Creating an organization flex on earth domination takes more than just a maniac leader with a eminent , cackling voice . It takes underlings . Henchmen , if you will . But these are no Bond baddie . Bill Gatesrewarded his geniuses with stock , just as they rewarded him with their arduous oeuvre and inventiveness — and they wound up very fat . Over 10,000 Microsoft minion have become millionaires through the company ’s runaway succeeder over the past three decennium , and more than a few have dedicated themselves to the sort of causes and business ventures that only the first-rate - well - heeled can afford . Here are some of Bill ’s Made Men ( and Women ) .
Name : Paul Allen
Current Job : Owning the World
Years at Microsoft : 8 , but stay on on as a fourth-year strategy consultant
Position : Co - Founder
Paul Allen has more money than most countries . He owns , among so many other things , the Portland Trail Blazers , the Seattle Seahawks , the succeeding Seattle Major League Soccer team , most of the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle , the seventh - largest yacht in the world , Charter Communications , a prominent stake of DreamWorks Animation , and you and your intact extended kinsfolk . He has donate , as of 2007 , roughly $ 900 million to charitable organizations . He bought the guitar Jimi Hendrix toy at Woodstock . He has a flower fly named after him . This is unconfirmed , but Paul Allen may in fact be a mythical money - make god . He owns the word I ’m write at this very moment . That one , right there , he owns that .
Chris Peters
Current Job : Owner of the Professional Bowlers Association
year at Microsoft : 18
post : Programmer , Vice President
Chris Peters , Microsoft ’s 105th employee , was unable to qualify for the Professional Bowlers Association after his retirement as Vice President . So he did what any self - respecting technology executive director / bowling enthusiast would do : bought the league , saved it from extinction , and became a bowling fighter despite not really being a pro - level phenom .
Name : Stephanie DeVaan
Current Job : Abortion Rights Activist
Years at Microsoft : 5
Position : Software Marketing
Stephanie DeVaan is the founder of the Washington Women for Choice , a Seattle - based PAC working to preserve women ’s rights with the help of her Microsoft millions . I ’ve got a lot of respect for her group , but I am annoy there ’s really nothing funny you may say about abortion .
Name : Raghav Kher
Current Job : Bollywood Empresario
Years at Microsoft : 8
Position : acquisition
Seventymm , Raghav Kher ’s fourth company , is India ’s result to Netflix . Kher saw the sempiternal stream of films — all and offensively undistinguishable to Americans — follow out of India , and jumped at the opportunity to bring online DVD distribution to the country . The Bollywood cinema industriousness has yet to burst into self-generated , colourful birdcall in thanks .
Name : John Sage
Current Job : CEO : Pura Vida Coffee , Hippie
age at Microsoft : 10
place : Marketing Executive
Not to be throw with the 14th - hundred English torturer of the same name , this John Sage took his Microsoft riches and expertness to a identification number of startups , currently the philanthropic Pura Vida Coffee Company . Pura Vida trades in organic , ghost - develop — and fair - trade — Costa Rican umber , harvested by angels on gamey and deliver by just - pay - earning teddy stand to your local campus coffee tree workshop . Huggable Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree not included .
Name : Ric Weiland
Most Recent Job : Board of Directors , Pride Foundation
Years at Microsoft : 13
Position : Lead Programmer , Project Leader
The project loss leader for Microsoft Works and run programmer for the BASIC and COBOL voice communication organisation , Ric Weiland was described as a “ brainy programmer ” and key to Microsoft ’s winner by Paul Allen . Before his untimely passing in 2006 , Weiland was one of the nation ’s most potent LGBT activist , kick in over $ 30 million in his life and bequeathing $ 65 million more while never assay the limelight for his employment .
Name : Charles Simonyi
Current Job : Space Tourist , Philanthropist
Years at Microsoft : 21
Position : Developer , Project Leader
The Hungarian - born developer Charles Simonyi oversaw the ontogeny of two of Microsoft ’s most profitable products , Word and Excel ; set about a successful intentional computer programing business firm bid Intentional Software ; ship on a ten - day mission to the International Space Station ; and donate trillion of dollars in grants to Stanford and Oxford Universities as well as the Seattle Symphony and Public Library . More significantly , he has been dating Martha Stewart for over fourteen years . I wager he ’s got some really beautiful doilies on his unfortunately - named super - yacht , Skat .
