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Difficult to see how publicizing this stuff could be beneficial for Mr. Allen. At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost ne

Difficult to see how publicizing this stuff could be beneficial for Mr. Allen. At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost never behooves you to say anything negative about anybody -- least of all one of your former partners. I also think complaining about not getting a bigger share of MS stock, when you've got 14 billion in the bank...not exactly the stuff of which Jedi are made.

silvestrov 16y ago
He wants to be acknowledged. Everybody knows Bill Gates and sees him as the smart and great computer guy, while Mr. Allan is an unknown. It's like 2 brothers where the lesser talented uses all his life to proof he's just as good and therefore never gets to create something.
- melling 16y ago
  Who destroyed Lotus, WordPerfect, Borland and Netscape? Who swore under oath that the browser is part of the operating system, and couldn't be removed? Why are 9 out of 10 desktop computers running Windows? I think only one man gets the credit. :-) Hopefully, he can ruthlessly solve a few of the long-running problems in the world.
- bad_user 16y ago
  I don't see Gates as the great computer guy. I look at him as a ruthless evil genius that made Microsoft what it is. Of course that's partly because he's also a "great computer guy". To make an analogy with Apple, if anything, his role at Microsoft was more like that of Steve Jobs, rather than that of Steve Wozniak; he provided the vision, he made the business calls that made Microsoft. Bill Gates does have a different style than Steve Jobs and doesn't have the same distortion field and attractiveness, but his speeches at Ted are great nonetheless (which makes me think he was bored at Microsoft :)).
  - sushilchoudhari 16y ago
    This is a very interesting article. I am myself working on a project and considering good friends to be co-founders in that. But based on what Paul Allen is mentioning here and based on few other stories of startups which made it big like Facebook, few thoughts came to my mind: 1) Is it that to make it really big, to the likes of Microsoft, Facebook a founder has to play games and trick his own friends in a way that the founder owns majority of stake in the company. I am not necessarily saying it is bad, it is just a observation and want your opinion. It is totally possible that one of the co-founders is so passionate about the idea that he works hard by twice or thrice as much as other cofounder and in the process somehow manages to get hold of major equity. What do you think? Is it necessary to be evil to make it big? Does your passion blind you somewhere in the process where one cannot distinguish right from "not so much right"? 2) I dont see and havent heard about Steve Jobs being great friends with Steve Wozniak. So is Bill gates with Paul Allen. Facebook Mark Z and other cofounders have some fights between them too. Given this and stories from similar or smaller companies, it makes me think, is it possible to have a good and healthy friend ship like relationship with your co-founder after a period of time? Or with the turn of events in the company it is bound to happen that the relationship will go sour? What do you guys think?
    - macrael 16y ago
      Another example: the beetles. Perhaps one of the greatest creative partnerships of all time, churning out two records a year for 7 years, and then were sick of each other and broke up.
    - Xixi 16y ago
      What about Larry Page and Sergueï Brin? It seems from the outside that they their relationship didn't go sour.
      - sushilchoudhari 16y ago
        Yes, thanks for pointing that out. But if that is the only example, is that more of a exception or the rule?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nikcub 16y ago
The story is part of a very good publicity campaign for his book, which has been written as a memoir. He wants his legacy to be remembered as 'Paul Allen' rather than 'that other guy'. (The excerpt in VF is very good: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-allen-201105?currentPage=all http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-all...)
jbigelow 16y ago
What is the risk for somebody with 14 billion in the bank to call out other when he/she feels they've been wrong (regardless of whether it's perception or reality). Allen could have called Gates they antichrist and he'd still have people lined up around the block to take his VC money or sit in the owner's box of Trailblazers game with him. 14 billion is definitely "FU" money.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- shareme 16y ago
  Large risk as you cannot buy a rep..its earned not bought
  - barrkel 16y ago
    Companies buy reputation all the time (branding, association ). Doing things is not enough. People must also know about what you did and that takes publicity.
grannyg00se 16y ago
It's an interesting type of discrimination at play here. The rich have just as much right to free speech and human emotion as everybody else. If someone feels that they have been mistreated, it is not appropriate to belittle their concerns based on their net worth. Whether their net worth is very low, or very high.
- raghava 16y ago
  > The rich have just as much right and a greater level of privilege to free speech, imho.
sunchild 16y ago
He isn't doing it to benefit himself. He probably doesn't care whether you like him or not, and he definitely doesn't need your money or respect. I guess Paul just wants the world to know that the image of Gates as our benevolent patron of philanthropy is itself revisionism, lest anyone forget that Bill Gates was one of the least loyal and trustworthy friends a person could ask for. It doesn't surprise me that HN sides with the victor in cases like this, but I would argue that any serious business person should watch and learn carefully from the lessons of two close friends who changed the world and ended up disliking each other.
- codingthewheel 16y ago
  Yeah, I completely agree. I'm sure he doesn't need my or anybody else's money or respect. But I wonder if the message he's trying to get across is the one that's actually getting across. Looking at it from a gaming standpoint, can his play here can ever have a positive expectation?
  - macrael 16y ago
    By what measure? If Paul Allen wants people to remember that Bill Gates used to be a dick, and people read his book and do so, maybe that's all the positive expectation he needs. Even if it hurts his own reputation maybe it is worth it to him.
- patentnerd 16y ago
  I'm not sure that Paul is that great of a guy either. His company is a bit of a patent troll, for one. Here are some his "inventions": http://bit.ly/dXsk5P http://bit.ly/dXsk5P
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    Link is shortened, because it's ungodly long. It checks out.
    - absconditus 16y ago
gwern 16y ago
> At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost never behooves you to say anything negative about anybody -- least of all one of your former partners. I also think complaining about not getting a bigger share of MS stock, when you've got 14 billion in the bank...not exactly the stuff of which Jedi are made. At that level, money is more about points than bucks. He's not upset he can buy fewer baseball teams, he's upset that his status was being lowered and he was being disrespected and treated as prey/ As far as the former partners go, Cringely claims Allen has been dissociated financially for a long time: > Maybe that�s just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn�t go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft. He sold large blocks of shares on a regular basis no matter whether the price was high or low. Then in October and November of 2000, just as he was finally leaving the Microsoft board, Allen did a series of financial transactions involving derivative securities called �collars,� that are a combination of a right to buy and a right to sell the stock at different prices such that both his upside and downside financial potential are limited. By the end of 2000, though Allen technically still owned 136 million Microsoft shares, his wealth was for practical purposes separate from that of Gates, Ballmer, and the rest of Microsoft. Inasmuch as Cringely reported essentially the same anecdote as in the _Vanity Fair_ excerpts, I'm inclined to take him at his word when he writes about Allen's finances.
michaelchisari 16y ago
At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost never behooves you to say anything negative about anybody I've never understood that. At what point do you make enough money to say whatever the hell you want, without any fear of repercussions? What's the point of having all that money if you have to worry about what other wealthy people think of you?
- narrator 16y ago
  If you are a billionaire you buy a news network and then hire a pundit, heck a whole panel of pundits to say whatever negative things you want to say about anybody.

