Bill Gates increases net-worth by $15 billion in 2013

The world's richest man, Microsoft founder and software genius Bill Gates, increased his personal net worth by $15.8 billion to $78.5 billion over 2013. Congrat's Bill!

Investors with 5% of Microsoft Stock Suggest Bill Gates Leave As Well

Three Major Microsoft Investors Call for Bill Gates to Step Down

Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Tells the World Ctrl-Alt-Del was a Mistake

At a recent fundraiser at Harvard, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, admits that the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-Del was "a mistake." One button would have done the trick.

Thanks Bill. We appreciate the update.

But, wait. He pasted the blame on to the guy from IBM who designed the keyboard who has confessed to the thoughtlessness. Thanks IBM.

So to conclude, it was "a mistake" - not a bug or a feature.

Bill Gates says go long on toilets

One of the best investments we can make? Toilets. Here are 260 billion reasons why: http://t.co/yQxmyYpsFl http://t.co/jGlJiufXXl

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) September 11, 2013

Harvard drop-out, Bill Gates, wins World's Richest Man Contest this year

Congratulations, Bill Gates! And welcome back to being the World's Richest Top Dog!



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Microsoft Reports Loss Due to Write-down

Microsoft Corp. Reports First Huge Loss As Public Company

A substantial accounting write-down of $6.2 billion related to the company's 2007 acquisition of aQuantive, an online advertising company, has wiped the software maker's entire Q4 profit.

previous on ThinkBillions-

Microsoft stock continues to go nowhere, but Steve Ballmer has a plan!

The New Zombies at Oracle courtesy of Larry Ellison

"700 people reached out to me from Oracle, wanting to know, 'if you hear of anything' to let them know. People are leaving in droves."

"Lots of top [sales] reps want to cash out and leave and most have, going to Salesforce, VMware, Microsoft, SAP, etc. People don't leave great companies. They leave poor management and leadership. I thought I would retire at Oracle. Loved it! Oracle is a great company that lost its focus on their people and brought in a leader that doesn't balance out the strong-minded Larry Ellison."

"Charles Phillips was the Wall Street guy that developed an acquisition strategy which propelled Oracle through the last tough time. Mark Hurd isn't a counter balance. He's like gas on the fire."

Oracle Insider

More Executive Problems at Yahoo!

Wake up Yahoo! and hear the music, smell the coffee, and finally hire the right managers!


Daniel Loeb, the activist investor at the hedge fund Third Point, now owns 5% of Yahoo! common stock. And Dan is tired. Very tired. Tired of Yahoo! mistakes, issues and continual problems. And many, many shareholders agree with him.

Dan is tired of “inadvertent mistake”after mistake on Yahoo! executive resumes such as CEO Scott Thompson and Director Patti Hart.

Dan is tired of botched takeover offers from Microsoft. Tired of CEO musical chairs. Tired of poor financial performance.

Make Dan Loeb less tired. Energize Dan by putting him on the Yahoo! board of directors. Get Yahoo! moving again. Finally.

Carlos Slim remains number one on Forbes billionaires list

Mexico's Carlos Slim remained the world's richest man for the third year in a row with a $69 billion fortune on the Forbes billionaire list. Slim was down $5 billion compared to last year.

Bill Gates of Microsoft came in second at $61 billion, up $5 billion for the year.

Microsoft stock continues to go nowhere, but Steve Ballmer has a plan!

The kind of CEO backside kissing that Businessweek brings to journalism is truly special. You'll want to read the following article for proof if you can stomach it--

Steve Ballmer Reboots

... because, after all according to BW, Steve Ballmer is all about "Cooler tech, more energy, higher profit—the Microsoft CEO is out to prove Steve Jobs wrong and make Redmond relevant again."

Bill Gates Likes (+1) Communists

Those awake in the world over the past couple of decades know and understand that the People's Republic of China has been one of the world's worst serial polluters in the history of mankind.

Microsoft co-founder, and Think Billions VBF, Bill Gates believes he has a solution.

The billionaire software guru says he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new kind of nuclear reactor.

Yes, you read that correctly. Bill Gates. China. Communists. Nuclear Energy.

At a talk this week at China's Ministry of Science & Technology, Gates said: "The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste."

Gates backs Washington-based TerraPower, which is developing a nuclear reactor that can run on depleted uranium. He says he is thinking about tossing perhaps as much as a billion dollars into R&D over the next couple of years.

Bill Gates Likes (+1) Communists.

We know that China Likes (+1) Bill Gates. Since the country has been using Microsoft software largely on a freeware basis over many, many years.

Bill Gates: Tax Me and Tax Me Again

At a recent talk at the University of Washington, software billionaire Bill Gates explains why he is an enthusiastic "tax and tax again" billionaire.

