How much control does Gates have on Microsoft? It's bigger than you think

The Empire reboots was published in the magazine Vanity Fair, which published an article entitled "the restart of the Microsoft Empire ). In the article, Bill Gates said that after he appointed Satya Nadella as the CEO of Microsoft, he now has to spend 1/3 of his time working for Microsoft.

Gates now has to spend so much time working for Microsoft, which exceeds the recognition of many people. After Nadella took over as chief executive officer, Gates resigned as chairman of Microsoft and kept the ambiguous title of the company "founder and technical consultant, it seems that he is no longer involved in Microsoft's specific transactions.

While searching for CEO for Microsoft, Gates repeatedly stressed that he would not re-serve as CEO under any circumstances.

Gates has been selling Microsoft shares for nearly a decade. He once owned 1 billion shares of Microsoft, accounting for 45%. Now he holds less than 0.3 billion shares, accounting for less than 4%, and is no longer the biggest shareholder of Microsoft. Steve Ballmer, former chief executive of the current largest shareholder, holds 0.333 billion shares. If Gates continues selling at this rate, he will clear Microsoft shares in his hand around 2020.

But after Nadella was selected as CEO, his focus went back to Microsoft. Microsoft announced Gates's new role, saying that he would "invest more time for the company to support Nadella to improve products and technologies ".

Actually, Gates does this, but it may make Gates make the same mistake. He gave up his position as Chief Executive Officer in 2000, and Ballmer took over, But Gates continued to work full-time for Microsoft for eight years, when his position was the chief software architect. In the past eight years, it has been well known that Gates occasionally shake Ballmer's authority as chief executive officer.

Ballmer told mingli farm that he did not feel that he was in charge of Microsoft until Gates left. Gates does not know how to make Ballmer CEO, nor does he know how to do it.

During that time, Ballmer and Gates had several conflicts, especially in the first year. At that time, the engineers' disappointment with Ballmer soared, and they turned to Gates. Microsoft employees said they were like living in the same roof with their parents, and they didn't know who had the say.

But Gates said he would not make the same mistake on Nadella. Gates said that if he and nadela disagree, because "Nadella is in charge of the company, so he has the right to say ". He is now a part-time employee at Microsoft, so he does not know the specific circumstances of some things.

Compared with Ballmer, Nadella is more smooth. He has been a 23-year veteran of Microsoft and has lived with his parents. Nadella told mingli: "when I was growing up at Microsoft, gates and Ballmer were both there. I knew how to do things well with Gates ."

But given Gates's influence in the world, technology industry, especially Microsoft. It is not that easy for the outside world to think that Nadella wants or sometimes needs to challenge Gates' authority.

How much control does Gates have on Microsoft? It's bigger than you think