Billionaires battle: Former partner rips Bill Gates in new book

Mar 31, 2011, 18:33 GMT

San Francisco - Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has launched a scathing attack of his former partner and childhood friend Bill Gates in his new autobiography, claiming that the technology pioneer tried to 'rip him off' and take credit for Allen's achievements.

The accusations come in Allen's book, Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft, which is due for release on April 19. Excerpts appeared Wednesday in Vanity Fair and The Wall Street Journal.

In the book, Allen, who controls a 13-billion-dollar fortune thanks to his Microsoft stake, said Gates continually tried to dilute his share of Microsoft ownership. Allen writes that he once caught his former partner scheming with current Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer to reduce Allen's stake by issuing new shares without his knowledge.

'I had helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off,' he says in the book. 'It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple.'

Allen conceded that Gates later apologized to him and acknowledged that even before that incident he had agreed on at least two occasions to grant Gates a greater share of the company. But he said that he realized that he would have to leave the company when Gates rejected his request for more shares following the success of a product he was responsible for.

'In that moment, something died for me,' Allen wrote. 'I'd thought that our partnership was based on fairness, but now I saw that Bill's self-interest overrode all other considerations. My partner was out to grab as much of the pie as possible and hold on to it, and that was something I could not accept.'

The book also reveals that Gates tried to buy Allen's shares when he left the company in 1983, but was only willing to pay half of the 10 dollars per share that Allen demanded. Allen kept the shares and is now ranked as the world's 57th richest person.

Gates refused to be baited by the accusations, according to a statement in The Wall Street Journal. 'While my recollection of many of these events may differ from Paul's, I value his friendship and the important contributions he made to the world of technology and at Microsoft,' Gates said in a written statement.

Read more about Technology

Read more about US People