They repeated a similar offer, with more details. Three weeks later, 13 March 1987, we had dinner in Silicon Valley with Jon Shirley (the President of Microsoft) and Jeff Raikes (head of Applications marketing). Developers would stay in Sunnyvale and work remotely, at least initially all other functions would be handled in Redmond. He wanted to do an acquisition of our product for cash, immediately. Five days later, we got a completely unexpected Microsoft offer for PowerPoint.īill Gates told us that Microsoft would definitely be in the presentation market one way or another, and wanted PowerPoint as the best product. “We did our launch event for PowerPoint on 22 February 1987, two months before our planned ship date. Robert picks up the story … The First Offer This post looks at the negotiation process between Forethought Inc and Microsoft – why it came about, how Apple missed out, and the eventual closing of the deal which netted Forethought $14 million in cash. He managed the growth of PowerPoint to $100 million in annual sales before his retirement in 1993.

We interviewed Robert about the process of building a startup in the 1980s and what life was like negotiating with, and working for Microsoft. After the sale Robert reported directly to Bill Gates, heading up Microsoft’s business unit in Silicon Valley. It was the first significant acquisition made by Microsoft.

This is part one of a series of stories from Robert Gaskins who helped invent PowerPoint at Forethought Inc. Thanks for stopping by 👋🏾 Why not check out our file conversion API – convert 100s of different file formats in just one line of code (we even support PowerPoint files!)

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