Dan Schlatter

Bill Gates

Our story yesterday about Bill Gates' new company, bgC3, has stirred all sorts of speculation about what the Microsoft chairman is cooking up in those Kirkland offices. Here's the story behind the story, and more thoughts about what might be happening behind the scenes.

First of all, it's important to underscore that the existence of a third Gates office, apart from Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, isn't news. As noted in yesterday's story, the Microsoft chairman acknowledged those plans prior to leaving his daily work at the company this summer. During my interview with him back then, Gates also pointed out that he would be exploring new areas of science and technology on his own, and looking for breakthrough ideas to support.

What's new, or at least newly uncovered, is the organization of those efforts under a new company, bgC3 LLC.

In a post about our story, the Wall Street Journal's Rob Guth notes that he knew about bgC3 previously, and he wonders if it's such a big deal. He writes: "Remember, when you’re Bill Gates, no matter what you do – even just open an office — there’s an ever-present entourage of people who organize, coordinate and protect your life. Those people need salaries, benefits and whatever else employees get. So what do you do? Set up a legal entity to handle all that stuff."

That's true, and it's one of the explanations we heard as we were digging around on the story. But what made this even more newsworthy in our eyes -- apart from the fact that it's a new entity created by Bill Gates -- was that the company went to the effort of coming up with a logo, and protecting itself by filing for federal trademarks on that and the company name. It's no casual organization.

In addition, Gates already has a separate company, Watermark Estate Management Services LLC, that handles much of his personal business. It's noteworthy that he felt the need to create another entity, apart from that existing organization.

By the way, in our search for information about bgC3, we checked all sorts of federal, state and local databases, including Washington state corporations records, trademark filings, and real estate documents. I spent more time in the Kirkland building-permit desk than I did at my own desk some days this past week. If anyone out there has ideas about additional records to check, please let me know.

So what will Bill Gates be doing under the bgC3 umbrella? The biggest clue is the identification of the company as a "think tank" in federal trademark filings, and the notion that Gates will act as a "catalyst" -- which is what the "C" is believed to represent in the company name. Gates clearly has the ability to bring together big minds to tackle big problems in science, technology and other issues with global impact. Much of that is happening through the Microsoft chairman's work at the foundation, but this new entity makes it clear that Gates is also serious about pursuing projects on his own.

The most interesting part is that Gates himself may not know exactly where this could end up. But now he has the company in place to see it through to wherever it might lead.