silvestrov 16y ago

He wants to be acknowledged. Everybody knows Bill Gates and sees him as the smart and great computer guy, while Mr. Allan is an unknown. It's like 2 brothers where the lesser talented uses all his life to proof he's just as good and therefore never gets to create something.

melling 16y ago
Who destroyed Lotus, WordPerfect, Borland and Netscape? Who swore under oath that the browser is part of the operating system, and couldn't be removed? Why are 9 out of 10 desktop computers running Windows? I think only one man gets the credit. :-) Hopefully, he can ruthlessly solve a few of the long-running problems in the world.
bad_user 16y ago
I don't see Gates as the great computer guy. I look at him as a ruthless evil genius that made Microsoft what it is. Of course that's partly because he's also a "great computer guy". To make an analogy with Apple, if anything, his role at Microsoft was more like that of Steve Jobs, rather than that of Steve Wozniak; he provided the vision, he made the business calls that made Microsoft. Bill Gates does have a different style than Steve Jobs and doesn't have the same distortion field and attractiveness, but his speeches at Ted are great nonetheless (which makes me think he was bored at Microsoft :)).
- sushilchoudhari 16y ago
  This is a very interesting article. I am myself working on a project and considering good friends to be co-founders in that. But based on what Paul Allen is mentioning here and based on few other stories of startups which made it big like Facebook, few thoughts came to my mind: 1) Is it that to make it really big, to the likes of Microsoft, Facebook a founder has to play games and trick his own friends in a way that the founder owns majority of stake in the company. I am not necessarily saying it is bad, it is just a observation and want your opinion. It is totally possible that one of the co-founders is so passionate about the idea that he works hard by twice or thrice as much as other cofounder and in the process somehow manages to get hold of major equity. What do you think? Is it necessary to be evil to make it big? Does your passion blind you somewhere in the process where one cannot distinguish right from "not so much right"? 2) I dont see and havent heard about Steve Jobs being great friends with Steve Wozniak. So is Bill gates with Paul Allen. Facebook Mark Z and other cofounders have some fights between them too. Given this and stories from similar or smaller companies, it makes me think, is it possible to have a good and healthy friend ship like relationship with your co-founder after a period of time? Or with the turn of events in the company it is bound to happen that the relationship will go sour? What do you guys think?
  - macrael 16y ago
    Another example: the beetles. Perhaps one of the greatest creative partnerships of all time, churning out two records a year for 7 years, and then were sick of each other and broke up.
  - Xixi 16y ago
    What about Larry Page and Sergueï Brin? It seems from the outside that they their relationship didn't go sour.
    - sushilchoudhari 16y ago
      Yes, thanks for pointing that out. But if that is the only example, is that more of a exception or the rule?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

