A harsh but true fact: Bill Gates remaining as CEO would have prevented Microsoft from growing significantly. If Bill Gates had continued as CEO, Microsoft probably wouldn't be the Microsoft of today. This is not to deny Gates; he is one of the greatest founders during the 0→1 stage. But the problem is: the same set of abilities cannot fully cover an entire company lifecycle. Gates represents: technical intuition + strong control + personal judgment in the software era. This was an advantage in the early days, but in the era of cloud computing, platformization, and global collaboration, it may become a structural obstacle. Microsoft's true leap forward was not achieved by a "divine-level product," but by the subsequent CEO who did several extremely counterintuitive things: abandoning Windows-centricity, fully embracing cloud and open source, and reshaping company culture and collaboration methods. This step was more important than technology itself. A harsh but real business rule is: great founders are not necessarily great long-term CEOs. Microsoft's success lies not in the founders always being right, but in the fact that—at the right time—it dared to replace the right person with the right one.