Flavour of the month: The Williams of his time

Vini Vidi Vinci Vale





He came, he saw, he conquered and then he bid farewell.

William Henry Gates made himself the archetype of entrepreneurs with the epic called Microsoft. History, and the annals of Silicon Valley are full of similar and not-so similar sagas where small-but-smart entrepreneurs took the giant risk and leaps and turned into the crème de la crème leaders.

Major names among these are Gates’s own contemporaries, some by the reference to time, some by the metrics of his success's magnitude and flavour, while some with context to their leadership styles and controversies. Here are some shots from this Hall of Fame:

Bitten by the same bug

Like Gates who kindled the bonfire called Microsoft at about 1975, there were tech-and-business enthusiasts like Sun's Scott Mc Nealy, Apple's Steve Jobs and Oracle's Larry Ellison who went on starting, nurturing and re-inventing start-ups and then turned to them formidable empires of our time.

McNealy, who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 served as chief executive officer and chairman at Sun from 1984 to 2006. If Gates had the leitmotif of 'PC at every fingertip', McNealy drove the soul of Sun with 'The Network is the Computer'.

Through his 22 years at the helm of this dominion, McNealy grew Sun from a Silicon Valley start-up to a successful player in computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services.

Like Gates founded Microsoft together with Paul Allen, McNealy founded Sun with Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim and so did Steve Jobs the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc who too in the late '70s, took together co-founder Steve Wozniak, and made the easy and affordable personal computer become a reality, interestingly years before the advent of IBM PC.

Jobs is incidentally reckoned with Gates as the two people most often credited with the development of the mass-market personal computer, much before it would have otherwise happened. Jobs's journey with Apple took a break when he went on to steer NeXT and Pixar Animation Studio and then came back to bite the tempting Apple again.

Also, among the crop of Silicon Valley leaders is the name of Joseph Ellison who in 1977, co-founded Oracle, creating the world's first commercially viable relational database.

Another story, of how a smart technology-turned business driven by founder-leader Ellison's drive and competitive spirit, eventually grew to become the second largest independent software company in the world.

Like Gates, who took on the risk of experimenting with a new-but-promising chip and platform and then took the plunge with PC-DOS, Ellison was one of few who after reading the papers that were published on IBM's work with the relational database, was willing to risk everything in a venture to produce the world's first commercially viable relational database.

What started as the Software Development Laboratories, changed to Relational Software Inc. and eventually led to the making of Oracle.

Controversy's favourite haunts

It was not just the bug and the knack of entrepreneurship that runs as a similar vein among stellar names such as mentioned above but also controversies and criticism that came as generously as the moolah that showered on them.

Gates as we know, was often amidst noise due to anti-trust issues, monopoly charges, acquisitions approach and alleged unfair business practices. McNealy too was a darling of controversies more so due to his tenacity and willingness to address bold issues head on.

So did, Ellison who off and on faced criticism for accusations on his management style, arrogance and recklessness, so-termed exaggeration of the performance of Oracle and its products, his involvement in other projects, like the Oracle America's Cup campaign in 2002, that were business distractions and Oracle's aggressive sales force.

Oracle also created some brouhaha with its bid for the takeover of the application software company PeopleSoft when the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the proposed takeover and filed a lawsuit to block the deal for being anticompetitive.

Microsoft and Gates too seldom had it smooth in the industry with competition and acquisitions as the recent yahoo bid illustrates.

Contemporary but contrary





Gates was never short of rivals in his peers. The IBM turnaround man Gerstner should have seen the audacity with which Gates and Allen were coming on to rule the market.

Incidentally, IBM approached Microsoft to develop the standard operating system for their home computer models when Gates and Allen produced the operating system Q-Dos, and then Gates insisted that IBM make Microsoft the exclusive software licensee for their home computers.

This meant that all IBM products would have Microsoft operating systems. Once Gates's company owned the standard, it could then revert to selling its software at per-unit prices rather than general licenses.

Like Gates who saw tides of challenge all throughout and was at the epicenter of action with successes like Windows, Office and other MS pedigree, McNealy too oversaw Sun's deployment of world-class products.

What's interesting is that Sun's Solaris is one of only three remaining operating systems in a marketplace dominated by Microsoft. While MS is often snubbed for being the proprietary predator, McNealy has been the champion of Sun's 24-year old strategy to share, and has been fighting for openness and choice.

Another contemporary, Larry Ellison was for quite some time said to be short of the wealth and influence wielded by Gates. And in 1995, while the rest of the world was overwhelmed with Windows 95's launch, Ellison was busy predicting the eventual decline of the personal computer, almost the basis of Microsoft's computing concept.

