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Mr. Softy-60%

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Hello.

I heard from a friend (and a PC enthusiast, but I am currently working on him to make the change xD) that Bill Gates (aka, Mr. Softy) owns 50% of the shares in Apple. If this is true, is he consulted before any buisness decisions are made? If so, he could destroy Apple so his own company became even MORE popular!
Has anyone heard anything like this? Could you please clear this up for me? Any input is greatly appreciated. Also, please don't treat me like an idiot, as I am sure this is an idiotic question.

Thanks.
 

Hit


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If he had 50% he had more power over Apple than Steve Jobs
So no
 
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Microsoft once owned 30% or so of apple when apple was going through some tough times, that has since been reversed
 
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And the shares owned by microsoft supposedly had no bearing over how the company was operated. At least, according to the keynote that Jobs did. It was kind of like a "We don't need any more anti trust lawsuits so we're bailing you out until you can stand on your own two feet" gift.

It's funny because everything Jobs said about MS that keynote, the people in the audience (so called professionals) booed him for. Then he announced that they were buying a fairly large chunk of shares from them.

It's like the last UFC fight I saw where a guy won from a TKO when his finger went into his opponents eye. Everyone was booing him, but at least his opponent stood up and said stop this, it was a mistake and we'll fight again.

Sorry, I just can't stand stuff like that. It doesn't seem very professional to me and it's basically a mob mentality. They don't always know the full story.
 
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Apple has 882 million shares outstanding. The largest single shareholder is Barclays with about 36 million. The largest individual shareholder is Steve jobs with about 5 million. 50% of Apple at today's price would be about $71.5 billion. Gates' combined net worth isn't close to that.

BTW, the funniest thing I think that came out of the '97 keynote was when Jobs declared MS was not a direct competitor and the shameless bickering and competitive advertising was over.
 
OP
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Thank you all very much. I was having an argument with my brother who seems to think Mr. Softy owns Apple. I can now rub this in his face!
 

rman


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note moving to a better forum:

Also the shares that microsoft own that time was non voting shares. I don't believe that microsoft onw any shares now.
 
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Thank you all very much. I was having an argument with my brother who seems to think Mr. Softy owns Apple. I can now rub this in his face!

I hear this often for some reason from MS Stockholm syndrome sufferers. I have no idea how this thing gets passed around as truth so much, but I honestly hear this at least once a month from Windows users once they find out that I primarily use OS X. One of my old IT managers actually argued with me that MS had a controlling stake in Apple, but refused to look it up. ;)
 

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