YouSaid · the spoken record

Paul Allen

lines on the record: 85
first: 2018-10-30
most recent: 2018-10-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Some people are motivated by the need for recognition, some by money, and some by a broad social group. I start from a different place, from the love of ideas and the urge to put them into motion and see where they might lead. The creative path is rocky, with the risk of failure ever present and no guarantees, but even with its detours and blind alleys, it's the only road that I find fulfilling. And with that, I'm going to close the podcast. If you want the full story, please buy the book. And if you want to support the podcast and buy the book at the same time, use the link that's found at founders podcast forward slash books. And if you're listening this far and you enjoy the podcast and you learn something from it, please support my work directly by going to founders podcast.com forward slash support.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were squeezed into playing along with Hendrix at three in the morning. He was a very good guitar player, or stealing a weekend from coding to watch a momentous spaceflight. After I left Microsoft, the wealth that I helped create there and then the company's explosive growth freed me to pick up where I had left off. At times, I cast my net too widely, but my choices of ventures wasn't arbitrary. Most of them were seeded long ago in my youth. Over the last twenty seven years, I've been able to do things I once only imagined. I have now lived half my life post Microsoft. What we achieve there will always be a source of pride. But my second act in all its range and variety is truer to my nature”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's any irony to my life, it's that my time with Microsoft was atypically one-dimensional. When I was younger, I immersed myself in rockets, robots, music and chemistry. An omnivorous reader, I thrilled to the exploits of pilots and explorers. I was inspired by Thomas Edison and Alexander Grambell. My curiosity was boundless. I went on to spend eight driven years with the single purpose of making Microsoft the leader of the personal computer revolution. And it happened far beyond what I could have hoped or expected, but my old passion still tugged at me, deferred, but not forgotten.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I became gravely ill in my twenties, I found myself regretting that my life was so narrowly focused. But after I recovered and traveled the world, I soon became restless. I discovered that what I missed most was creating things, and so I went back to work.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And now the note I left myself. This is going to be the last thing I share. This is the summary, the most important realizations of life. This is very similar to, again, maybe he knew it, but Paul's writing this. At the time he's writing this, he knows he had cancer.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's going through Chemo in 2009, and there's this one paragraph I want to include in there because think they had a falling out. Bill Gates and Pauline remained lifelong friends. So let me demonstrate that here. They just, you know, he's talking honestly like you can with anybody. Bill Gates is hard to work with. So he said throughout this difficult period, meaning 2009, he's going doing all this chemo for stage four non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He said one of my most regular visitors was Bill Gates. He was everything you'd want from a friend, caring and concerned. I was reminded of the complexity of our relationship and how we always rooted for each other even when we were barely speaking. It seemed that we'd be stuck with one another for as long as we lasted.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I could see Steve Case trapped in a two-front war, besieged on one flank by Microsoft and the other by emerging worldwide web, meaning a non walled garden. Suddenly my state seemed less attractive, especially without any synergy between American online and my other ventures. I dumped my stock and took a seventy five million dollar profit Everybody would be happy with that, right? Well, check this out. This is crazy. In January 2000, five years after I had sold my stock, AOL announced the acquisition of Time Warner. When I first heard the rumors, I thought AOL's market cap was outlandish at $163 billion. Still, one hard fact remains. Had I held on to my twenty four point nine percent of American online, I would have been sitting on a $40 billion bonanza, more than all the money I'd make for my stake in Microsoft.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, he had it backward. I wanted to use my stake in American Online as a hedge against my holdings in Microsoft. It's interesting because I was a little too young at this time when this is all going on. But this whole thing about everybody at the time seeing Microsoft as a huge threat, it reminds me of the podcast on Jim Clark, where every time you start a new business because he'd be worried that Microsoft is going to come in at any minute and destroy them. A year earlier, I attended a meeting at Microsoft where Bill had told Case that he was thinking about buying all or part of American Online, or that he might decide to bury the smaller company. This is more of Bill Gates' hardcore behavior. Now it sounded like Bill had settled on a burial.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ten months later, I owned 15% of the company. My hope was for American Online to move from a low bandwidth dial-up network to the inevitable high-speed future. In the spring of 1993, I traveled to Virginia to meet with CEO and chairman Steve Case and his team. As I laid out my ideas for a broadband network, I could fill the chill in the air. Case and I were oil and water. He was wedded to his dial up walled garden, even if it meant limited content to what an analog network could handle and found my ideas about broadband too far ahead of his game plan. It probably didn't help that I was still Microsoft's second biggest stockholder and a member of its board.