Computers: A Hard-Core Technoid

(2 of 2)

"Building a machine was too hair raising." In 1975, when Gates was in a prelaw program at Harvard, Allen persuaded him to help adapt the computer language BASIC to run on the Altair, the first commercially available microcomputer. Gates and Allen spent six weeks writing a version of the language on a Harvard computer. Then, despite his parents' objections, Gates dropped out of Harvard. He recalls, "Paul kept saying, 'Let's start a company. Let's do it.' " In 1978 Microsoft had just 1 5 employees. Today it has 5 10 and sells 29 products, including computer languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, devices that permit computers to run programs originally designed for different machines, and software programs for such tasks as text editing and financial planning. Microsoft last year announced plans to sell a package called Windows that will enable different programs to run on a computer simultaneously.

Although Gates and Allen agree on most things, they have differed strongly about prices. Allen prefers to charge what the market will bear on the ground that people are willing to pay top dollar for good products, while Gates wants "to sell a lot at a low price." The chairman generally gets his way.

Last year Allen discovered he was suffering from cancer. Though the illness is in remission, he is only now returning to full-time work as a company vice president. To ease his work load, as well as to shore up Microsoft's managerial team, Gates has recruited executives from other companies. James Towne was hired from Tektronix, an electronic instruments maker, to become president, but he lasted less than a year. Last August, Towne was succeeded by Jon Shirley, 45, a former Tandy vice president.

Towne's departure was due in part to Gates' sometimes prickly and abrupt style. He reportedly has a sharp temper. Says Charles Simonyi, 35, a Microsoft programmer: "Bill isn't going to explain everything twice."

Gates and Shirley are naturally concerned about maintaining Microsoft's success. The company had a jolt in January, when IBM announced that it would buy a version of UNIX, another operating system, from one of Microsoft's competitors.

That could cut into sales of the MS-DOS jj system; it also was a warning that Gates sand his colleagues should not rely too 3 heavily on IBM.

Though Gates no longer does programming, he has little time for anything but business. Says he: "I'm still fairly hard-core." Once or twice a week he finds time to see his current girlfriend, Jill Bennett, 27, who sells computers for Digital Equipment. In the past six years he has taken only 15 days' vacation, four of them at a Phoenix tennis ranch in 1982.

His $750,000 home, which is just a 14-minute drive from Microsoft headquarters, has a 30-foot indoor swimming pool and a view of Lake Washington. But the hub of the home is an IBM PC in the den. Many evenings he works at the machine. When he grows tired, he can look up to the ceiling at a giant map of the world. It has been a long way from Mc-Govern buttons. —By Michael Moritz