This article appeared in Financial Times on June 16, 2006.
For years, the true nerds of Silicon Valley have obsessed about Bill Gates. They damned Microsoft as an evil empire and proclaimed Gates its Darth Vader. His products? Technically inferior and chronically behind schedule. His company? An evil monopoly bent on world domination and the suppression of truly great software.
Now that Gates says he will stop his day-to-day work at the company he founded so he can concentrate on saving the planet, the question for the Gates-haters becomes: what to do now?
The slashdot.org website (News for nerds, stuff that matters) was buzzing with commentary on Gates's announcement that he will shed the chief software engineer title. Some expressed anxiety about not having Bill to kick around any more. And others said it was hard to hate a guy working to eliminate disease in the third world.
"There are a lot of people with large emotional investments pent up in disliking Mr Gates," wrote Thunderstruck. "The transition is going to be tough."
Some had suggestions for where Gates might invest his money next, including the deliciously geeky suggestion that he build a space colony. Others had backhanded praise for the man's philanthropic work. "Bill Gates is doing the same thing that Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan and the other 19th century robber barons did - he is transitioning from the persona of a despised, cut-throat, take-no-prisoners monopolist to that of a benign philanthropist," wrote another.
One poster wondered whether the news meant that they, in fact, had "won" by outlasting Gates.
A reply noted that Gates's life can be summed up as: "Creates world's most successful company, becomes world's richest man, leaves day job to spend billions on charity."
His conclusion? "Dude, I think HE won."