Throughout the 1990’s, the Microsoft stock price had an overall upward trend. Employees would sell their stock in order to make a major purchase, or to fund a vacation, or simply to cash in on the rise. But no matter when you sold your stock, you always sold it too soon. People joked about driving a $70,000 Honda Civic because they sold stock years earlier to buy the car at $10,000. The car depreciated quickly. The stock didn’t.<\/p>\n
It was customary for a time for the Microsoft Company Meeting to hire a celebrity host, usually a comedian, to liven things up. Dana Carvey was the host for a company meeting in the early 1990’s, and one of the sketches he performed was a humorous interview with Bill Gates. The questions and answers were scripted, but Dana Carvey decided to ask a question that wasn’t on the script:<\/p>\n
“Say, Bill, if I had bought a thousand shares of Microsoft stock 20 years ago, would I be a gazillionaire like you?”<\/p>\n
I got the impression that Bill was not a fan of going off script, but he was ready with a comeback.<\/p>\n
“Nah, you would have sold it too soon.”<\/p>\n
That quip brought the house down.<\/p>\n