I am sure there were things between them, that no one else could empathize with.
> Paul Allen: Gates, Ballmer tried to 'rip me off'
> "One evening in late December 1982, I heard Bill and Steve speaking heatedly in Bill's office and paused outside to listen in," he writes in his memoir. "It was easy to get the gist of the conversation. 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. It was clear that they'd been thinking about this for some time."
I can imagine there could be good reason to dilute someone by issuing more stock to the remaining productive collaborators. That would depend on the scale, and method used to calculate the proportion, and of on obtaining consent from the diluted party.
Cutting a business partner out of his fair share while he's in the middle of battling a life threatening disease, a good reason. I guess you went to the same school of ethics as Gates :]
Paul Allen and Bill Gates were friends from early teenage years until the 60s, until death. Through so much change in the world, much of it instigated by them. Through becoming some of the richest, most powerful people on the planet and then turning into philanthropists together. Nearly half a century.
I literally cannot imagine the emotions Gates has to be going through as he writes this note. My heart goes out to him as much as Allen's family.