What do you think about the enormous disparity in estimated worth between Bill/Paul and everyone else? The rest of them combined add up to less than one half of one percent of either Bill or Paul's worth. Not sure what the backstory is there but the huge discrepancy caught my eye immediately.

Nice article, I haven't seen it summed up like this before. Bill Gates isn't CEO anymore though. But we got one hell of a replacement.

> What do you think about the enormous disparity in estimated worth between Bill/Paul and everyone else?

I think we should all start our own companies immediately..

I think the main thing you should consider in the disparity is that most of those people left the company before it became as wildly successful as it is now. The major outlier in this respect is O'Rear who is worth 100 million and left in 1983.

Still, a group of (m/b)illionaires can't complain too much ;)

Marty was right.. as it turns out, there was an error in the source article from the Albq Tribune -- according to this link, Bob O'Rear left Microsoft in 1993, *not* 1983:

http://www.horizons.utep.edu/Releases/2003/Nov03/orear.html
--
In 1977, O'Rear became the seventh employee for Bill Gates and Paul Allen's business venture Microsoft. As the company's chief mathematician and project manager, O'Rear was the co-author of the first version of MS-DOS and placed Microsoft's software in the first IBM personal computer.

After the release of the IBM PC in 1981, O'Rear moved into international sales and marketing launching Microsoft's offices in Europe. He retired from Microsoft in 1993.
--
Found at
http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/DOS/ibm100/Boot.htm

"But we got one hell of a replacement."

You can't be serious.

"What are the acheivement or invention of Microsoft from 1985 to 2005 and who acheived it or did it ??"

these are some of the microsoft products i've used during that timeframe:
OS: DOS, windows 1, windows 2, windows 3.0 & 3.11, windows 95, windows 98, windows ME, windows NT, windows 2000, windows 2000 server, windows XP, windows 2003 server, windows CE, pocketPC

applications: word, excel, powerpoint, access, outlook, outlook express, internet explorer, frontpage

backoffice: SQL server

programming: basic, VB6, VBA, VBScript, VB.NET

hardware: xbox, mice, keyboards

20 years ago software was largely fragmented, didn't interoperate at all, and did a smidgen of what it does today. microsoft was the primary driving force from the lower end toward the upper end...early versions of all of their software sucked compared to competitors and they iteratively improve it until they've equalled or surpassed them and then completely dominate: DOS vs OS2 etc., office vs wordperfect etc., NT vs novell etc., IE vs netscape etc., SQL server vs nothing on the low-end & oracle DB2 on the high end, etc.

open source may eat their lunch in the future, but i'm sure damn glad microsoft was around these past couple of decades bundling software and releasing new, more functional versions of windows and everything else.

to bad bill isnt the richest man in the world. Do you research before you state false comments.

In the real world I don't see a lot of difference between several million and several billion if its just sitting somewhere not being used. An accumulation of wealth is nothing more than that - an accumulation. It is how the wealth is used that truly determines the value of the money. If you sit on it - it isn't worth a penny. Looking back through more distant history, those who merely wanted to accumulate wealth fall into some rather undesireable catagories, such as tyrants and pirates - hmmm, maybe things haven't changed that much after all.

Before more goofs shout the what did they innovate mantra, Id have to direct you to the comment Jason made above. Hes dead on correct. Most folks dont realize what Microsoft did for applications in business as well as the home, in those early days when they were a nothing. apps by other companies far bigger at the time were kludgy, didnt interoperlate well etc. MS drove the movment to make applications work better together and to be better all together.

So years later after the MS success you have open source and things like linux. I ask where was something like Linux in 1983? Where was anything like linux from the Unix world in 1983? On top of that, when IBM released OS2 they goofed that in the manner in which they released it to the market. Apple screwed up for not licensing the OS etc. Microsofts dominance wasnt given to them on a silver platter.

Have you seen this? This picture was recently sort of recreated by these guys:
http://www.meetro.com/happyholidays/

hey collin - actually bill is the richest person in the world, at least according to a little magazine called Forbes. maybe you need to do your research before you make false statements

"To bad bill isnt the richest man in the world. Do you research before you state false comments.
collin on January 20, 2007 12:19 PM"

Err, please look at the date of the article before telling them to do research. It is dated 1.5 years ago, when he was the richest guy in the world

oh and a liyyle reseach takes one to Forbes, a reputable source
http://www.forbes.com/billionaires
look who is top, Bill Gates

@collin
he isn't the worlds richest? could have fooled me.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/Worth_1.html

now, my question to you is, did you become an idiot? or were you born like that?

There's a mistake here - the left-most man in the middle row is Rick Weiland, who retired in the early 90's and passed away in August of 2006

One thing's for sure, Bill Gates made an empire and you can respect him for that alone.

You've got to love hippies. And this is a fine looking group of hippies. With one sir William Gates looking like a mis-fit from 'that 70's show'. But I can't help but wonder how did McDonald wind up at the bottom of the money heap. Gambling, philanthropy? Experimentation?

