Take a close look at the following two pictures. The first one represents a picture of the Microsoft staff 29 years ago in 1978. Here are the members from the portrait, from left to right.
Top row: Steve Wood, Bob Wallace, Jim Lane.
Middle row: Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg, Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin.
Bottom row: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen.
Yes, that little kid in the bottom left corner is actually Bill Gates. He was just a teenager then, but he grew and had an important contribution to what Microsoft is today. Who would have thought back then that those geekish people would propel Microsoft into the large corporation it stands as today?
Easy to see they were all ‘hippies’ back then (or were people dressing like that 30 years ago?) There were some at Apple Corporation as well, so maybe we could say that hippies created the personal computer industry. For those interested, the history of the personal computer is (at least partially) interwoven with the 60’s counterculture. An excellent book on this topic is John Markoff’s “What The Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer”.
Either way, “Would you have invested back then?”
The second picture presents Microsoft’s senior leadership roles.
From left to right:
Bill Gates, Craig Mundie (Chief Research and Strategy Officer), Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect), Steve Ballmer (CEO).
They were at a news conference announcing plans for Ozzie and Mundie to assume increased roles in the company. The picture was taken about a year ago.
Notice the difference.
8-22-2007 11:41:57
Is it me or does BG look like Linus?
8-22-2007 11:59:16
I don’t see a difference…
8-22-2007 14:26:25
Where are the rest of Microsoft people shown in the first picture?
Tech Thoughts
8-22-2007 15:07:21
||Where are the rest of Microsoft people shown in the first picture?
Ballmer ate them.
8-22-2007 16:44:26
No women, no beards, and no long hair… But Bill is striking almost the exact same pose in both pictures
8-31-2007 00:52:42
Incredible? I tried to find Bill Gates before reading and couldn’t find a resemblance. He and Microsoft have come a long way!
9-3-2007 16:47:28
Funny how they Still look like freaks
9-3-2007 20:45:03
Bill Gates was NOT a teenager in this photo BTW but in his early 20s.
9-10-2007 01:58:04
That only makes me want to uninstall Linux all my freebie software, and install pirated versions of Windows XP and Office just to spite him.