<story><title>Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft&apos;s board</title><url>https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoft-announces-change-to-its-board-of-directors-301023293.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sytelus</author><text>Most of the board members seem to be partners at various investment firms. Many of them don&amp;#x27;t seem to even remotely tech people. It&amp;#x27;s kind of sad that the Microsoft board lacks any external visionaries.</text></item><item><author>daxfohl</author><text>Kind of odd, being an employee there, I&amp;#x27;ve never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>Also stepped down from the Berkshire board as well.&lt;p&gt;Given that he stepped away from a day to day role in 2008 and then stepped down as the chairman in 2014, I&amp;#x27;m guessing he&amp;#x27;s focusing on his foundation.&lt;p&gt;He&amp;#x27;s still the 8th largest shareholder according to Bloomberg&amp;#x27;s records(103,000,000 share), which is pretty impressive given that the 7 entities above him are all funds.&lt;p&gt;Incase you wanted to know who the remaining 12 board members are:&lt;p&gt;With Gates’ departure, the Board will consist of 12 members, including John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, Dubilier &amp;amp; Rice; Penny Pritzker, founder and chairman, PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer and president of Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co.; Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International Inc.; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners; Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK); and Padmasree Warrior, founder, CEO and president, Fable Group Inc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bdamm</author><text>It actually makes a lot of sense. Technical people sometimes think that the higher up you go the bigger the decisions, but normally decision making peters off around the Director level. Above that and it&amp;#x27;s really about how to keep the company going as a company, or in other words the business of maintaining a structure of people that continues to survive within the regulatory context that the company operates within. And for a large multinational company like Microsoft, that&amp;#x27;s an enormously big deal. You&amp;#x27;re generally lucky if the CEO has any technical capabilities at all.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bill Gates has stepped down from Microsoft&apos;s board</title><url>https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoft-announces-change-to-its-board-of-directors-301023293.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sytelus</author><text>Most of the board members seem to be partners at various investment firms. Many of them don&amp;#x27;t seem to even remotely tech people. It&amp;#x27;s kind of sad that the Microsoft board lacks any external visionaries.</text></item><item><author>daxfohl</author><text>Kind of odd, being an employee there, I&amp;#x27;ve never heard of eleven of the twelve board members before.</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>Also stepped down from the Berkshire board as well.&lt;p&gt;Given that he stepped away from a day to day role in 2008 and then stepped down as the chairman in 2014, I&amp;#x27;m guessing he&amp;#x27;s focusing on his foundation.&lt;p&gt;He&amp;#x27;s still the 8th largest shareholder according to Bloomberg&amp;#x27;s records(103,000,000 share), which is pretty impressive given that the 7 entities above him are all funds.&lt;p&gt;Incase you wanted to know who the remaining 12 board members are:&lt;p&gt;With Gates’ departure, the Board will consist of 12 members, including John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, Dubilier &amp;amp; Rice; Penny Pritzker, founder and chairman, PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer and president of Wells Fargo &amp;amp; Co.; Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International Inc.; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners; Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK); and Padmasree Warrior, founder, CEO and president, Fable Group Inc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lacker</author><text>At a huge company like Microsoft the board isn&amp;#x27;t really a great place for visionaries. It&amp;#x27;s much better at things like helping the CEO understand the thoughts of large institutional investors that provide Microsoft with capital. A visionary is better suited as a &amp;quot;special advisor&amp;quot; to someone... like the role that Bill Gates is keeping.</text></comment>