Friend to foe?

Paul Allen,co-founder of Microsoft,might be one of the richest men in the world,but he still feels slighted at being ousted in 1983 from the company that he started with Bill Gates. In a tell-all book titled Idea Man: A Memoir,the co-founder of Microsoft has accused Gates and then-business manager Steven Ballmer of plotting to rob him of his financial due. “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 alleges in the book. It was also the time when Allen had just learnt that he was suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In a diplomatically-worded clarification to this,Gates said that,“While my recollection of many of these events may differ from Paul’s,I value his friendship and the important contributions he made to the world of technology and at Microsoft.”