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A lot of people in their late 20s and early 30s became millionaires through taking advantage of the company's stock options. They could have easily retired, but they didn't. As one Microsoft manager put it: 'What else would they do with their lives? Where else could they have so much fun?'
That, of course, includes Gates himself, who no doubt could have retired from the day-to-day running of the business many years before he did. After all, he became a billionaire in the mid 1980s, just into his thirties.
20年代後半と30代前半の多くの人々は同社のストックオプションの利益で百万長者になった。彼らは簡単に退職することもできたがそうしなかった。マイクロソフトのあるマネージャーはこう言った、「他に何をして生きればいいんだ?他にこんなに楽しいことがどこにあるんだ?」
もちろんゲイツ自信を含め、彼がそうする何年も前に日々の会社経営から退くことができることは疑いないことであった。結果、彼は1980年中盤、ちょうど30代に突入したところで百万長者となった。