14 DAY TRIAL // Bill Gates remains the number one individual shareholder right now, as he owns around 5 percent of the company, but that doesn’t sit well with a number of investors.
While three of the top 20 Microsoft shareholders are pressuring Gates to leave the company, analysts believe that the tech giant’s co-founder should actually be given a much more important role.
"I've thought that the company has been missing a technology visionary. Bill (Gates) would fit the bill,” Kim Caughey Forrest, a senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group, told The Independent.
While seeing Bill Gates taking over from Ballmer and becoming the next Microsoft CEO would be great news for many people out there, that’s very unlikely to happen, as the company co-founder wants to remain fully focused on his philanthropic work across the world.
What’s more, sources familiar with the matter hinted that his wife Melinda and close friends oppose to such a comeback, which means that Gates will most likely stay out of Redmond for the time being.