Despite publicly distancing himself from the company he founded, Bill Gates has quietly remained active behind the scenes of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence strategy and company operations, according to a new report.
Business Insider, citing interviews with current and former Microsoft executives, reports that in addition to advising CEO Satya Nadella and the company on its AI strategy, Gates has also reviewed the company’s products, recruited high-level executives, and stayed involved in Microsoft’s multi-year, multi-billion dollar partnership with OpenAI.
“Satya and the entire senior leadership team lean on Gates very significantly,” one executive told Business Insider. “His opinion is sought every time we make a major change.”
Gates stepped down as Microsoft chief executive in 2000 but remained at the company in various roles until leaving the board of directors in 2020 amid an investigation by the board into reports of inappropriate behavior by Gates with female employees, including an affair.
Microsoft executives said Gates was responsible for brokering the company’s partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and had been courting the company and its chief executive Sam Altman since 2016. The partnership has proved a success for Microsoft, which launched its own AI assistant, Copilot. Powered by a version of OpenAI’s GPT — or generative pre-trained transformer, which is a type of large language model — Copilot is available across its Office apps, including Word and Excel.
OpenAI and Altman also remain close with Gates, a person familiar with the matter told Business Insider. “Sam and Bill are good friends,” the person said. “OpenAI takes his opinion and consult overall seriously.”
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other Microsoft executives, including its chief scientist Charles Lamanna and head of cybersecurity Charlie Bell, regularly meet with Gates for his review of company products, executives told Business Insider, with a former one saying the billionaire “is very involved with product reviews and one-on-ones with executives.”