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Email American Online also helped introduce chat rooms and instant messaging. Convinced that the stock market had underestimated the value of connecting tens of millions of users, I began building my position in earnest that summer, just buying a bunch of AOL stock.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Given how fast computers were improving, I figured that a dominant, well-run technology company like Microsoft would outperform just about anything else. I'd be proven right by the dizzying rise of the company's market cap. By nineteen ninety at age thirty seven, I'd become a billionaire. In nineteen ninety six, I'd be one ten times over. So that's going to be the bulk of the podcast. There's a few other things I want to hit on just because He has some important realizations.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Losing the camaraderie and the creative work at Microsoft left a hole in my life. I missed the good times with Bill when we'd spur each other on to bigger and better ideas. Though the occasions had grown fewer toward the end, I never felt tempted to reconsider my departure. It was like a failed romance. Parts of the relationship had been wonderful, but I remembered the negatives too, and I could not go back. So a few years after this, we lead to the IPO. This is in March 13, 1986, Microsoft issued its initial public offering. I sold $200,000 and kept the rest, roughly 28% of the company. Overnight, I was 175 million dollars richer. For some time, I resisted advice to sell the stock and diversify.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With my Hopchkins in remission, I didn't know what to do next. I just knew that I wanted to enjoy life. I would literally stop in my tracks to look at a flower or the sky or consciously savory moment with family or friends. It's amazing how important the little things are in light of death. Though my Microsoft shares were not yet liquid, I was in decent financial shape. I had a nice house and enough money in the bank to pay my bills for a while and travel.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bill's letter was a latched effort last ditch effort to get me to stay. And I knew he believed he had logic on his side, but it didn't change anything. My mind was made up. Sometimes it seemed that Bill was so utterly identified with Microsoft that he get confused about where the company left off and he began. I didn't feel quite the same way. The business was hugely important for me, but it did not define me. I wasn't sure what the future held or even how much of it I'd get to enjoy, but I look forward to a new phase. I had never forgotten my father's advice. Whatever you do, you should love it. My dad was happy for me when I had returned to Seattle four years earlier, full of ideas and enthusiasm. It seemed to him that I'd found my calling, and I thought I had two, but now is time to go.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The most important realization of the entire book. So Paul Allen's going to quit. Bill writes him a letter, doesn't want him to. And this is shortly after reading the letter, he comes to this important realization. He says, Bill was right. Our great string of successes had married my vision to his unmatched aptitude for business. But that was beside the point. Once I was diagnosed with Hodgkins, my decision became simpler. Now this sentence is the most important part of the book in my opinion. If I were to relapse, it would be pointless, if not hazardous, to return to the stresses at Microsoft if I continued to recover I now understood that life was too short to spend it unhappily.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're talking about his productivity down. So that's just a terrible thing to do. And it was clear they've been thinking about this for some time. Unable to stand it any longer, I burst in on them and shouted, this is unbelievable. It shows your true character once and for all. I was speaking to both of them, but staring straight at Bill, caught red-handed, they were struck dumb. Before they could respond, I turned on my heel and left. I replayed their dialogue in my mind while driving home, and it felt more and more heinous to me. I helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off. It was mercenary opportunism plain and simple. But from that unpleasant experience becomes his most important realization.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so with that context, we're now going to go to the part where it says the end of Paul Allen's time at Microsoft. One evening in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill's office and paused outside to listen in. That's Steve Ballmer. It was easy to get the gist of the conversation. They were bemoaning my recent lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft equity by issuing options to themselves.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had a 50-50 chance of killing you. I tried to make sense of the possibility that I might soon die. I had twenty nine good years, but I couldn't help feeling cheated. I had so much more to explore and experience. My father, a testicular cancer survivor, told me Son, none of this stuff is pleasant, but you have to take it like a man. That might sound cold in prince, but knowing that he'd gotten through it was comforting to me. I couldn't give in to panic or despair. I had to tough it out. Probably good advice not only for. Health issues, but work as well. Then, good news. They caught my disease in stage 1A before it had spread. And it was mixed diagnosed the first time. Early stage Hodskins lymphoma is one of the most curable cancers. I'd drawn a scary card, but hardly the worst.