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GOLDSEA | BUSINESS

MICROSOFT'S ASIAN PIONEER
PAGE 6 of 10

GS: Did you have to ask or did he just give it?

Oki: A little of both. You can't be shy about asking for anything. I certainly wasn't shy about asking for more stock options. I did something smart. I basically said, Look, don't give me an increase in salary, I'll take it in options. It turned out to be a smart decision.

GS: Were you one of the top few option holders when the company went public?

Oki: I certainly had enough to make me comfortable for the rest of my life.

GS: You could have cashed out at any time after 87 or 88?

Oki: Yes, and no. Since you're getting constant stock options, kind of an evergreen plan, they serve as golden handcuffs. You always have a certain amount of options that are invested. When I retired I left behind a lot of the options on the table at the time. I didn't need them. You only need so much money to feel comfortable financially.

GS: How much did you leave with?

Oki: If I had to guess, the amount of options I left on the table today represents about $10 million dollars.

GS: You must have cashed in quite a bit more than that.

Oki: Oh, sure, yeah.

GS: Give us a ballpark. Is it $100 million?

Oki: [A long pause] You could say that, sure. Ballparkish.

GS: Getting back to your job as head of international operations. No one told you what to do, you just basically did whatever you wanted, and hired whoever you wanted to run each of the countries?

Oki: Yeah.

GS: What was your interaction with [ASCII founder and a Gates pal] Kazuhiko Nishi? Did you work with him?

Oki: Oh, sure, but Kay and Bill also have a very close personal relationship. They still do.

[CONTINUED BELOW]

GS: Even now after Gates said all those nasty things about him?

Oki: Yeah. Kay was in Bill's wedding party and... They're still friends.

GS: Gates once accused Nishi of being jealous because he was worth negative half a million while Gates was worth X millions.

Oki: Kay is very creative--again a very high-IQ individual. But I would describe him as random, a loose cannon on ship. He was doing things I didn't think were in the best interest of Microsoft, like spending a million dollars on a [statue of a] dynosaur. Things like that didn't sit very well with me. Over time I finally was able to convince Bill to divorce ASCII and start our own wholly-owned subsidiary in Japan.

GS: Did you have the same personal relationship with Gates that Nishi did?

Oki: Oh, no, no. Very different.

GS: So yours is a purely professional relationship.

Oki: That's probably a pretty apt description of that. I mean, it wasn't solely professional. Bill was in my wedding party. We still see each other socially.
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