Sorry, Folks, Bill Gates Is Not Coming Back to Microsoft

While it is fun to play “what if” games, the fact is that Bill Gates is not planning a return to Microsoft, the software giant he founded with Paul Allen decades ago.

Folks are getting worked up about a Fortune magazine piece that speculates on what a Bill Gates comeback might look like and suggests the billionaire is pondering such a move.

But there’s no truth to that, according to Larry Cohen, Gates’s chief of staff, who I just chatted with by phone.

In fact, Gates does part-time work for Microsoft and has ever since stepping away from his day job there. But his full-time gig is as a philanthropist overseeing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.