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Bill Gates founds a new tech company

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has founded a new company (some time in between sleeping and working countless hours for the Gates Foundation and a day a week for Microsoft).
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has founded a new company (some time in between sleeping and working countless hours for the Gates Foundation and a day a week for Microsoft).

Todd Bishop -- the former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter now at the Puget Sound Business Journal's newly launched TechFlash site -- has unearthed new information about Gates' latest startup. The company, known as bgC3 LLC is a “think tank”  based in Kirkland, Wash., Bishop reports. While insiders describe the firm as a kind of holding company, it seems like Gates has bigger goals. Bishop notes:

"Federal trademark filings provide more clues – describing bgC3 as a think tank, under a generic trademark classification that corresponds broadly to areas including "scientific and technological services," 'industrial analysis and research,' and 'design and development of computer hardware and software.'"

Whenever I hear "think tank," I can't help but think about former Softie Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures -- a company many describe as a "patent trolling" organization. Hopefully Microsoft's chairman won't be going down that rabbit hole with bgC3.

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