Bill Hangs ‘Em Up

Bill Gates has announced that he will be retiring from Microsoft. The ironic juxtaposition of this news with my post on Marissa Mayer’s work habits is not lost on me.

While there’s no doubt that Bill and Microsoft have done some bad things in their time (okay, a lot of bad things), there’s also no question that Bill will go down in history as one of the titans of business, as important and controversial as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford.

I also believe that we can admire Bill for his philanthropy, and for his willingness to finally walk away from the company he started and ran for decades to focus on improving the lot of mankind (about time, his critics would content).

I can easily believe that in 100 years, Bill might be better known for his philanthropy than his business activities–after all, what percentage of people actually remember what John D. Rockefeller (oil) and Andrew Carnegie (steel) did to make their fortunes?