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Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft's board
- fdghfg 7y agomaybe because people have found out his foundation patented the corona virus so he is preparing to run away :D
- chollida1 7y agoAlso 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 board members are: With Gates’ departure, the Board will consist of 12 members, including John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; Penny Pritzker, founder and chairman, PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer and president of Wells Fargo & Co.; Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International Inc.; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners; Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK); and Padmasree Warrior, founder, CEO and president, Fable Group Inc.
- thinkingkong 7y agoWhats the advantage or strategy behind having someone from Marriott?
- jrandm 7y agoI can't speak for them, but I'd imagine an international hotel chain would have some unique views on things like travel trends.
- goatherders 7y agoI 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.
- dave5104 7y agoThey can also represent the enterprise software needs for those industries.
- DonHopkins 7y agoYes, 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.
- david-gpu 7y ago...which are immediately relevant to the interests of Microsoft because...?
- jrandm 7y agoAs a software giant Microsoft's products intersect most parts of most economies. A hotel chain has its own technology needs and has views of the technology needs of its customers. Whether a high-placed member of Marriott has specific insights to Microsoft I don't know, but I don't think it takes much imagination to fill in hypothetical reasons the person could be helpful.
- dlp211 7y agoNothing. It's a way for the C-class to give each other more money.
- Marsymars 7y agoI 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 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2226411
- dahart 7y agoBoards serve in part to guide networking and policy for executives, and some are required to be external. It makes complete sense to have executives from other large corporations like Marriott. Marriott doesn't seem to stand out as any further away from software than any of the other board members, so maybe I'm not understanding your question; what about Marriott specifically caught your eye?
- spsful 7y agoHe would probably like to know why it makes sense to hire these external heads. If you were talking about the most outlandish of these board members, why would you say they deserve to be on the board? (I'm genuinely asking here as I don't know why myself)
- dahart 7y agoBoards are required, and there are different kinds of board members, some of them are are appointed and/or voted in by shareholders. So it's not exactly a question of being "deserving". While Microsoft is probably going to have some sway, this process is not necessarily about Microsoft picking people to guide their development strategy, or picking people who are in their best interests. This is sometimes shareholders putting in people who can (among other things) - 1) oversee the corporate governance, make sure the company is playing fair with their stock, 2) put in people who are successful and can guide the company toward business success, 3) create a network for hiring & replacing executives when they leave for any reason. That said, having diverse input from other large businesses seems like it's always going to be an advantage.
- nradov 7y agoMarriott is a typical example of the type of large corporate customers who buy a lot of Microsoft products and services. Having customers on the board is one way to help validate market strategy and gain insight into future IT purchasing trends.
- refurb 7y agoYou often see people sitting on boards from entirely different industries. One reason might be having a entirely different perspective on your business. When you have a board that entirely from the same sector, you end up with a lot of group think.
- daxfohl 7y agoKind of odd, being an employee there, I've never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.
- chx 7y agoUsually you don't. The board is not something that directly affects employees lives.
- sjwright 7y agoA self-evidently false assertion.
- subaru_shoe 7y agowhat ? that’s not remotely close to reality
- haecceity 7y agoWhat do they do exactly?
- therealmarv 7y agoChat, meet and get a ton of money. E.g. stop crazy managers to buy a Finnish mobile phone company if they are good ;) https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-does-a-corporate-board-of-directors-do-398865 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-does-a-corporate-board-of...
- sytelus 7y agoThey 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 CEO.
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- Aeolun 7y agoSeems microsoft is jointly controlled by a whole bunch of other companies.
- legitster 7y agoThat's how boards of directors work.
- ta999999171 7y agoWait until you read the attendee list of the Bilderberg Meeting!
- lowdose 7y agoYou have to wonder what a suit from Pepsi has to offer to a technology company. Pepsi sells sugar water that is causing obesity at scale. Pepsis most recent investment is a $4 billion energy brand called Rockstar. That romance between Jobs and the Pepsi CEO was in hindsight also a Hindenburg idea. What happend to we are changing the world with technology?
- tootie 7y agoBusiness is business. No one on the board is debugging C++. Most of what they talk about is financials.
