Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen says Bill Gates schemed to dilute his share

Paul Allen and Bill Gates

LA Times
March 30, 2011 | 6:42 pm

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen says Bill Gates, his onetime business partner, was a "mercenary" opportunist who schemed to lessen Allen's stake in the software company.

Allen, now a venture capitalist in Seattle, says in his book "Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-Founder of Microsoft" that he learned of the plot while listening in on a conversation between Gates and Steve Ballmer in 1982, after he had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Gates is currently Microsoft chairman and Ballmer is chief executive. Allen left Microsoft in 1983.

"I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill's office and paused outside to listen in," Allen wrote in the excerpt. "It was easy to get the gist of the conversation. They were bemoaning my recent lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft equity by issuing options to themselves and other shareholders."

Allen said it was clear Gates and Ballmer had been weighing the issue for a long time.

(Original here.)