He was not altogether wrong, as the rise of the Internet and its impact on the information technology industry and in turn on Microsoft have adduced.

So, on an opposite current altogether, Ellison in the mid 90s focused his business strategy on the Internet. It is said that because of Ellison's foresight Oracle was ideally positioned to take advantage of the dot-com boom.

While, in a contrast, Microsoft, was slow to recognize the significance of the changes and the under-currents. It was in 2000 Ellison even briefly overtook Gates as the world's richest person.

Style and signature

Bill Gates was known as much for his business acumen, hawk-eyed acquisitions and savvy leadership as he was known for his technological acuity. Gates was able to borrow and integrate others innovations, it is said, and sell them to a new market with smartness.

Gates is summed as a technological visionary, software guru, a shrewd marketing strategist and an aggressive corporate leader. Industry analysts credited much of MS' success to Gates's ability to capitalize early and effectively on industry trends and his willingness to take risks on greenhorns like Microsoft's CD-ROM-based software packages, which later became industry standards.

As analysts have pointed out, Gates's success was his ability to focus on the fundamentals of the business while keeping office politics or his own ego from getting in the way.

On the other hand, critics have apart from accusations of predatory and possibly illegal business practices, noted the conspicuous absence of in-house product innovation, while Gates seemingly worked his way by blocking advances by other companies.

McNealy's leadership style and trajectory has been in parallel to advancing Sun's slogan, The Network Is The Computer. Connectivity and participation is what he has endorsed and espoused mostly.

Jobs, on the other hand, is said to have worked not so much with official corporate authority; in comparison to ruling by force of personality, making numerous enemies with his ridiculing of the ideas of others, his unwillingness to hear views contrary to his own, and his outbursts of bad temper as reported at some places.

But he has stood true to his penchant and synonymy to design by launching and creating historical successes like iMac in 2001, the Apple retail, the iPod, and now the iPhone.

Jobs has proved his skills and dexterity as he persuaded record companies to sell Apple the rights to market their songs on the Internet, even though the companies were suspicious of the Internet, viewing it as a music pilferage point.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and tempestuous manager.

In establishing Oracle, Ellison has exhibited the fanatical determination and aggression as well his powers of persuasion to captivate and dazzle his audience.

Passing the baton

Gates, after a long bond with Microsoft, has bid adieu to Microsoft and it seems he started the succession process well in advance as he nurtured and ensconced top rank with Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie.

Some time back McNealy too stepped down as CEO after reigning the Sun's aura about two decades, and turned the job over to Jonathan Schwartz. He also brought Jeffrey O. Henley and Raymond J. Lane into the company, as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, respectively.

As to Ellison, he seems to have refocused and paid more attention to the details of running the company in a professional manner, aspects he had previously ignored. Jobs, no more an interim CEO, on the other hand, has returned to Apple and has taken complete charge with raring successes like iMac, iPod and iTunes.

After the farewell

Founder-leaders have taken different routes in history after they bid adieu. Gates has taken the avowed road to philanthropy, which curiously is the avenue taken by many other billionare entrepreneurs too when they walk out of the empires they created.

More so in a couple fashion with joint work and foundations being created with spouses. However there have been other branch-outs oo, like turning VCs (Sun's Vinod Khosla and IBM's Gerstener) or taking other roles.

David Packard may not be Gates' contemporary from the choronology front but like many of othe others cited above, he too was a Stanford University stock like Gates, and another co-founder with Hewlett-Packard.

He took the road to join government ranks after President Richard M. Nixon appointed Packard as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and was also for some time, later on, a prominent advisor to the White House on defense procurement and management.

IBM's Gerstner took on the position of chairman of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm located in Washington, D.C.

Gerstner however also had plans to contribute further to education reform and cancer research. Gerstner established Reinventing Education, a strategic partnership with 21 states and school districts whereby IBM technology and technical assistance was set to be used to eliminate key barriers to school reform and improve student performance.

And Packard too, dedicated much of his time and money to philanthropic projects with the likes of Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation as he is reported to have given $13 million to create the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. In another striking similarity to Gates's chosen road, the Packard couple too founded the David and Lucile Packard Foundation like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Another William, William Redington Hewlett, also a Stanford student and HP's co-founder n 1966, also founded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

From 'I came' to 'I gave' is not a journey everyone can take. Silicon Valley keeps on showing the tough abyss between the two and Gates seems to have almost arrived.