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So around this time, he has his first health crisis, which you may not know. He actually gets diagnosed with non- It's non-Hodgkin's. Nope, I'm sorry. It's early stage Hompins lymphono. Lymphoma, excuse me. Let me just read this part. Instead of jumping head. He began that summer with an itch behind my niece. After the itching stop, the night sweats began. Then in August, I became aware of a tiny hard bump on the right side of my neck near my collarbone. Over the next weeks, it grew to the size of a pencil eraser tip. It didn't hurt, and I didn't know what any lump near the lymph nodes was that I didn't know that any lump near the lymph nodes was a warning sign. I felt as bulletproof as most people under 30, so I took my health for granted. He winds up going in to people like, hey, you should get that checked out. So he says, the surgeon entered my room looking grim. Mr. Allen, he said, I took out as much as I could, but our initial diagnosis is lymphoma. I knew that was cancer, but not much else. As I found out more, I got terrified. In those days, even early stage lymphoma.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About two months ago, I came to the painful conclusion that the time had come for me to leave Microsoft. Steve convinced me that I should wait to discuss it with you when you were not in the middle of a series of trips. As I'm sure you realize there is one primary reason that is the basis for my decision. I can no longer tolerate the brow beating or tirates that characterize almost every attempt I make to discuss any subject that is controversial. The kind of personal verbal attacks that you use have cost many hundreds of hours of lost productivity in my case alone. Over the years, the result of these and other incidents have been the gradual destruction of both our friendship and our ability to work together. The camaraderie of the early days is long since gone.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Top executives like Steve Ballmer had their share of friction with Bill too, but none shared our long and complex history. I'd known the CEO long before there was a Microsoft, and we started the company on equal footing. Now my role was diminishing. Bill stopped seeking me out on a regular basis, and I went to see him less and less. Too angry and proud to make an emotional appeal, I never went in and told Bill point blank, some days working with you is like being in hell. So my grievances hung in the air, unstated and unresolved. That's not a good idea. On june first, nineteen eighty two, to get my point across without being distracted by counter arguments and rationales, I decided to write Bill a letter. Here's a few extras from that.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What is really important, especially now we know that he died younger than he wanted to, 65 years old. So this is the beginning of the end that Paul Allen's time at Microsoft. When someone threatened to quit, Bill took it personally and did all he could to change that person's mind. What he never considered though was that he might lose me. Whenever we locked horns, I'd have to raise my intensity and my blood pressure to meet Bill's, and it was taking a toll. Some people can vent their anger, take a breath, and let it go, but I wasn't one of them. My sinking morale sapped my enthusiasm for my work which could precipitate Bill's next attack, interesting choice of words there, his next attack.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In our farewell company photograph, Falcon Albuquerque, 90 of the 11 people were programmers, a bunch of young hackers having fun together. That changed in Seattle as we brought in MBAs to support an increasingly lucrative set of product lines. Many were hired for sales and advertising, others handled end-user testing on new features. This was basic business practice, but inevitably funneled resources away from development, and this is his key point here. As a technology company grows, it must balance the need for innovation with the imperative to bolster existing products and keep the profits flowing. As Microsoft expanded far, far beyond the thirty five programmers that once seemed like a pipe dream, remember from the beginning, it would get more and more difficult to keep that balance. Okay, so now we're going to get to.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is before I get there. Before I was going to get to the part where at the beginning of the end of Paul Allen's time at Microsoft, but he actually has this idea that's useful. Let me read this paragraph. It's Paul Allen on what a company needs to do as it grows.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I knew it was a coup and that a free and clear DOS would be a valuable asset, but I cannot say that we knew just how valuable it would be. As I stated in the deposition sometime later, Bill was very adamant that we should make the contract an agreement of sale. Bill thought we should have complete ownership and control of the product. So literally the foundation of their fortunes is such an important decision. He felt it was always better if he wanted to control and benefit from the evolution of a product to own it as compared to license it. He said it would just make everything cleaner.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is them now buying and making sure that, again, if you go back to what Bill was saying earlier, that it's really important to maintain ownership. So it says, in June, I returned to Seattle Computer Products to try to modify our deal for 86 DOS, offering a flat fee of $30,000 for any future licensing. The guy that negotiating with, his name's Rod Brock. So says Rod Brock countered by asking for $150,000 for an exclusive license. I upped our purchase offer to $50,000 for exclusive rights and then proposed an outright purchase. This is an extremely important idea that Bill came up with. That was a sales agreement that Brock and I signed on July 27, 1981.