classmate: “If you have any advice on what not to do during our summer jobs, we’d appreciate that.”
legal practice instructor: “Well, I can tell you what I did at my summer job.”
“I worked at a firm in Seattle. One day one of the senior partners asked if I wanted to come to a shareholder’s meeting. I said sure. We went to lunch, where he told me that the company was founded by his son, who had dropped out of school to start the company. The father thought that dropping out was a terrible idea, but he thought it would be a good experience for me to come to the shareholder’s meeting and see what went on.”
“When I graduated, the son’s company offered me a job in their new legal department. I said no.”
“The partner was Bill Gates, Sr.”
The instructor seems like a pretty happy, successful guy, which is good, because I’m sure otherwise he’d be kicking himself at night, every night…
Ouch indeedy.
The rumour at one of my universitys was that our operating systems lecturer was at one time employee #8 at the son’s company, but left soon after he started.
He did seem a little bitter, so maybe it was true.
It probably isn’t though.
Money != happiness
Of course not, but it typically doesn’t hurt. He could at this point be retired and doing literally whatever he wants. Could quite possibly still be teaching, but it could also be being a space tourist, had he been there that early.
Who’d want to work in Microsoft’s legal department anyway? They keep getting sued and losing!