Bill Gates is the man who
built Microsoft from nothing – he created the single most influential
technology company of our modern age, and it made him so wealthy that he is
able today to focus on eradicating various diseases that have killed millions.
The real miracle of Microsoft is not that Windows is on almost every PC, but
rather that Gates may even succeed in wiping out polio and malaria across huge
swathes of the globe.
Yet Gates is still also
chairman of Microsoft, despite admitting that his main focus is now on his
charitable foundation.
There’s nothing wrong
with that per se – computers and their pioneers can both multitask – but some
investors are finally wondering if today Microsoft needs a new chairman,
largely because they suspect Gates’s mere presence at the top of the board
hobbles any chief executive’s ability to make the changes some argue the
company needs.
It’s a plausible
approach, from three investors who between them own slightly more than Gates’s
own 4.5pc of Microsoft, and it’s provoked mixed reactions: some argue Gates
should take a bigger role, reckoning his vision and insight is just what
Microsoft needs. Others argue he’s simply over the hill, even if nobody doubts
his searing intellect. Either way, the idea posits Gates as a man who is
unwilling to see the merits of a significant shift in strategy, even though he
has overseen several in his time as both chief executive and chairman.
There is, of course, a
third way. If Microsoft appoints the right chief executive – many tip Ford’s
Alan Mulally – then they might get a man or woman robust enough to stand up to
the founder, and end up benefiting from both rather than simply swapping one
gambling vision for another. But what is certain is that Microsoft is vast and
complex, ranging from Xbox to the Surface tablet to Windows, Windows Phone,
Office , Skype and all its server products. It needs a chairman who understands
it in real detail, and it’s hard to see who could do that better than Bill
Gates.
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