Just months after his Microsoft farewell, Bill Gates is quietly creating a new company — complete with high-tech office space, a cryptic name and even its own trademark.
Public documents describe the new Gates entity — bgC3 LLC — as a “think tank.” It’s housed within a Kirkland office that the Microsoft co-founder established on his own after leaving his day-to-day executive role at the company this summer.
Is this Bill Gates’ next big business? A Gates insider gives an emphatic no — saying it’s not a commercial venture but rather a vehicle to coordinate the software mogul’s work on his business and philanthropic endeavors…
Federal trademark filings provide more clues – describing bgC3 as a think tank, under a generic trademark classification that corresponds broadly to areas including “scientific and technological services,” “industrial analysis and research,” and “design and development of computer hardware and software.”
Do you think we’ll ever see an IPO?
Clever logo…
“bg” = Bill Gates..
What does C3 mean? “C-cubed”? “CCC”? “See Three”? “Sea Three”?
C3 is short for C-3PO
🙂
lets try… bill gates company number 3 = bgC3…
it has all the creativity of naming an operating system ‘windows’….
#3…
What was company #2?
Do you consider the Gates Foundation as #2?
3 comments and no mention of Obama! This blog post is so boring.
Company 3? What is number two?
The company will specialize in creating cryptic company names and interesting trademarked logos.
#1 traf-o-data
#2 msft
#3 bgc3
what a shitty logo. What’s the matter bill, you design suite can’t crank out anything more , or are you Using Publisher like every other office jockey
C3 = COMMAND, CONTROL, AND communications …
BGate$ CANNOT GIVE IT UP, HE IS JUST A ***CONTROL FREAK*** !!!
Just don’t fuck this company up by letting Baldmer run it.
Perhaps a think tank about looking to monopolize something else, that’s not computer software or hardware related. Like Bio-tech. How long before C3 holds patents to most of our DNA? I’m sure Gates is thinking that there are some untapped monopoly opportunities, that he’s overlooked. So he needs a think tank, to reverse engineer other fields of research, into “shut out” enterprises. Medicine, education, nutrition, entertainment?
The C3 refers to 501C3, a tax status for non profit think tanks.
Geez… know your history guys.
bgC3 is #3 because Microsoft was #2. Gates and Allen, along with Paul Gilbert formed Traf-O-Data. THAT was company #1 and it was the prelude to Microsoft.
The foundation doesn’t really count as a company as it is philanthropic and not commercial by nature.
That said, I heard the C stands for Catalyst. Is that proven wrong?
I’m glad. Just as Apple’s greatness was really just an extension of Job’s greatness, Microsoft’s greatness was only ever an extension of Gate’s greatness. I still think Gates has a lot to contribute to the world and I think it is brilliant for him to pursue that without the burden, preconceptions, and corporate baggage of an organization that for all intents and purposes has become the Big Blue he long ago bested.
Even if C3 is but a think tank, I’m glad he’s still going to be out there contributing. I’m personally looking forward to it.