation.
Caption for this photo:
“And the geeks shall inherit the earth…”
Sheesh. If these guys weren’t SO rich, they’d NEVER get laid.
I’m just sayin’.
lol
Good riddance. Hopefully the M$ monopoly degrades enough so that the playing field becomes level for true competition. Vista will be flaming pile of goo. The sheeple will buy it anyways.
Actually, I can’t be too mad at Bill.
Hell, anyone have any idea how much money those two give to charity and philanthropic causes? More money than you and EVERYONE in your family will ever have.
For that reason alone, I wish Bill the best.
Still a geeky lookin’ mofo, though.
I’m just sayin’.
; )
Yes, he and his family have given much to many charities, but there are those cynical folk who believe that those levels of contributions are merely Bill’s way of attempting to buy back all the bad karma he’s built up from years and years of unnecessarily vicious business behavior, so that the reciprocating karmic bitchslap won’t decapitate him sometime in the future.
Can’t argue with the efforts and the results so far, however, no matter what their reasons for doing it may be.
“Karmic Bitchslap” 🙂 Perfect description 😉