- pvg 7y agoThe Pepsi exec at Apple was CEO, the top executive of the company. This one is a mere board member, boards don't run companies.
- badsectoracula 7y ago> What happend to we are changing the world with technology? Well, we did. Are you sure you want more?
- adventured 7y ago> 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. Steve Ballmer has a far larger position in Microsoft than Gates does. Ballmer has $52.9 billion in Microsoft stock presently (333m shares), per Bloomberg. A little over three times that of Gates. Ballmer appears to be the third largest holder, behind Blackrock (which has 515m shares).
- bythckr 7y agoCan public view the data on Bloomberg or is this from the terminal? The closest I got is from Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/holders?ltr=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/holders?ltr=1) & that is all different. If my understanding is not wrong, board members are representing shareholders and they themself are also share-holders. So, is Pepsi Cola, Gap Jeans, GSK (Sensodyne) & Marriott Hotel (just the household brands I recognised) shareholders of Microsoft or are the people Shareholders of Microsoft and their day job is at those companies?
- jayzalowitz 7y agoWith Gates' departure, the Board will consist of 12 members, including John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; Penny Pritzker, founder and chairman, PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer and president of Wells Fargo & Co.; Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International Inc.; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners; Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK); and Padmasree Warrior, founder, CEO and president, Fable Group Inc. SO DIVERSE.
- vikramkr 7y agoI mean, it is pretty diverse for a corporate board. About a third women, couple people of color including the CEO and chairman. That's well ahead of the curve.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoSomewhat diverse by race and gender. Completely non-diverse in terms of socioeconomic status, which may have been jayzalowitz's point. (Or may not. Maybe there wasn't a point except some drive-by snark. It's hard to tell with a post like that.)
- jimbob45 7y agoWhichever poster it was the other day saying that this was the optimal time to send out bad news as a company seems to have been astute.
- davidw 7y agoFriday afternoons are generally a time when they'll dump out bad news.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoMuch better when you have a pandemic going on. A friend of mine who is a CFO told me this sort of thing is used by CFOs in all companies to "clean the balance sheets" of bad news. Basically writing off things and taking losses with the excuse "the <name> disaster has really hit us hard but we expect to emerge stronger than ever." The reason for this strategy is that it is difficult for an aggravated shareholder to prove that the thing they are writing off was their fault. It is a giant get out of jail free card for contradicting any previous guidance or other statements simply "because disaster." As a result, the statements from companies on their Q1 results will be a lot of "we've been hit hard by this disaster" and they will dump a lot of things off their balance sheets that they should have dumped off prior to this, take a hit in their stock price but no one will be "guilty" of causing the stock price hit, "because disaster."
- 01100011 7y agoI wonder if companies are going to shuffle the books a bit to push losses to this quarter and the next so they can blame the virus?
- icedchai 7y agoVery astute. You'd think it took a Bill Gates to know that the market is closed for the weekend.
- Traster 7y agoRight, but this isn't just some random guy jumping ship. He's been winding down his role in the company for over a decade and there's a really obvious reason to step down: The stock market crash makes this an important time for Microsoft to have leadership that can actually support the company and Bill Gates' other job is incredibly active in the response to coronavirus. It's very likely that the reason he's stepping down has nothing to do with burying the news at all, it's to do with the fact he actually has limited time and this is a very important time to focus his efforts.
- a13n 7y agoI would guess that Bill Gates has been looking to do this for a while now, and this is just a good time PR-wise. It won't tank the stock anymore than it already has because the market's crashing, and people have other stuff to worry about.
- neuronexmachina 7y agoHis foundation has also been fairly active in the response to COVID-19 ($100M spending commitment so far), I wonder if he'll be taking a more direct role in the foundation's response to it: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/TheOptimist/coronavirus https://www.gatesfoundation.org/TheOptimist/coronavirus
- vesinisa 7y agoEh, I honestly don't think he has to care how much any news would marginally affect the stock or not. Unless he actually cares if he or Bezos is the #1 wealthiest person -- both being anyways astronomically rich at the end of the day. I didn't in fact even know he still had a role in Microsoft. My understanding was first Ballmer and then Nadella took over running the show years ago. So I don't think it's not even going to to affect investor sentiment that much.