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Between the interest in Japan, Japanese electronics manufacturers wanted to use Microsoft software in their hardware. And IBM's domestic ripple effect, we began to realize that MS-DOS would be the international centerpiece of personal computer technology. So it was crucial for us to gain as much control over DOS as we could. The original DOS was made by a person that was actually trying to sell hardware and no one could make them an operating system. So he created like a really rough version of it that he called the quick and dirty operating system. So it's QDOS. They renamed that to MS-DOS.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“beyond our imagining. Microsoft's biggest plum, its apparent, it became apparent, excuse me, wasn't the version we'd made specifically for IBM PCs. The real bonanza was the compatible system that we call MS-DOS, the product that could be sold over and over and over again worldwide under our own name.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's how they come up with the operating system that eventually is licensed to IBM. So this is Bill and I were talking about the negotiations here. Bill and I were willing to forego per copy royalties if we could freely license the DOS software to other manufacturers. This is the same old strategy for Altair Basic. The conversation that's taking place right now is with IBM in the negotiations because IBM wanted to make a personal computer and they needed software to run on it. So that's what Microsoft is doing. Already enmeshed in antitrust litigation, IBM readily bought this non-exclusive arrangement. They'd later be slammed for giving away the store.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Under the circumstances, I felt that our 6436 partnership split was out of whack. Bill had set a precedent by claiming extra equity for his work on Altair Basic, another exceptional contribution. Now is time, I thought, to augment my share. A modest adjustment in the ratio seemed only right. But when I made my case, Bill would have none of it. I don't ever want you to talk about this again, he said. Do not bring it up. In that moment something died for me. I thought that our partnership was based on fairness, but I now saw that Bill's self-interest overrode all other considerations. I didn't have it out with Bill at that time. I sucked it up and thought, okay, but one day I'm out of here. And now skipping a little bit ahead. This is the famous deal that led to Microsoft becoming the largest tech company of its day. And they're...”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To Paul Island's invention. So Paul has the idea is like, hey, well, if our partnership percentages should Decrease or increase based on the contribution. Maybe I should go back and say, hey, like I just made this huge contribution. So it says, and this is the final part, the unequal co-founders part three, and we're going to see the eventual dissemination of their partnership.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I obviously wanted to share that with you because I thought it was important. Interesting anecdote I didn't know. They turned down millions of dollars purchase agreement from Ross Perot. Our growing confidence made it easier to reject a midsever figure purchase offer that summer from Ross Perot, the Dallas billionaire. It just fell way too soon for us to cash out. Our conclusion is that at present, we wish to remain independent, Bill wrote. That's when he's rejecting the offer. We see the potential to double the size of our organization and earn over $2 million per year before taxes. Think about that. $2 million per year. That was their goal. Bill was on the mark. Microsoft year-end revenues with total $2.4 million in 1979, and our staff would more than double to $28. The reason I say think about that is because $2.4 million in 1979 compare that to Microsoft's 2017 revenue of $80.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, what if you could have that feeling in perpetuity? Like, what if you didn't have to grow your company? And maybe you should. Like you have to be like what Ray Dalio said last week. You have to be who you are. Like you have to follow your nature and his nature was extreme. So extreme person, you're not going to want to keep things small and intimate. But I just wonder if that intimacy, that knowing and having these bonds with people that you just don't have in a large company, you know, if that's even possible to maintain. So random thought, but...”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Said at a very advanced age, and he's just like, I further got the exact words. I don't have it in front of me. It's just like, my God, what I wouldn't give to do it all over again, to like to live that time again when he's starting out, he has no idea he's just traveling the world and wants to sell shoes. He's in Japan trying to figure things out. It's very similar to the statement that Paul's making. And there's other examples that you could pull out. I don't know. I don't want to forget this. I don't, because I don't want to look back, you know, nothing lasts forever. We're temporary beings, right? But I don't know. I just.