I, Cringely | The Pulpit The best solution I think would be for Gates and Ballmer to simply buy a small country and declare Microsoft's sovereignty. Belize would be nice. It's a small tropical country in Latin America where the dominant language is English and the CIA 2000 Factbook says the Gross Domestic Product is $740 million. Microsoft could easily buy Belize ($2 billion is $400 per acre and would probably be enough) pay off the $380 million national debt, then throw up luxury condos for 20,000 programmers. Gates couldn't be king, because Belize is part of the British Commonwealth and already has Queen Elizabeth II to do that job, but I'm sure he could get a title of some sort. Prince Bill?



Once Microsoft is not only outside the USA, but is itself a sovereign nation, all anti-trust bets are off. As a diplomat, Gates couldn't even be arrested for speeding on visits back to Redmond, a result that might make the move worthwhile in itself.



Cringeley is nuts, but I love reading him.