nikcub 16y ago

The story is part of a very good publicity campaign for his book, which has been written as a memoir. He wants his legacy to be remembered as 'Paul Allen' rather than 'that other guy'. (The excerpt in VF is very good: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-allen-201105?currentPage=all http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-all...)

jbigelow 16y ago

What is the risk for somebody with 14 billion in the bank to call out other when he/she feels they've been wrong (regardless of whether it's perception or reality). Allen could have called Gates they antichrist and he'd still have people lined up around the block to take his VC money or sit in the owner's box of Trailblazers game with him. 14 billion is definitely "FU" money.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
shareme 16y ago
Large risk as you cannot buy a rep..its earned not bought
- barrkel 16y ago
  Companies buy reputation all the time (branding, association ). Doing things is not enough. People must also know about what you did and that takes publicity.

grannyg00se 16y ago

It's an interesting type of discrimination at play here. The rich have just as much right to free speech and human emotion as everybody else. If someone feels that they have been mistreated, it is not appropriate to belittle their concerns based on their net worth. Whether their net worth is very low, or very high.

raghava 16y ago
> The rich have just as much right and a greater level of privilege to free speech, imho.

sunchild 16y ago

He isn't doing it to benefit himself. He probably doesn't care whether you like him or not, and he definitely doesn't need your money or respect. I guess Paul just wants the world to know that the image of Gates as our benevolent patron of philanthropy is itself revisionism, lest anyone forget that Bill Gates was one of the least loyal and trustworthy friends a person could ask for. It doesn't surprise me that HN sides with the victor in cases like this, but I would argue that any serious business person should watch and learn carefully from the lessons of two close friends who changed the world and ended up disliking each other.

codingthewheel 16y ago
Yeah, I completely agree. I'm sure he doesn't need my or anybody else's money or respect. But I wonder if the message he's trying to get across is the one that's actually getting across. Looking at it from a gaming standpoint, can his play here can ever have a positive expectation?
- macrael 16y ago
  By what measure? If Paul Allen wants people to remember that Bill Gates used to be a dick, and people read his book and do so, maybe that's all the positive expectation he needs. Even if it hurts his own reputation maybe it is worth it to him.
patentnerd 16y ago
I'm not sure that Paul is that great of a guy either. His company is a bit of a patent troll, for one. Here are some his "inventions": http://bit.ly/dXsk5P http://bit.ly/dXsk5P
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Link is shortened, because it's ungodly long. It checks out.
  - absconditus 16y ago

gwern 16y ago

> At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost never behooves you to say anything negative about anybody -- least of all one of your former partners. I also think complaining about not getting a bigger share of MS stock, when you've got 14 billion in the bank...not exactly the stuff of which Jedi are made. At that level, money is more about points than bucks. He's not upset he can buy fewer baseball teams, he's upset that his status was being lowered and he was being disrespected and treated as prey/ As far as the former partners go, Cringely claims Allen has been dissociated financially for a long time: > Maybe that�s just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn�t go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft. He sold large blocks of shares on a regular basis no matter whether the price was high or low. Then in October and November of 2000, just as he was finally leaving the Microsoft board, Allen did a series of financial transactions involving derivative securities called �collars,� that are a combination of a right to buy and a right to sell the stock at different prices such that both his upside and downside financial potential are limited. By the end of 2000, though Allen technically still owned 136 million Microsoft shares, his wealth was for practical purposes separate from that of Gates, Ballmer, and the rest of Microsoft. Inasmuch as Cringely reported essentially the same anecdote as in the _Vanity Fair_ excerpts, I'm inclined to take him at his word when he writes about Allen's finances.

michaelchisari 16y ago

At that level, and sitting on top of a multi-billion dollar fortune, it almost never behooves you to say anything negative about anybody I've never understood that. At what point do you make enough money to say whatever the hell you want, without any fear of repercussions? What's the point of having all that money if you have to worry about what other wealthy people think of you?

narrator 16y ago
If you are a billionaire you buy a news network and then hire a pundit, heck a whole panel of pundits to say whatever negative things you want to say about anybody.