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Gates knows when to fold them

24.07.2006
The news that Bill Gates plans to cease being a full-time Microsoft employee in July 2008 was anything but surprising. It's been apparent for some time that Microsoft's founder and chairman (a title he will retain) is more energized by the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation than by the day-to-day churn of the software business. Taking on the world's many inequities and diseases has clearly emerged as a higher calling for a man whose single-minded focus has often been the key to his success.

An additional clue to Gates' thinking might be his early love of poker. Although he is almost always portrayed as the classic software nerd, Gates is really more about winning than technology, believing that a truly great executive, like a great poker player, will eventually get the edge no matter what cards he is dealt. Poker also teaches us a much more famous lesson: Know when to hold them and when to fold them. Gates has decided to get out of the software game much earlier than most players would. To help see why, consider the overall arc of Microsoft's fortunes as summarized below:

-- Harvard junior Gates drops out of school to pursue the potential of microcomputers.

-- Everybody loves the underdog, as Gates outwits his rivals and IBM to control MS-DOS.

-- David defeats Goliath, as Microsoft fends off IBM's OS/2 counterattack.

-- Microsoft's monopoly is consolidated through the success of Windows and Office.