I replayed their dialogue in my mind while driving home, and it felt more
and more heinous to me. I helped start the company and was still an active
member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and
my colleague were scheming to rip me off. It was mercenary opportunism,
plain and simple. That evening, a chastened Steve Ballmer called my house
and asked my sister Jody if he could come over. “Look, Paul,” he said after
we sat down together, “I’m really sorry about what happened today. We were
just letting off steam. We’re trying to get so much stuff done, and we just
wish you could contribute even more. But that stock thing isn’t fair. I
wouldn’t have anything to do with it, and I’m sure Bill wouldn’t, either.”

I told Steve that the incident had left a bad taste in my mouth. A few days
later, I received a six-page, handwritten letter from Bill. Dated December
31, 1982, the last day of our last full year together at Microsoft, it
contained an apology for the conversation I’d overheard. And it offered a
revealing, Bill’s-eye view of our partnership: “During the last 14 years we
have had numerous disagreements. However, I doubt any two partners have
ever agreed on as much both in terms of specific decisions and their
general idea of how to view things.”

Bill was right. Our great string of successes had married my vision to his
unmatched aptitude for business. But that was beside the point. Once I was
diagnosed with Hodgkin’s, my decision became simpler. If I were to relapse,
it would be pointless—if not hazardous—to return to the stresses at
Microsoft. If I continued to recover, I now understood that life was too
short to spend it unhappily.

Bill’s letter was a last-ditch effort to get me to stay, and I knew he
believed he had logic on his side. But it didn’t change anything. My mind
was made up.

In January, I met with Bill one final time as a Microsoft executive. As he
sat down with me on the couch in his office, I knew that he’d try to make
me feel guilty and obliged to stay. But once he saw he couldn’t change my
mind, Bill tried to cut his losses. When Microsoft incorporated, in 1981,
our old partnership agreement was nullified, and with it his power to force
me to accept a buyout based on “irreconcilable differences.” Now he tried a
different tack, one he’d hinted at in his letter. “It’s not fair that you
keep your stake in the company,” he said. He made a lowball offer for my
stock: five dollars a share.

When Vern Raburn, the president of our consumer products division, left to
go to Lotus Development, the Microsoft board had voted to buy back his
stock for three dollars a share, which ultimately cost him billions of
dollars. I knew that Bill hoped to pressure me to sell mine the same way.
But I was in a different position from Vern, who’d jumped to Lotus in
apparent violation of his employment agreement. I was a co-founder, and I
wasn’t leaving to join a competitor. “I’m not sure I’m willing to sell,” I
countered, “but I wouldn’t even discuss less than $10 a share.”

“No way,” Bill said, as I’d suspected he would. Our talk was over. As it
turned out, Bill’s conservatism worked to my advantage. If he’d been
willing to offer something close to my asking price, I would have sold way
too soon.

On February 18, 1983, my resignation became official. I retained my seat on
the board and was subsequently voted vice-chairman—as a tribute to my
contributions, and in the hope that I would continue to add value to the
company I’d helped create.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)