05.17.09
Money Matters for Gates, Ballmer and Allen Families
Summary: A roundup of financial news for the most part (and some relationships to Microsoft families)
THIS POST is not a look at the personal lives of people; rather, it delves into professional activity alone. With that in mind, let it be stated that Bill Gates’ father is a participant in what became of Microsoft. Many times before we wrote about his role in the SCO lawsuit, Abramoff visas, and so on and so forth. We last mentioned all this (with links) right here.
Microsoft is now disengaging from this man’s firm. It was covered by far the most by the Microsoft journalists and the press up in Washington. Examples that we found include known pro-Microsoft reporters and also the Seattle press.
Microsoft will no longer seek regular legal counsel from a firm named after Bill Gates’ father, after it was chopped from a list of regular suppliers.
K&L Gates has been removed from Microsoft’s list of preferred providers following a comprehensive review, the company said, which saw Microsoft seek competitive bids. Microsoft narrowed a list of 16 potential suppliers down to 10 in the process.
No single factor was believed to be behind the decision to chop K&L Gates.
More from Seattle:
Microsoft, under increasing pressure to cut costs, says a competive bidding process led it to drop law firm K&L Gates from its top 10 list of “preferred” legal providers. The news is notable because the firm traces its roots, in part, to Preston Gates & Ellis — with the “Gates” in its name referring to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates’ father. But Microsoft says it will still continue to work with the firm.
The sources that covered it matter because it was published mostly in the Microsoft-friendly press, which didn’t take the notion and observation to task.
- Microsoft picks preferred law firms; K&L Gates not selected
- Microsoft Cuts Legal Work To Bill’s Dad’s Law Firm
- Bill Gates fires his Dad’s firm
- Microsoft Drops K&L Gates as Preferred Provider
- Gates law firm no longer Microsoft favorite
- Firm Named for Bill Gates’ Father Is Axed as Microsoft Preferred Provider
Bill Gates comes from a family of lawyers and diplomats on the face of it, but this is a subject that we covered before. There is also this self-congratulatory new piece.
Meanwhile we find that Microsoft’s PR person in CNET posted this: “Ballmer: ‘The world borrowed too much money’”
Says the man whose company is now borrowing money for reasons it is unwilling to publicly disclose. The pro-Microsoft reporter Stuart J. Johnston asked, “If Microsoft Is So Rich, Why Is It Borrowing?”
Well, maybe it’s not so rich after all. The company has, after all, engaged in financial fraud before and its investors are unhappy, some making comparisons to Madoff. See our previous posts about Microsoft and debt:
- When Microsoft Corporation Met Debt
- Microsoft 2.0: A Company of Debt
- Microsoft Could Soon Enter Debt
- References Roundup: Microsoft’s Financial Situation
- Quick Mention: Explanation of How Microsoft Ended Up Approaching Debt
- Planting Seeds of Doubt in Microsoft’s Future
- Quick Mention: Microsoft is Falling Into Debt
- Microsoft Fires Up Proxy War Against Yahoo as Debt Looms Over
- Quick Mention: Microsoft, Amid/Near Debt, Declares Legal War on Linux
- The Game of Economics
Also in the news right now: “Does Bill Gates Have An Open Sell Order On His Microsoft (MSFT) Stock? Dumps 20M Shares In 10 Trading Days”
A filing after the close on Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) showed that Bill Gates sold another 3 million shares of the stock on 5/12 at $19.79.
Our reader Twitter, pointing to the article above, explains that “Bill Gates dumps 3 million shares at less than $20.
“If Microsoft is buying stocks, it’s people executives raping the company. They sell out and leave the worker bees with a lot of useless paper and a failed company [...] but the company has done dumber things.”
“In other news,” he says, “Microsoft takes on debt.” He points to an article from a Microsoft faithful [1, 2] who spins it like many others that cite one another.
“A reader has just informed us of yet more evidence of the tie between the New York Times and Microsoft.”“The article speculates the 3.75 billion dollars are going toward acquisitions and assures it’s readers that the company has plenty of cash,” he says. But he continues: “I’m not so sure. Could it be that they are actually out of money and ready to implode?”
We have heard this from other sources too.
Whether it’s true or not, Wikipedia used to say Steve Ballmer is a son of a banker. It no longer says such a thing, but interestingly enough it does however shed light on Microsoft’s obsession with extreme marketing: “In 1990 Ballmer married Connie Snyder, who was on Microsoft’s PR team at the Waggener Group in the ’80s.”
A reader has just informed us of yet more evidence of the tie between the New York Times and Microsoft [1, 2]. And despite the fact the New York Times had no choice but to dump Silverlight-related software, here is this duo collaborating again, conspiring against Web standards, essentially.
Microsoft, in collaboration with The New York Times, introduced at the start of May 2009 the Silverlight 2 Kit for the New York Times Open application programming interfaces.
They even call it ‘Open’ API in order to (once again) falsely associate Silverlight with “openness” — whatever that actually means these days.
First they reluctantly dumped Silverlight (for technical reasons) and now the The New York Times is helping Microsoft Silverlight. It’s truly mystifying. But what is more interesting is the fact that Steve Ballmer is actually writing/publishing for them right now. Yes, Steve Ballmer has just published an article there and our reader notes that he says: “My brain is just chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And so, if you really want to get the best out of people, you have to really hear them and they have to feel like they’ve been really heard. So I’ve got to learn to slow down and improve in that dimension, both to make me better and to make the people around me better.”
In relation to the phrase “chop, chop, chop”, our reader points to Alice Cooper’a video/performance of “Chop, Chop Chop” and adds some lyrics:
Some people call me the creeper
‘Cuz they don’t know my name or face
I got ‘em running in circles
Because a homicidal genius never leaves a trace
I’m a lonely hunter
City fullo f game
Walkin in the neon lights
Chop, chop, chop – engine of destruction
Chop, chop, chop – a perfect killing machine
Chop, chop, chop – it’s a symbiotic function
Chop, chop, chop – I keep the city so clean
Truly strange choice of words.
Lastly, regarding Paul Allen’s baby, it’s pretty much going the wrong way. From the latest news:
- Charter bankruptcy moves forward
- Charter takes step forward in bankruptcy effort
- Court Approves Charter Communications Disclosure Statement
- Court Approves Charter Bankruptcy Plan
If economic depression now looms or reigns (for obvious reasons), then definite answers should not be so distant in the future. █
