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Jobs took outside funding. Gates did not. Both acted like jerks in the 80's. But nobody could fire Gates because nobody had the shares to bring in an outside CE

Jobs took outside funding. Gates did not. Both acted like jerks in the 80's. But nobody could fire Gates because nobody had the shares to bring in an outside CEO to Microsoft. Jobs got the best kind of getting fired possible, though. He walked away with half a billion dollars, which let him do whatever the fuck he wanted with the rest of his life. I've never had a job where I wouldn't resign on the spot a $500 million (or, fuck, even $5 million) severance check. I can't imagine that it being "my" company would change that. Once a company is large enough, it doesn't really belong to one person anymore. The reality of business is that, as the thing grows, the Iron Law of Oligarchy kicks in and it becomes less "yours". That happens regardless of capitalization structure. Complex entitles are just not, under normal circumstances, controllable by one person. The bad deal is when you take money for the business (i.e. not personally) and lose control.

brudgers 14y ago
"That happens regardless of capitalization structure." Analysts, pudits, and others with a keyboard and an IP address have been calling for Ballmer's head for years. In vain, because Ballmer is the second largest shareholder after Gates. Capital structure matters a great deal.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  It does, because having a small percentage of the equity accelerates the pace at which the thing becomes "not yours". My only point is that it's almost impossible to grow a complex entity to the point of "bigness" and retain total control. The Iron Law of Oligarchy sets in. Even if you are a CEO with total control, there are information problems that limit your true power. Sure, you have lieutenants who will furnish you with the answer to any question you desire-- biased and dishonest information. I heard someone once say that the hardest thing about being a CEO is that "everyone is fucking lying to you" and that sounds about right. I would add "... and wants your job" to that. People talk about "giving up control" as if it were a loss. Even if I built the business from the ground up, I'd rather have control of my life than the business. $10 million would mean that I own my life instead of renting it from a boss. Selling control of a corporate entity and code for someone else's use is easily worth that, from my perspective. I now own my life, you now own (partially) a couple years of my work... seems like a fair trade to me.
  - huxley 14y ago
    "The Iron Law of Oligarchy sets in" Mentioning the Iron Law of Oligarchy in a comments thread about Techcrunch and fundraising gets you a vote up from me. For those who didn't study sociology or political science at some point, the Iron Law of Oligarchy describes the apparently inevitable tendency of organizations to centralize power towards leaders by a process of increasing bureaucratization, decentralization and specialization. It was developed primarily to study political parties, but it is believed to apply to all organizations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Law_of_Oligarchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Law_of_Oligarchy
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      What's most interesting to me about it is that the convergence occurs from both sides. Both autocracies and democracies converge toward an oligarchy. Democracies devolve because there are a lot of people who don't care enough about most issues, which means there are "cheap votes" that are extremely easy to sway. Access to cheap votes (control of the press, political party leadership) is not democratically distributed, but the opposite. On the other hand, even the most vicious autocrats need lieutenants who eventually learn how to take advantage of them. Either way, you get to something that looks like the "square root of N". TechCrunch is powerful because it has a nut-hold on the cheap votes. The same goes with the prominent VCs who lead the herd. The best you can do, often, is to create genuine competition among the oligarchs. Then there is a real market for talent, which often comes from the common people (the demos) and this means that the oligarchs can't treat them too badly, because pissing on the people is a sure way not to be able to recruit talent when you go to war against other oligarchs. That's one thing I dislike about VC-istan. Rather than competing with each other, the VCs talk to each other about who's hot, who's not, and what kind of terms to offer. So you get vertical competition (class warfare) instead of the horizontal kind.
      - yuhong 14y ago
        Yea, see why michaelochurch suggest Google adopt open allocation?
    - 14y ago
- saint-loup 14y ago
  I don't understand why Ballmer isn't in the list of Microsoft's major shareholders: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MSFT+Major+Holders http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MSFT+Major+Holders
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Most of the data are generated automatically from SEC forms regarding the trades of insiders over the previous 24 months. Ballmer's last transaction was 11/23/10. Hence, his name will not show up in data generated that way. In 2010, he sold 12% of his stake for about $1.3 billion. He's probably not hurting for cash. Fidelity reports his ownership here: http://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/fundamentals/ownership.jhtml?stockspage=insidertrends&symbols=MSFT http://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/fundamental...
    - saint-loup 14y ago
      Thanks for the answer.
- vidarh 14y ago
  He's still a small minority shareholder. So is Gates, and have been for many years. Last I checked, unless I'm severely mistaken, I believe Gates held something like 6%-7% of MS, and Ballmer substantially less. The size of their holdings might make it somewhat harder to mount an "attack", in that there are no small group of large shareholders that would be able to vote a majority on their own and so any attack would require gaining the support of a large number of smaller shareholders, but he's certainly not immune from being ousted if he's actually so disliked by shareholders.

