Exerting Influence Even After Resigning as Director in 2020
Involved in Corporate Strategy, Product Review, and Executive Hiring
"Close Relationship with Altman, OpenAI CEO"
It has been revealed that Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MS), continues to exert significant influence by intervening in management even after leaving the company.
Business Insider (BI) reported on the 29th (local time), citing current and former senior MS executives, that although Gates officially stepped down from MS, he still controls the company behind the scenes and notably led the partnership agreement between MS and OpenAI.
Previously, Gates co-founded MS in 1975 with his friend Paul Allen and served as CEO until 2000. He then served as chairman of the board until stepping down in 2014 and completely resigned from the board in March 2020. At that time, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Gates was ousted from the MS board due to inappropriate relationships with female employees.
BI pointed out, "Although Gates has not appeared at the company since 2021 due to disgraceful allegations against him, he coordinated most of MS's AI revolution." Current and former MS executives also stated that Gates remains closely involved in company operations, from strategic advice and product reviews to senior executive recruitment and the partnership with OpenAI.
In particular, a former MS executive said, "Gates meets one-on-one with executives for product reviews." Another executive stated, "Satya Nadella, MS CEO, and the entire senior management team value Gates highly and seek his insights at every critical moment of significant change in the company." Gates himself revealed in a Forbes interview last year that "I spend about 10% of my time at the MS headquarters in Redmond, Washington, advising on product roadmaps."
The birth of MS's search engine Bing and the conversational AI Copilot is also attributed to Gates's insight, according to the media. Before the MS and OpenAI partnership agreement in 2019, Gates shared a memo in 2017 with CEO Nadella and other MS executives, predicting that a digital personal assistant called an "AI agent" would bring about a new world order. He observed that "the way we interact with computers will undergo a greater revolution than the shift from keyboard typing to icon tapping."
It was also revealed that Gates was the first outsider to encounter OpenAI's GPT-4. In 2022, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, received a request from Gates to create an AI model capable of passing a university-level biology exam. In response, Altman and OpenAI showcased GPT-4 at a dinner held at Gates's residence in August of that year. Gates was shocked, calling GPT-4 passing the exam "the most amazing announcement I have ever seen in my life," and advised CEO Nadella, who was present, to integrate AI into the MS 365 product suite.
Meanwhile, MS, which holds the top market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange, reported first-quarter sales this year of $61.86 billion, a 17% increase compared to the same period last year, exceeding market expectations. Net profit also rose 19.7% year-on-year to $21.94 billion. Cloud service sales, including Azure, increased by 31% compared to a year earlier, driving the performance. On the day, MS's stock closed at $402.25, up 1% from the previous session.
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