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I wonder if this is another example of us not as a species not being able to predict what will actually make us happy. So we start something new. We're full of excitement and it has success. And so it grows, whether it's because you want to make more money or it grows with people. And suddenly that feeling that he's talking about this photo is gone. And it's gone forever. So I just wonder. I think about the words of Phil Knight at the end of the book, you know, he's, I think he's 78 years old when he's writing it. Still alive, but you know”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so the note I'd left myself just, again, it's a pattern that keeps popping up in these books. And I've also heard in interviews and podcasts. And this feeling happens over and over again. And it makes me wonder if we're doing something wrong. And this feeling of this. You look back at the earliest days of the company with like a fondness and a longing and there's like a melancholy in these stories as they look back, a deep regret. And so if this feeling happens over and over again, like I do wonder if we're doing something wrong. We grow away from this feeling, this small, intimate company at the beginning of something amazing. And many people regret growing away from this feeling.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back in Boston, Bill and I had been searching for the next big thing, little knowing that we'd find it in this remote city in the southwest. Now we had a real time behind us, or excuse me, a real team behind us, and a firm sense of direction. In four years we had come a long way. And Underline and highlighted this part. If you look closely at that photo, you'll see just about everyone smiling. That captures our spirit back then. When I talk about the early days at Microsoft, it's hard to explain to people how much fun it was. Even with the absurd hours and arguments, we were having the times of our lives.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he was dead set against moving to the Bay Area. He'd seen how people in Silicon Valley change jobs every year or two, which couldn't be good for our long-term projects. That left Seattle because Bill missed his family too. We could fly out to the Bay Area customers in 90 minutes. We agreed to finish our lease and move home at the end of the year. That is the story of how Seattle inherited what is now its second largest employer. This is Well, let me tell you what I think of it after I made it too. On Pearl Harbor Day 1978, the Microsoft staff convened on the second floor of a shopping center for a group portrait. Despite a rare and raging snowstorm in Albuquerque that day, eleven of the thirteen employees made it. When I look at that iconic photograph today, I see a group of young people excited about their future.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The company en route to its first million dollar year and having outgrown the bank building, Bill and I faced a decision. Stay or go. After three years in New Mexico, I was ready to move. It was hard to recruit top flight programmers to Albuquerque, not exactly a hotbed of research or technology. And after the sale of MITS to Pertek, there was no real business reason to stay. I missed the green of the Pacific Northwest and I missed my family too. Bill came to my house to discuss our options. He was dead set against moving to the barrier, so he said he came to his house like a year after they rented an apartment together. He rents Paul rents his own house because he couldn't live with Bill anymore. He was just too intense to live with him and to work with him all the time. So he talks about, he was dead set against, oh, this is a really important, interesting point that Bill's making, think about. He's making this in 1970s. And I think it's probably even more true today.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is a little bit about the early Microsoft culture. And it says, freedom of my obligations to MITS. I fell into the programmer's natural cycle and coded long into the night. When distractions are fewest, then you can submerge into a problem. Then I'd crash for six or seven hours and drag in close to noon. Our office culture was much of the same as our office culture was much as the same as it was at MITS with loud rock and roll and casual tire. We weren't much for corporate trappings. We had close to a dozen people on staff and most of us were single and in our early 20s.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was half right. Ed did indeed create the first truly commercial and personal computer, the first widely affordable general purpose machine. He spearheaded this is the cautionary tale part. He spearheaded every aspect of microcomputer marketing from publications and conventions to a retailer dealer network. His imagination was boundless. The Altair even debuted a digital camera interface back in 1976, and he gave two college dropouts the opportunity of their young lives. There may never have been a Microsoft without Ed Roberts. So This was, well, this is now Paul explicitly saying the lesson that he learned from this. So he says, our near disaster and arbitration was one more lesson for us. Going forward, we would aim for maximum market share in any sector we entered. You could never have too many customers.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ruling was a total victory for Microsoft. Our contract with MITS was terminated, with Pertech held accountable for all unpaid royalties. Most crucially, Bill and I recovered all rights to our basic interpreter and could now sell it to whomever we pleased. And better yet keep all the revenue. Remember they had that 50-50 split for a while, at least for 10 years. Our one big roadblock was gone. Though he lived a rich life after MITS, he felt bitter to be left out of the history books. This is Ed talking. We created an industry, and I think that goes”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Said of following it with Ed leads to a major win for Microsoft. So it says, This is now Paul talking. He says, Ed Roberts was a man of huge vision but weak execution. He'd set off the revolution but couldn't keep his company in front. Most of all, Ed lacked a relentless price-cutting mindset you need in a company selling to mass market. The hearing was grueling. It was disquieting to see Pertek line up their three lawyers against R1 and tough to watch Ed testify against us.