She was the project manager for Microsoft Bob! - a half-way decent idea but poorly executed and the laughingstock of geeks everywhere.
They are divorcing after 27 years and three kids. Wonder what precipitated it and what her chunk of the change will be. BillG has been acting a little off the rails for the last 10-15 years. Monomaniacal.
I have this theory that he read the Foundation Series when a kid and he envisions himself to be Hari Seldon personified. Put here on God's green Earth to "nudge" all of us into better behavior. Only he knows what the problem is. Only he can help fix everything.
The problem is that BillG is just not that smart. He has a killer business sense, he will out-compete everyone. Plus, he had the great fortune to be at the right place at the right time (and that Tim Paterson was willing to sell 86-DOS to him). As for creative spark? Not really there. MSFT's original core components - MS-DOS, Windows, Word, Excel (subsequently Office) and SQL Database all came from other sources, were purchased and rebranded as a Microsoft Product.
I wish them both well and I especially wish that BillG would get the fsck off the world stage and let things evolve naturally. Meddling always has unintended consequences and he is surrounding himself with some less-than-optimal people.
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