- zizee 7y ago> Unless he actually cares if he or Bezos is the #1 wealthiest person He could also care about whether his actions have a negative impact on others.
- rrdharan 7y agoHe played a pretty important role in convincing them not to acquire Slack, which was interesting: https://www.ccn.com/not-buying-slack-bill-gates-best-call-ever/ https://www.ccn.com/not-buying-slack-bill-gates-best-call-ev...
- dehrmann 7y agoHe hasn't been involved in the day-to-day for so long that it wouldn't matter much. Once it was clear Satya Nadella had righted the ship, Bill was free to step away. It only looks bad if he starts selling shares quickly.
- dcolkitt 7y agoThe optimist in me wants to believe that this means he's about to be appointed as the head of the national coronavirus response. There's probably no better qualified person in the world to manage the coordinated effort.
- robertfw 7y agoWhy on earth would he be the most qualified person for that?
- danielhlockard 7y agoLikely because of the work the Gates foundation has done on infectious disease across the world.
- hinkley 7y agoAlso it seems like the sort of proposal that 45 would be willing to consider.
- brk 7y agoTo 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.
- DonHopkins 7y agoYeah, he'd appoint Jimmy Carter before he appointed Bill Gates. And he'd appoint Ted Nugent before he appointed Jimmy Carter.
- usepgp 7y agoNot sure he'd be the most qualified, but he seems like a person who take advice from knowledgeable people well and has the experience and current position of leadership to take advantage of it. He also lives right near a huge local outbreak, and so has obvious personal incentive to make sure that it gets cleaned up ASAP.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- forkexec 7y agoIt seems like he's laser-focused on global health at the B&MGF with some occasional videos about books, tech and trends. Corporate governance may seem to him less interesting at this stage.
- pdq 7y agoDoes this let Bill sell stock without needing to file SEC disclosures?
- wombat-man 7y agoI think if you own a certain percentage of total equity you still need to file disclosures.
- dehrmann 7y agoBut after a year or two, it does mean he's no longer an insider.
- aluminussoma 7y agoThis is the end of an era. I can only imagine what those board meetings are like. If anything like his product reviews, he asked incisive, aggressive questions. I hope he left because he is satisfied with the job the rest of the board is doing. Yes, Microsoft caused a lot of damage during the monopoly days. The tech industry needs a healthy, competitive Microsoft - at the very least to keep a check on other companies.
- zozbot234 7y agoBill Gates got his start at Micro-Soft coding BASIC dev stacks for the microcomputers of his day-- and Microsoft has now announced that further development on Visual Basic is to be frozen indefinitely (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22570684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22570684 - "Going forward, we do not plan to evolve Visual Basic as a language"). There's no way that this is mere coincidence.
- netsharc 7y agoExcellent detective work, Lou! /s Do you really think his ego is that Trumpian that he's throwing a tantrum over something he made 45 years ago? If I were him I'd be grateful that that piece of software began my path to billions and billions of dollars, but I wouldn't be angry about something not really used anymore being classified obsolete.
- nomel 7y agoOr, it could be that > Bill Gates stepped down from the company's Board of Directors to dedicate more time to his philanthropic priorities including global health, development, education, and his increasing engagement in tackling climate change. If you follow Bill Gates at all, you'll understand this is where all of his energy, and passion, have been going for a long while now.
- thulecitizen 7y agoThe patent king is stepping down from his empire
- hnewsshadowbans 7y agoHe's a smart sociopath. When theres nothing left to buy you buy your legacy and erase the memory of all the companies and people you've crushed along the way to the top. Its worked like a charm. Most people eat out of his hands nowadays. Only a few see through him.
- tus88 7y agoSurprised he was even on it still...
- petilon 7y agoSatya Nadella is doing a terrific job leading Microsoft. Prior to his taking over, Microsoft was seen as a has-been. Today Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world once again (edit: AAPL is slightly ahead). Nevertheless, this is a sad day. If anyone has the ability--and credibility--to provide guidance to Nadella it is Bill Gates. With Gates gone (and Ballmer too) it is Nadella's Microsoft. That's not bad necessarily, but having Gates around as a backup was a good thing.