Perspectives from the Valley

Richard "Ric" Weiland

Richard Weiland, usually called “Ric,” earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1976. His first job after Stanford was with his former high school classmates Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft, where he managed the completion of the COBOL compiler and helped develop Microsoft’s BASIC interpreter. He left the company at the age of 35 in 1988 to pursue full-time philanthropy, where his interests included education; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights; health and human services; and the environment. The Weiland papers in the Stanford Libraries document his work at Microsoft, as an activist for the LGBTQ movement (particularly in the Seattle area), and his extensive philanthropy, as well as his personal life.

Richard "Ric" Weiland

Ric Weiland

•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Ric Weiland (1953-2006) attended Stanford University, completing his undergraduate studies with a degree in electrical engineering in 1976. Before graduating, he had been hired as the second employee at a newly created software company then located in New Mexico. The company, founded by his boyhood friends Paul Allen and Bill Gates, was Microsoft. After leaving Microsoft in 1988, he became a philanthropist and activist for the LGBTQ movement, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

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Commencement

1976•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland at his Stanford Commencement, 1976.

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Microsoft

1978•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

The Microsoft team in 1978, with Bill Gates (lower left) and Paul Allen (lower right). Photograph by Ric Weiland. During Microsoft’s early days in New Mexico, Weiland worked as a lead programmer on development of its COBOL compiler and BASIC interpreter. He moved back to the Seattle area in 1979, when Microsoft relocated there from New Mexico.

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Ric and Bill Gates NCC Conf NYC

1976•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland and Gates at the 1976 National Computer Conference.

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Snow in Albuquerque

1977•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

“Snow in Albuquerque, 1977”

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Yes I Am License Plate

1977•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

According to a story by Kevin Phinney in SeattleMet, published in 2008, Weiland purchased a root beer-colored Corvette shortly after joining Gates and Allen in Albuquerque. As he drove around town, his license plate, “YESIAM,” proclaimed that he was “out and proud.”

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Harvard

1980•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland while attending Harvard Business School.

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Apps development

1986•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

After his period away at the Harvard Business School, he rejoined Microsoft and led the Microsoft Works project. Works was launched as a commercial product for MS-DOS in 1987. The “apps development” group seen here in this photograph Weiland likely took in 1986 was probably the team that developed the various office productivity applications bundled together as Works.

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Diary

1980 - 1983•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Ric Weiland’s papers include personal notebooks that document his life and career. This notebook, covering three years from Autumn 1980 to Autumn 1983, covers his return to Seattle after Harvard and mostly deals with technical topics. Other notebooks reveal his personal thoughts and lifestyle decisions as an openly gay man in the Pacific Northwest.

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Diary

1982•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland also kept meticulously organized diaries, which are now included with his papers. On this page, he notes “start to work for Microsoft,” on 16 November 1981. He returned to the company after leaving for several months in Southern California upon leaving Harvard. His diaries recount personal (“To Stanford for a long walk” during a trip to the Bay Area) and business details (“Saw Paul Goheen of Commodore”).

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Diary

1985•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

At the very end of 1985, Weiland wrote a seven-page summary of his life and work during the last five months of that year. His reflections range from beginning work on the software that would become Microsoft Works, which he calls “Windows Works” here, to revealing that he spent an October afternoon in the Stanford Library and “wrote up his expectations.” Unfortunately, “SF did not live up to them.”

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Personal Notes

1987•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Many of Weiland’s notes and diaries (which he usually called his “books”) deliver deeply personal, questioning conversations with himself about his social and sexual life as an openly gay man on the West Coast.

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1996•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

At a Halloween party with friends.

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Mike, Ric and Dog

•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland and his partner Mike Schaefer, date unknown. After Weiland’s death in 2006, Schaefer gave his papers to Stanford University in 2007 and 2008.

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Weiland by class plate

•Richard William Weiland

Richard William Weiland papers, 1969-2006

Weiland after Stanford Commencement, 1976. He is crouching behind his class plate on the Quad. After leaving Microsoft in 1988, he donated more than $20 million to a variety of non-profit organizations and universities, including Stanford University. In his will, he distributed an additional $68 million to a group of groups focused on LGBT activism. All told, his charitable and philanthropic donations totaled roughly $170 million over the course of his life.

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