It doesn't matter. My point was that at one point in his life he was intimately part of a decision making structure that killed some great companies like Borland and Netscape to name but two. And now he seems to be Mr. Awesome. That I find bizarre. It's a bit like the early and late Wittgenstein, something has happened to the man.
I distinctly remember the 90s and understand where you're coming from. Microsoft was a scary 500 lb gorilla. I started college in '94 and remember there were kids who were super pumped to get internships working there... and at least as many who considered themselves conscientious objectors and would never think of talking to them.
Perhaps another way to look at it, is he was Mr. Awesome in the game of business... pushing the concept of using leverage (partnership agreements, legal might, etc) to gain and hold onto market share and maximize gains for his shareholders. And now his focus is philanthropy he's redirected that same energy to success in that endeavor.
The conundrum comes of course when you apply the filter of judgement, someone in the software industry might see these two activities as being at odds with each other. But if you remove that filter and look at it simply as succeeding at something... let's say his earlier goal was to be the most successful businessman possible, he probably achieved it. Now he's taking the results of that and applying it to his next goal.
Great companies survive -- both Borland and Netscape encountered pressure from Microsoft but that alone wasn't enough to kill them. You can't blame Microsoft for terrible business plans, bad marketing, and poor products.