Maybe he was the only real hippie there.

I don't know how one can say he's the richest man in the world... Out of what we know publicly, yes, but I am sure there are Arabic "royalty" worth a lot more than that... It's sad, but probably true...

Judging wealth is actually not that easy. For example Bill's billions are allmost all into his charitable organization and if I remember right he can't claim them back.
Moreover there are like Boog said lots of guys out there that made their money through, well let's say less respective work like selling drugs/industrial waste/humans that certainly do everything to keep things quiet.
And of course the petro-guys are big fans of discretion too. I'm for example wondering why Hassanal Bolkiah with an estimated Fortune of 20 to 40 billion US Dollar didn't make into the Forbes list at all.
That's only one example. I could state some dozen other examples aswell - especially from the middle and far east - of guys that don't occur in the Forbes list but certainly have 10+ billion us dollars of networth.

( sorry for my bad english - me is no english native speka ;-)

Only goes to show you how much money can be made charging monopoly prices: http://thisMatter.com/Articles/Microsoft.htm

Is Marc McDonald (employee #00001) still employed with MS? His estimated worth is lower then I would have expected for someone who was there as the first employee, did he miss out on his stock options when left or something?

Bill Gates was a hottie back then and even more handsome now....I wish I married him....

Do Bill Gates & Paul Allen have employee #'s?

"What are the acheivement or invention of Microsoft from 1985 to 2005 and who acheived it or did it ??"

jimbobob wrote: 50 Trillion blue screens, bloated software that crashes and self-corrupts, inferior and virus prone internet/email software, ... and the list goes on. If microsoft hadn't come along, maybe we'd all be using Macs or something even better... I have respect for Bill as a mercenary business mogul, but not so much for what he did for the computer - Microsoft's mediocrity is anything but mediocre...

these are some of the microsoft products i've used during that timeframe:
OS: DOS, windows 1, windows 2, windows 3.0 & 3.11, windows 95, windows 98, windows ME, windows NT, windows 2000, windows 2000 server, windows XP, windows 2003 server, windows CE, pocketPC

applications: word, excel, powerpoint, access, outlook, outlook express, internet explorer, frontpage

backoffice: SQL server

programming: basic, VB6, VBA, VBScript, VB.NET

hardware: xbox, mice, keyboards

20 years ago software was largely fragmented, didn't interoperate at all, and did a smidgen of what it does today. microsoft was the primary driving force from the lower end toward the upper end...early versions of all of their software sucked compared to competitors and they iteratively improve it until they've equalled or surpassed them and then completely dominate: DOS vs OS2 etc., office vs wordperfect etc., NT vs novell etc., IE vs netscape etc., SQL server vs nothing on the low-end & oracle DB2 on the high end, etc.

open source may eat their lunch in the future, but i'm sure damn glad microsoft was around these past couple of decades bundling software and releasing new, more functional versions of windows and everything else.
jason on January 19, 2007 01:50 PM

Do Bill Gates & Paul Allen have employee #'s?
MovieSiteArchive.com on January 20, 2007 11:17 PM

I'd imagine they have employER #'s if anything.

That microsoft logo from 1978 is pretty fabulous - if anyone is interested, I found a version the typeface: http://www.dafont.com/akka.font
Enjoy.

There's a proove, that ugly people can do stuff too. And good. :)

Look, when it comes to computers, Bill Gates and Paul Allen made it happen.
I was seven years old when I got my first TI: tape driven, monochrome, and my parents couldn't figure out how to use it (put in the DAMN tape Mom!).
Bill Gates and Microsoft made it easy for the people of the Bill Gates Generation to use a computer (since my parents are from the same generation). At the same time, I was taught to use an AppleII at school (which, when compared to an IBM running DOS, the Apple was garbage, even in my young eyes). Why change disks every ten freaking minutes and interrupt my game of Oregon Trail?
What Microsoft did was make the PC available to the masses; in turn they reolutionized the world; Yet pissed off the people who wanted to keep computers a cryptic, unknown medium.
Saying Microsoft ruined the computing world and Linux is helping save it is to saying that mechanics are ruining the automotive world and backyard mechanics are saving it. In the same sense it is like driving a manual transmission car versus an automatic.
While some of us prefer a stick, at least as many of us prefer an automatic.
In summation please stop the bitching; from both sides, please just let people have domain over whatever it is they want to do and shut the F*ck up...please.

Good buisness, not good code build Microsoft. If you look back, Bill et. al. didn't write MS-DOS, but bought it. IBM then made the colossal blunder of not buying it from MS, but licensing it.

The group was a case of the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

Opportunity knocked, and the Gates gang beat the crap or of it, tied it up, and still has it locked up in the basement.

"IBM then made the colossal blunder of not buying it from MS, but licensing it." - atouk

IBM did a fair bit of their own licensing, like making $5 from every 'IBM Compatible PC' anyone sold with a different badge and the same sort of amount from any laptop 'Trackpoints'!