brudgers 14y ago

"That happens regardless of capitalization structure." Analysts, pudits, and others with a keyboard and an IP address have been calling for Ballmer's head for years. In vain, because Ballmer is the second largest shareholder after Gates. Capital structure matters a great deal.

michaelochurch 14y ago
It does, because having a small percentage of the equity accelerates the pace at which the thing becomes "not yours". My only point is that it's almost impossible to grow a complex entity to the point of "bigness" and retain total control. The Iron Law of Oligarchy sets in. Even if you are a CEO with total control, there are information problems that limit your true power. Sure, you have lieutenants who will furnish you with the answer to any question you desire-- biased and dishonest information. I heard someone once say that the hardest thing about being a CEO is that "everyone is fucking lying to you" and that sounds about right. I would add "... and wants your job" to that. People talk about "giving up control" as if it were a loss. Even if I built the business from the ground up, I'd rather have control of my life than the business. $10 million would mean that I own my life instead of renting it from a boss. Selling control of a corporate entity and code for someone else's use is easily worth that, from my perspective. I now own my life, you now own (partially) a couple years of my work... seems like a fair trade to me.
- huxley 14y ago
  "The Iron Law of Oligarchy sets in" Mentioning the Iron Law of Oligarchy in a comments thread about Techcrunch and fundraising gets you a vote up from me. For those who didn't study sociology or political science at some point, the Iron Law of Oligarchy describes the apparently inevitable tendency of organizations to centralize power towards leaders by a process of increasing bureaucratization, decentralization and specialization. It was developed primarily to study political parties, but it is believed to apply to all organizations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Law_of_Oligarchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Law_of_Oligarchy
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    What's most interesting to me about it is that the convergence occurs from both sides. Both autocracies and democracies converge toward an oligarchy. Democracies devolve because there are a lot of people who don't care enough about most issues, which means there are "cheap votes" that are extremely easy to sway. Access to cheap votes (control of the press, political party leadership) is not democratically distributed, but the opposite. On the other hand, even the most vicious autocrats need lieutenants who eventually learn how to take advantage of them. Either way, you get to something that looks like the "square root of N". TechCrunch is powerful because it has a nut-hold on the cheap votes. The same goes with the prominent VCs who lead the herd. The best you can do, often, is to create genuine competition among the oligarchs. Then there is a real market for talent, which often comes from the common people (the demos) and this means that the oligarchs can't treat them too badly, because pissing on the people is a sure way not to be able to recruit talent when you go to war against other oligarchs. That's one thing I dislike about VC-istan. Rather than competing with each other, the VCs talk to each other about who's hot, who's not, and what kind of terms to offer. So you get vertical competition (class warfare) instead of the horizontal kind.
    - yuhong 14y ago
      Yea, see why michaelochurch suggest Google adopt open allocation?
  - 14y ago
saint-loup 14y ago
I don't understand why Ballmer isn't in the list of Microsoft's major shareholders: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MSFT+Major+Holders http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MSFT+Major+Holders
- brudgers 14y ago
  Most of the data are generated automatically from SEC forms regarding the trades of insiders over the previous 24 months. Ballmer's last transaction was 11/23/10. Hence, his name will not show up in data generated that way. In 2010, he sold 12% of his stake for about $1.3 billion. He's probably not hurting for cash. Fidelity reports his ownership here: http://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/fundamentals/ownership.jhtml?stockspage=insidertrends&symbols=MSFT http://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/fundamental...
  - saint-loup 14y ago
    Thanks for the answer.
vidarh 14y ago
He's still a small minority shareholder. So is Gates, and have been for many years. Last I checked, unless I'm severely mistaken, I believe Gates held something like 6%-7% of MS, and Ballmer substantially less. The size of their holdings might make it somewhat harder to mount an "attack", in that there are no small group of large shareholders that would be able to vote a majority on their own and so any attack would require gaining the support of a large number of smaller shareholders, but he's certainly not immune from being ousted if he's actually so disliked by shareholders.