Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is off the company’s board, the company announced on March 13. He also is leaving the board of Berkshire Hathaway. Gates is leaving to dedicate more time to his philanthropic work, according to Microsoft’s announcement and his own post on LinkedIn, though he will continue to serve as a technology advisor to CEO Satya Nadella and team.

Gates ceased his day-to-day duties at Microsoft in June 27, 2008. (He continued on as Microsoft’s chairman of the board until February 4, 2014, and then as a regular board member since then.)

Now that Gates has left, Microsoft’s board consists of 12 members instead of 13. The 12: John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chair; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners and one of the founders of LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap, Inc.; Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO; Sandra E. Peterson, operating partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; Penny Pritzker, founder and chairman, PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer and president of Wells Fargo & Co.; Arne Sorenson, president and CEO, Marriott International Inc.; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Equity Partners; Emma Walmsley, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK); and Padmasree Warrior, founder, CEO and president, Fable Group Inc.

Gates’ departure from his day-to-day job at Microsoft spurred me to write a book back in 2008. (No, I’m not doing another one to commemorate his board departure.) 

Looking back, it’s interesting to see what I thought mattered one year after Gates “retired” from Microsoft in 2008. What a different company Microsoft was back then: In 2009, Ray Ozzie was the company’s chief software architect. And new versions of Windows Mobile, the Zune HD, the Natal Xbox controller and the “final” Azure cloud operating environment were all queued up to arrive. It’s been a long, strange trip over the past decade-plus….