Guess They Don't Call It the "Microsoft Family" for Nothing
Earlier this week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that:
Jeff Raikes, 49, will succeed Patty Stonesifer as head of the world's largest philanthropy, managing a $37 billion endowment, $3 billion a year in grants, and ambitious goals such as eradicating malaria and developing a vaccine to prevent AIDS.How lucky that Raikes was right there at Microsoft all along. It's like Gates hired based on keywords, one of which is "my company."
In 1997, with the whole philanthropic world to choose from, Bill and Melinda Gates settled on Patty Stonesifer, who was retiring as Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Interactive Media Division to head to Dreamworks. Interactive media, global health...potato, pot-ah-to? Eleven years later, she announced she'd be leaving, and the New York Times speculated that "The arrival of a new chief executive, possibly an outsider, is the last step in the foundation's transition to a more orthodox institutional structure, with clearly defined divisions knit together by a central management team that Ms. Stonesifer has assembled over the last two years."
But no! In your face, New York Times! It turns out the best person to succeed Stonesifer is old-guard Microsoft insider Jeff Raikes (employee #105ish), who had just announced his plans to retire as head of the Microsoft Business Division (home of the Office money-printing machine: we've read estimates of 70% operating margins). So now we have three established criteria for the Foundation position: be a Microsoft SVP or President, be tight with Bill, and announce your retirement just prior to the position opening up.
We're not sure if these criteria were communicated to recruiting firm Russell Reynolds, who could have saved themselves the trouble of an international search; the Seattle Times says, "the firm eventually produced about 150 potential candidates, including political, academic and business leaders. With Raikes, who is not well known outside the software industry, the foundation chose a trusted insider to manage a growing operation and enormous budget over an expert in global health, development or philanthropy."
Maybe, like Stonesifer, he's willing to work for $1 per year.
