Microsoft: What Goes Around...

New Mexico has a new Microsoft connection. Actually the connection has been there since Kevin Johnson joined Microsoft in 1992 from IBM. Johnson, 47, has his business degree from New Mexico State University, the Wall Street Journal said today (P B1). It's just that very knew of the relationship until today. Of course the Wall Street wasn't writing about the Aggies. The story was about Johnson's rise to be president of Microsoft's 15,000-employee Platforms and Services Division and "a key architect" of Microsoft's run at Yahoo. 

The other Microsoft connection is Bill Gates. As a young visionary, Gates came to Albuquerque to write software for the first personal computer, the Altair, which was created right there in river city. Gates got in a financial squeeze, couldn't find money in Albuquerque, and returned home to Seattle and the money. The urban legend part is that Albuquerque "failed" and somehow "lost" Gates. Ohmygawd, has been the refrain for decades, "We lost Microsoft." The fact is that Gates, maybe 20 years old, college dropout and running a startup in a brand new field, sought money from a bank, Albuquerque National. The bank, not a venture capitalist, said no. And the law firm to whom Gates owed a bunch of money said, well, we would rather have the cash instead of equity.

No failure, just the real world of business.