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It says our formal partnership agreement signed on February 3rd, 1977, had two other provisions of note. Paragraph 8 allowed an exemption for business duties for a partner who is a full-time student, and that was a clause geared to the possibility that Bill might go back to get his degree. And then this is the important part, the more important part to say. And in the event of irreconcilable differences, paragraph 12 stated that Bill could demand that I withdraw from the partnership. So this is an idea we've talked about a few times on the podcast before when you just notice, you see these stories over and over again, that there's a lot of companies that start out maybe two, three, four co-founders, but it usually comes down to one. There's one really, really strong person that views the company almost as an extension of their identity. That's explicitly stated in this book, how Bill Gates had a really hard time separating himself from Microsoft. And so you see at the very, even at the very beginning, he really feels.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But my heart wasn't in it. That's such an important sentence right here. But my heart wasn't in it. So I agreed. Now remember going back to the advice from his father, make sure you love it. If you're going to spend your life doing it, make sure you love it. Now we're hearing, even at the very beginning, Microsoft's doing okay, but his heart's not in it. At least now we can put this to bed, I thought.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When Bill asked me for a walk and talk one day, I knew something was up. We'd gone a block when he cut to the chase. I've done most of the work on basic and I gave up a lot to leave Harvard, he said. I deserve more than sixty percent. How much more? I was thinking sixty four thirty six. Again, I had that moment of surprise, but I'm a stubbornly logical person and I try to consider Bill's argument objectively. His intellectual horsepower had been critical to basic and he would be central to our success moving forward. That much was obvious. But how to calculate the value of my big idea, the mating of a high-level language with a microprocessor, or my persistence in bringing it to Bill to see it? What were my development tools worth to the property of the partnership? Are my stewardship of our product line? Are my day-to-day brainstorming with our programmers? I might have haggled and offered Bill two points instead of four.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is really important around this time. As business pressures weighed on Ed Roberts, our interest grew less complementary. To maximize Microsoft's revenue, we needed to distribute our software as widely as possible. But in Ed's perfect world, we'd sell it to Altair owners exclusively. In November, I resigned from MITS and moved full-time to Microsoft. The trade name we had registered with the state of New Mexico around that time saying that they registered the trademark for Microsoft, and now it's without the hyphen. With Bill about to quit college for good and Chris Larson back on board, one of the recruits, we leased another four offices early in 1977. We were at full strength now. Our forces joined ready to rock and roll. And now right around this time, as the business continues to grow, this is the unequal co-founders part two.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where Bill eyed tomorrow's markets, I look to a more distant horizon. What would our customers want six months or a year from now? And what do we need to do to get it to them before anyone else? By october nineteen seventy six, Microsoft had outgrown our living room. This is the living room of the two-bedroom apartment they were renting. We ordered swivel chairs and desks from a discount house and moved to our first real headquarters. Elise suite of four offices just off Central Avenue. This is still in Albuquerque. The decor was modest and the offices small.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this is how they started to grow Microsoft. Our business was growing fast. Over time, as Microsoft became the language development company for the personal computer industry, its partners divided the labor to play to their strengths. Bill focused on legal and contract issues, drummed up new business, and navigated our license sales. Whenever I pointed him to a new microcomputer, he'd be all over it to try to sell our software. It was my task to guide our programmers as we crafted basic. I did a good deal of the grunt work myself and made sure that our products got delivered and properly implemented and upgraded. But my most vital charge was to chart our future.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Signing the original basic contract was a big one for Bill and me. Now our partnership needed a name. We considered Allen and Gates, but it sounded too much like a law firm. My next idea, Micro-Soft, for microprocessors and software. We both knew instantly that the name was right. Microsoft was simple and straightforward. It conveyed just what we were about. From the time we started together in Massachusetts, I'd assumed that our partnership with it be a fifty fifty proposition. But Bill had another idea. It's not right for you to get half, he said. You had your salary at MITS while I did almost everything on basic without one back in Boston. I should get more. I think it should be 60-40. At first, I was taken aback, but as I pondered it, Bill's position didn't seem unreasonable. So in this instance, Paul agreed with him and they agreed at 60-40 split.”
2018-10-30 · Founders · #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source