The fact IBM include something like the fourth biggest bank in the world in their portfolio shows they did pretty well themselves too!

All of this talk of Microsoft doing great things makes my head hurt.

You all should read up on ITRON.

I should have included at least one link, my apologies.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/31855.html

When I saw this photo on a BurnLounge site I didn't think it was real, figured it was a family photo or something. They were right I may not have invested! A lot of people missed the boat in 1978, but I was barely alive. But I think this generation has it opportunities too. The creators of MySpace, and YouTube are sitting pretty, too bad none of us saw any of that. But finally a company has launched that is letting people not only have a Free MySpace-type page, but you can also sell music and movies on it, and get compensated for it!

Checkout www.BurnReview.com

& www.BurnLounge.com/CoolCatLounge

Marc, I have several (7) million dollars but don't have several billion. i can assure you that there is a big difference in the real world.

Carlos Slim is richer than Bill Gates.

This is really amayzing... the man who never show comming was Bill Gates. This luck of nerd was terrific and no one take him seriusly and BAM! 50 Billons!!!!

Thas a great lesson to learn.

I wish I can become a shareholder in Microsoft also!I swear the god!I won't leave this corporation as the other!!!!!

Yeah, Slim has surpassed Gates... note that this article was written 2 years before your comment there, Erin. Way to go!

"to bad bill isnt the richest man in the world. Do you research before you state false comments"

Also the richest person is not American any more
One more the wealthiest company is not American any more too, it is a Chinese Company.
Oh my God!
United States Economy is also is not the biggest any more...
Waof, European Economy is 23% is more bigger than US Economy.

Look!!!
NY Stocks Exchange Market also does not have the biggest trade volume in the world.
London Stocks Exchange beated its volume last year and this year.

Wealth of Bill Gates

Come on man!
Bill had 60 billion €(EURO) wealth 5 years ago
Bill has 34 billion €(EURO) wealth today (November 2007)

He lost nearly half of his wealth.
I will never hold such a company stock.

Oh man!
This is 2 days after my last post
now the wealth of Bill is 33.3Billion €
dollar lost 1% value in two days.
What is happening to dollar?
Dollar sucks man.

Dig those hair-do's!

my cousin created microsoft!

hey Kursat you retard, Bill donated over 40 Billion USD in the past five years, so that loss of net worth isn't because microsoft stock has fallen by that much.

haha kursat, america's economy is by FAR the biggest in the world. And sorry, Europe isn't a country, it's a continent so of course an entire continents wealth MIGHT be bigger than America's.
also, as of the most recent forbes report to this day, Bill Gates' wealth has gone up considerably to $59 Billion . . Carlos Slim has beat him just recently with $67.9 billion but that looks temporary while Mexico's stocks soared in the last year.

and by the way: there's no way that any single person has more wealth than that, claimed or unclaimed. A net worth of 59 billion is almost infinite. several oil companies aren't even worth that. sure, saudis have more power (maybe), but only about a fifth of the money.

Nice to see this has rowled up an economic debate. :)

Just thought I'd point out that, yes the United States has the biggest economy of every country in the world and, yes, Europe has the biggest of any continent in the world, but these mean little next to economic power. By measure of economic power, Japan is more powerful than both Europe and the United States combined.

Hopefully someone will get some perspective from this.

Cheers,
Rob.

I must agree with the Micro$oft haters. Linux is older than windows, Micro$oft did nothing but steal code and ideas from the already established open source projects in the world. Check out these sites before you say Micro$soft did anything good for us:

http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-513089.html?legacy=zdnn
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/10/60673
http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Sued_for_Xbox_360_Problems/1133811369
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/310004_msftsued03.html

And if that wasn't enough, even their products are crap too. For example windows XP Pro sp2 has the LM hash for storing user passwords enabled by default. This hash has been used since windows 95 or something and its still enabled by default in XP!
Read more about the security flaws that made Micro$ofts implementation of the hash so weak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LM_hash
It is possible to crack an LM hash in less than a minute on a laptop!
For example, i cracked the password to the education department i was attending at the time in 85.6 seconds on a laptop with a 2Ghz processor. I shit you not. The password was 'SCHOOLadmin'. I can crack passwords on my friends computers too, in mere minutes - thanks Micro$oft.
By comparison LINUX has been using a far more secure method of storing passwords for years. It involves appending a 'salt' to the password before it is hashed:
http://www.linux.com/articles/19621
That and shadowing of the password file makes it VERY hard to crack.
In short:
LINUX > Windows
GNU and Open Source Software > Micro$oft

Micro$oft are a shit company founded by the lowest scum on earth and i am glad that i have never 'bought' any of their software.

who cares if hes the richest or the second richest person in the world? the point is hes rich... because he went out and did something that helped a lot of people help a lot of other people instead of going on some website and bitching about wether some other person hes never going to meet was correct on a trivial subject!! im gonna yell at the person who sent me the link to this retardedness