A Month of Gates #6

Today, Bill Gates started his last week as a full-time Microsoft employee. Oh joy—the online memorials are being published, and there are going to be zillions by week's end. And, yes, eWEEK will have its own tribute to America's great geek.

I have to ask: Is he employee No. 1 or No. 2? Is it Allen-Gates (think John Lennon-Paul McCartney) or Gates-Allen? Certainly Bill is the bigger shareholder.

So far, the Bill Gates tributes are mostly favorable. Who wants to kick the guy as he's going out the door? Rightly, the focus is his 33 years as a Microsoft employee. But history hasn't yet judged Microsoft's co-founder. What he does next may define the man more than what he did before. There, Bill has good company.

The 20th century produced four great American monopolies—U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, AT&T and Microsoft. The first two started before 1900 but came to dominance and scrutiny during the 20th century. Monopolists J.P. Morgan (U.S. Steel) and John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil) went on to be remembered as philanthropists, too. What the men did after their business controversies helped to change their images, particularly Rockefeller.

Bill Gates is the classic monopolist in the mold of Rockefeller, who argued that by a company's owning everything from well to pump, consumers would benefit and competition would be fostered. He also pitched the irreparable harm separation would cause to third parties selling goods or services on top of what he essentially described as an oil platform.

In late April 2002, I sat in a Washington courtroom listening to Bill testify for three days. His testimony took a similar position to that of the oil mogul, arguing that removing code would fragment Windows. "If the Windows platform were to fragment, the primary value it provides—the ability to provide compatibility across a wide range of software and hardware—would be lost," Microsoft's chairman insisted.

There's another definition for fragmentation. It's called competition.

Several legal experts consulted about the testimony described it as one-dimensional. Andy Gavil, an antitrust professor with Howard University School of Law, best summed up the testimony six years ago, in an interview I did with him for a CNET News.com story:

What Gates is saying is that monopoly will produce the best innovation. It's the same argument every monopolist makes. You've got cases going back nearly 100 years where monopolists, trade associations and other firms say what they tried to do was make things better, because in their industry competition would be bad.

Bill may also be the classic monopolist turned philanthropist, also in J.D.'s mold. Bill is an unrepentant monopolist, but also one who could go on to do great things with his monopoly money. That future isn't yet written on history's pages. What if through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he solved serious problems of hunger or disease in Africa—or even found a cure for AIDS? Bill would be more remembered for these accomplishments than for founding Microsoft.

For now, Microsoft's co-founder is judged by three decades of business and technology accomplishment. My question: How do you judge Bill Gates? Please share with the class, in the comments.