(After all, it is all very cool talk these days, this "tax me" stuff; since very few billionaires like Mr. Gates were even close to being greedy billionaires on the way up. Correct? So, these billionaire public relations tours are just all very, very cool to listen to if you enjoy listening to a re-writing of U.S. business history.)

Gates gave a talk at the University of Washington's computer science building regarding a whole ranges of subjects. He commented:

"I didn’t start out with the dream of being super-rich. And even after we started Microsoft, and the guys who ran Intel -- Gordon Moore and those guys -- were billionaires, I was like, 'Wow, that must be strange.' And so -- it is, it's quite strange."

Jee, Bill, wow.

"So I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, because there's meaningful freedom that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that -- you know, I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. Dick's has not raised their prices enough. But, you know, being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing."

Yeah, hamburgers.

"In terms of the very rich ... Warren Buffett and I are the two wealthiest Americans -- are certainly believing that the rich should be taxed a lot more...and the rich should give away more wealth than they currently do. And we've certainly been willing to speak out about that."

Speak out! And and reach out, Bill! Keep reaching out.

Eric Savitz: Not a fan of Groupon, Not a fan of Bubbles

In a recent Forbes article, tech writer Eric Savitz explains why he is an old school investor in Google and Microsoft, rather than a bubble-school one with Groupon and LinkedIn.


article: You Call This A Bubble?

What about U.S. billionaire geeks???

With Carlos Slim winning the "2010 Forbes Billionaire Contest" (our title), he displaces Microsoft's Bill Gates for the World Billionaire Thrown. Not only was Bill Gates on top of the money list for an extended time, Mr. Slim represents the first non-U.S. citizen to gain the title.

So, we here at Think Billion$, started to feel a little sorry for our U.S. technology billionaires. (yes, including Mr. Gates) We put together a little list of tech billionaires that, at least, will get their names favorably mentioned.

Here is the tech list (below). Can you name the companies they are each associated with (without looking it up?)

Bill Gates: $53 billion.
Larry Ellison: $28 Billion
Sergey Brin & Larry Page: $17.5 Billion Each
Steve Ballmer: $14.5 Billion
Paul Allen and Michael Dell: $13.5 Billion
Jeff Bezos: $12.3 Billion
Eric Schmidt: $6.3 Billion
Steve Jobs: $5.5 Billion
Pierre Omidyar: $5.2 Billion
Mark Zuckerberg: $4 billion.

.

Billionaire Paul Allen Wants to Know: The secret to happiness???

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Interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch interviews Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on September 24, 2009.

Bill Gates remains king of the billionaires

The winner, for the 16th straight year, as the richest man in the U.S.A. is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Congratulations, once gain, Bill.

Warren Buffett, second-richest, dropped $10 billion over the last from his personal balance sheet as shares of Berkshire Hathaway fell 20% in 12 months. He is now worth just $40 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 on The Forbes 400: Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($27 billion); Wal-Mart heirs Christy Walton ($21.5 billion), Jim C. Walton ($19.6 billion), Alice Walton ($19.3 billion), and S. Robson Walton ($19 billion); media maven Michael Bloomberg ($17.5 billion) and energy titans Charles and David Koch ($16 billion each).

Billionaire boy bozo Jerry Yang finally steps down

Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang finally faced the music and decided to step down as CEO.

Boy billionaire Yang, as the whole world remembers, had more than a rocky 2008. This year was punctuated by Yang's absolute foolishness and stupidity by his refusal to sell YHOO to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion -- more than triple Yahoo's current market value.

And get this, Jerry had the audacity of saying the following via a statement today: ""I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realize its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation."

If you want to see how Jerry Yang destroyed YHOO shareholder value, go here.

The following CNET poll got it right when Jerry decided he needed his old job back.

The Village Billionaire Idiot, Yahoo's Jerry Yang, Now Loves Microsoft

Readers, we cannot make this stuff up.

Billionaire Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is now ready to bargain with Microsoft over the sale of his company after screwing over shareholders and many others all year long.

"To this day, I believe the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo," Yang said from the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco this week.

Microsoft withdrew its $33 per share bid offer earlier this year after Village Idiot Yang demanded $37. Current price: $13.96. Where did this guy go to school?

Steve ... offer $9 bucks a share. See what happens. LOL!

T. Boone Pickens should have shorted Yahoo, instead

Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens just took a hard, cold tech bath by going long YHOO, with his buddy Carl Icahn, in the yearlong battle to takeover Yahoo! and toss it to Steve Balmer and Microsoft. He has sold all of his shares.

T. Boone's loss is estimated at $50 million.


Dealbreaker

San Francisco Chronicle