14 DAY TRIAL // Back in February when Satya Nadella officially took over from Steve Ballmer at the helm of Microsoft, the new CEO asked Bill Gates to come back, at least temporarily, in order to support the transition and take the role of technical adviser.
Gates at that time agreed to return and spend at least a day per week at the company and thus work together with the leadership on new products, admitting that at some point in the future he might ask for an even more active role within the software giant.
At this point, however, Bill Gates is as involved as the new CEO has asked him to be, a report by the Wall Street Journal and citing chairman John Thompson reads.
While in Istanbul to sign a deal for Virtual Instruments, Thompson explains that Microsoft's employees are pleased with the new leadership team and believe that Satya Nadella is the right man for the top job.
“You would find it to be a very different environment today than it might have been a year or two ago,” Thompson says. “The employee base in Microsoft, particularly the tens of thousands of engineers we have, are ecstatic that we have someone with Satya’s background leading and guiding and managing our company. Bill is as involved as Satya wants him to be.”
“Satya is still defining and tuning what he wants the ultimate strategy of the company to be, and over the course of the next three to six months, that will clearly become more visible to the marketplace at large.”
Before the appointment of Satya Nadella at the helm of the company, Bill Gates was one of the preferred candidates, with many people believing that the software giant co-founder is the best option to continue the transformation to devices and services and regain consumers' trust in the company after the criticism emerging following the launch of Windows 8 and Surface.
Bill Gates, however, has always denied a return in a full-time position at Microsoft, explaining that he prefers to focus on his charity work for the time being. He didn't reject the possibility to come back at some point in the future, but for the moment, he fully supports Satya Nadella and his plans for the software company he founded.
In the meantime, Gates continues selling Microsoft stock, so he's no longer the largest individual shareholder, leaving this position to former CEO Steve Ballmer.