Can brilliance strike twice, even after it's taken significant time off and still isn't running full time? That specific question is being asked of Bill Gates after his title changed from "Chairman" to "Founder and Technology Adviser" under new CEO Satya Nadella.
Though Gates, 58, will continue to devote significant hours to philanthropic projects, under his new title he'll be more involved with the company he founded, according to recent statements, NPR reported. The new time share was encouraged by Nadella.
"I'm thrilled that Satya has asked me to step up, substantially increasing the time that I spend at the company," Gates said in a video by Microsoft. "I'll have over a third of my time available to meet with product groups and it'll be fun to define this next round of products."
Microsoft's market share fell under former CEO Steve Ballmer, and it's been shrinking inversely with Apple's rise along with other phone and tablet makers. Some attribute that to Gates stepping down in 2000, back when Microsoft controlled 93 percent of the consumer computer market.
Yet, Gates has been criticized for failing to set his company up for success following his departure, namely by whiffing on the mobile market and on tablets. According to Bloomberg, Gates was actually working on a tablet-like device long before Apple, but Steve Jobs and co. beat him to the punch bowl.
Some, such as Ted Schadler, an analyst with Forrester Research, believe his increased role is simply a way to ease Nadella's transition to CEO, according to NPR. If it's more than that, other analysts advise Gates to take a specific approach.
According to Elaine Eisenman, dean of executive and enterprise education at Babson College and director at DSW Inc (the shoe store), former CEOs on their second turn should "come back with sort of a serial entrepreneurial mindset rather than a 'I am here to continue the tradition and the legacy' mindset. That's kind of what Schultz did with VIA," she told Bloomberg, referring to Howard Schultz when he introduced the VIA instant coffee and sparked a lagging company during his second CEO appointment in 2008.
Bloomberg's rather fascinating article recounted a host of CEOs/founders who returned to their company as a sort of reclamation project and had mixed results. In the piece, Jerry Davis of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business summarized the possibilities of such a return.
"A founder brings a moral authority and charisma back to the company that can make it possible to make changes that others couldn't muster," Davis said. "The problem comes if the source of the original success isn't what's needed to be successful in the future and they can't make that change."
Thus, if Gates does "define the next group of products," as he claims he will, he'll have to take a different approach, but with the same innovative flair that led to Microsoft's eary reign on the computer industry.