Name : Richard Brodie
Current Job : Professional Poker Player
location : Developer
Richard “ Quiet Lion ” Brodie was the original source of Microsoft Word , and subsequent creator of that squiggly red underscore that makes fun of you when you forget how many R there are in “ embarrassment . ” Now a professional poker histrion who has vie in the World Series of Poker , he was banish in May 2007 from all Harrah ’s locations in Nevada , California , and Arizona for a drawing string of lucky profits on their TV fire hook machines . The ban was lifted , but his “ form of a badass , at least for a former Microsoft employee and poker instrumentalist ” report persists .
Name : Rob Glaser
Current Job : Chairman and CEO of RealNetworks
Position : Vice President of Multimedia
Described during his time at Yale as politically “ slightly to the left of Che Guevara , ” Rob Glaser has used his Microsoft pay for both commercial enterprise and political relation . Politically , he has bear out Ralph Nader and Mother Jones , an ultra - giving / commie / pinko magazine , among others . In the patronage world , he founded everyone ’s favorite caller , RealNetworks , infuriating music - have intercourse nerds for over a ten . I think that Eagle - Eye Cherry music video I tried to stream back in ’ 98 is STILL cushion .
Name : Andrea Lewis
Current Job : Freelance Writer , Co - Founder of Richard Hugo House
Position : Technical Writer
Andrea Lewis was Microsoft ’s first technical author , and one of the illustrious original eleven employee who take part in that deliciously dated and nerdy 1978 company exposure below . ( We bet Andrea knows how to spell “ superfluity . ” ) She was built-in in turn Microsoft ’s early techspeak into something normal tribe could sympathise , helping the freshman company get a foothold in the other ’ 80s . Now a freelance fable writer and diarist , she helped discover the Richard Hugo House , a literary center in Seattle .
Name : Bob Greenberg
Post - Microsoft Job : Doll Magnate
Years at Microsoft : 4
Though currently he is again work in the software industry , Bob Greenberg took a substantial detour from the tech world to create a pop - culture icon of the 1980s : the rotund , empty - eyed and nightmarish Cabbage Patch Kids dolls . The doll ’ prescribed website describes the birthing process : flying bunnies splash cabbages with magic crystals , leading to the birth of these spherical - headed charge plate terrors from said leafy flora . Normally I ’d question a story like that , but it ’s mighty there , evidently as twenty-four hours , on the internet .
Name : Gordon Letwin
Current Job : Environmental Philanthropist
Years at Microsoft : 15
emplacement : Project Developer
One of the two lead architect of the OS/2 operating system , Gordon Letwin was recognized by Bill Gates as his programming adequate . He had the longest tenure of any of the original eleven Microsoft employees , other than Gates himself , and left the company in 1993 to drop time with his class and dedicate himself to green sympathetic causes . His other hobbies include have sure that his specific biographic detail can not be regain online , as well as incense immature writers who are just essay to find out which damn charities he ’s been serve .
Name : Bob Wallace
Most late Job : Psychedelics Champion
positioning : Production Manager , Software Designer
The constructor of Microsoft ’s first Pascal production and one of the caller ’s original eleven employee , Bob Wallace left Microsoft in 1983 to start his own company , Quicksoft . There , he coined the term ‘ shareware ’ and created PC - Write , a popular pre - Word watchword processor . But Wallace is perhaps well known for his championing of psychedelic substances , funding organizations include the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies , the Heffter Research Institute , and Erowid . He passed away accidentally in 2002 , hence the want of silly drug - related jokes .
Name : Nathan Myhrvold
Current Job : Renaissance Man
Position : Chief Technology Officer
After his company , Dynamical Systems , was buy by Microsoft in 1986 , Nathan Myhrvold served as Bill Gates ’ chief applied science officer , lead Microsoft ’s monumental inquiry programs . After leaving the society , Myhrvold get even more thoroughly winning at biography . He ’s a award - winning nature and wildlife lensman , published in a identification number of high - visibility journals , and is involved with paleontological expeditions . He ’s also a French - take master chef , and a winner of the world title of barbeque in Memphis , Tennessee . He also runs a fellowship call Intellectual Ventures , whichmanufactures patents for good thought . The human race can just about do anything , which can sometimes give others a signified of inadequacy about their own achievements . If it ’s any comfort , I pick up he is , at in effect , a mediocre and even unimaginative definitive bassoonist .
https://gizmodo.com/the-new-yorker-on-simultaneous-invention-and-the-intell-387900
Among this tilt of luminaries , quite a few were there for thatfirst Microsoft family photoback in 1978 :
If you ’d wish to talk about your favored Microsoft Millionaires , any that were n’t admit in this sampling , by all way do it . This is n’t a “ Top 15 ” or anything , just a playfulness roundup of multitude doing cool thing .
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