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Comment by wwarner | Hacker News Reader

True, but not fair, to Gates OR to Allen. "After a few years all that passes. Bill and I have always been friends, even through the ups and downs" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/02/paul-alle...

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I didn't say if it was fair or unfair, it's always the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Similiar to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and the Breakout game incident.

"No remark without remarkableness" - which makes me curious: what do you think the remarkableness was, if not fairness or unfairness?

If you ever go into business with a friend, you should anticipate the worst. They're only human. You have to be on your toes from the start, and you can only blame yourself if you get beat or blindsided. At that point, its irrelevant to your friendship. It was just business.

I hope your friends read this! Sounds like you value money - just business - incomparably more than friendship. Why?!

pastor_elm is spot on. This is something most learn the hard way.

I think you may be misreading the intent. I've also seen several friendships destroyed because of business disagreements. I take the message as "Don't get into business with friends if you value their friendship."

Replying also to the other comments: Ah thanks, yeah. I've painfully learnt not to lend/give friends money! It cost me a great friendship. But it wasn't deliberate on their part; I guess I read the GP as saying "Expect your friends to fuck you over, and that's ok/your own fault." I am familiar with the risk of business to friendship, but the GP seemed to be going somewhat further, although it seems ambiguous exactly what they're saying.

> Why?!

"I had some money and a friend. I lent my money to my friend. I lost my money... and my friend."

He's not talking about lending money. He is talking about a friend and business partner cutting you short out of your equity because you happen to be ill.

If your partner is not working, or working less, get the board to grant you a bonus, or an increase in your salary, or a decrease in his salary.

The point holds. When you have a friendship and then you add a business relationship on top, damage to either damages both.

The problem with "it's not personal, it's just business" is that business is always personal.

I mean, if I’m in a business with my friend and he hasn’t been working on said business for 2 years, even though he has a bunch of equity, I’d also start to think about maybe making that situation a bit more fair.

Probably not without them involved, but you can at least discuss the possibility at some point.

Isn't that what salaries are for?

Just because the friendship remained, it doesn't make that particular event any better.

Had they gone through with it, it certainly would have been despicable. As it was, it was nothing more than a conversation that was hurtful to Allen. You can't indict someone for an action they didn't take, as though they did take it. It's entirely impossible to know if Gates would have gone through with that action.

Allen retained his full Microsoft stake and yielded tens of billions of dollars from the Microsoft that Gates, Ballmer and others proceeded to build up in the coming 15-20 years.

I suspect there are few here that haven't had insulting conversations about other people. Said negative, rude, belittling things that they later regretted. Hurled a very mean statement in the middle of a fight. Discussed leaving a spouse behind their back. So on and so forth.

It's not necessary to excuse the behavior of Gates, it was a crass mistake by a 27 year old. Allen retained his ownership, forgave Gates, and that's that.

> As it was, it was nothing more than a conversation that was hurtful to Allen.

Or maybe they didn't do it because got caught?

Does it matter? The point is that they didn't do it. Yes, it could've happened, nobody is disputing that, and nobody is disputing that it would've been a shitty thing to do. But at the end of the day, it didn't happen. You're arguing a hypothetical and adding even more hypotheticals on top. Nobody will know why it didn't happen, what the motivating factors might have been, but we all know that the conversation took place and then it was dropped. That's what's important.

Yes it matters. It says a lot about someone that they would even entertain the idea of cheating their cancer ridden friend.

Perhaps, once they’d reflected on it, they decided it wasn’t fair, just like you have. It seems as though a few here want to demonise Ballmer and Gates for something they ultimately didn’t do. So they had a conversation about it.

You don't think that to have a conversation about maybe doing something blatantly evil, instead of dismissing it out of hand, reflects poorly on someone's character even if the conclusion of that conversation is not to do the evil thing?

Not partituclarly. Evil is planning mass genocide and executing it. Besides, why judge when we only have one side of the story? Demonising people for having thoughts or discussing actions that you personally find distasteful is tyrannical and repressive.

Demonizing != distaste for cheating a friend. There is no both sides to this story. Gates and Ballmer didn't argue against Allen's telling of the story. Can you even name a hypothetical scenario where its ok to be annoyed that your cancer-ridden friend isn't contributing what he used to?

Wow. Were life as simple as you see it...

And what does "Demonizing != distaste for cheating a friend." even mean? You are attempting to defame Gates and Ballmer because of an uncomfortable conversation that they had 30+ years ago that they ultimately didn't act on! So no, they weren't evil. Cold, perhaps for having the conversation. I'd actually argue that they are merely human, just like the rest of us; wonderfully imperfect.

later reflected on it?

Like, they were talking about it, but didn't realize what they were talking about? They just realize about it later?

Look, I agree that we all do shitty things in life. And, most of the times, we know that we are doing shitty things when we are doing them. No excuse, just bad human behavior. Everybody does it. And it is despicable.

Like no, not really.

I actually agree that it's not a nice thing to discuss/think, the difference is I’m not pontificating about it as if I’m morally superior. In my view, that’s just as bad.

Presumably at least one person knows why it didn’t happen.

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