Paul Allen willing to wait?

re: dwight jaynes article today.

Allen's synapses fire, when it matters
Some things you may not have heard about Trail Blazer owner Paul
Allen:
· According to an online PBS column titled "I, Cringely"
(written by Mark Stephens, under the pen name Robert X. Cringely),
there once was a day when Allen, not Bill Gates, was the No. 1 man at
Microsoft. It's a fascinating story that tells about the early days
of the company, when Jack Sams of IBM came looking for an operating
system for the secret Project Acorn, the IBM PC.
"Sams mistook Gates for the office assistant. Though both Gates
and (Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve) Ballmer took part in
those first talks with IBM, Sams recalled that the authority figure was
definitely Paul Allen.
"... It was also by far the most complex product in Microsoft's
young history, which again is why Paul Allen was put in charge. As
development continued, Allen's health began to deteriorate, so much
so that the IBM team was worried that Allen might not survive. (Allen
had contracted Hodgkin's disease in 1982, which he was later to
defeat with a bone marrow transplant.)
"... During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS
2.0 in early 1983, I am told Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer
discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares
back if Allen were to die.
"... It didn't go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned
to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to
secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft. He sold large blocks of
shares on a regular basis. ... Then in October and November of 2000,
just as he was finally leaving the Microsoft board, Allen did a series
of financial transactions involving derivative securities called
'collars,' ... (so now) his upside and downside financial potential
are limited. By the end of 2000, though Allen technically still owned
136 million Microsoft shares, his wealth was for practical purposes
separate from that of Gates, Ballmer, and the rest of Microsoft.
"... What do you do when your wealth is immense but completely
tied to people whom you inherently do not trust? If you are Paul Allen
you watch your tongue and spend eight years getting out from under that
burden."
Sit back,Blazer fans - this is one patient man.
· By the way, Allen's cable company, Charter Communications,
lost $459 million, or $1.45 per share, in the first quarter of this
year. And he's all lathered up about possibly losing $100 million
over the next three years with his basketball team?