Three of the Top 20 investors in Microsoft are lobbying the firm’s board to force billionaire co-founder Bill Gates to step down as chairman, revealing the power that investors can wield in even the world’s biggest companies.

The relationship between investors and directors has always been somewhat peculiar, for while senior executives ostensibly control a firm’s direction, they are essentially doing so to impress their backers. Every new product launch, every senior-level staff appointment and every public address is in some way centred on making sure that the moneymen feel that their money is not just safe in the short term, but set to mature in value.

Since the dot-com boom at the turn of the millennium, the publicity surrounding start-up companies and the role of investors, especially venture capitalists, has grown exponentially. Tales of Jim Breyer providing $12.7 million to a Harvard drop out called Mark Zuckerberg to help grow his business called Facebook, or Peter Fenton who backed Twitter in its early stages when it only had 25 staff members, are now legendary.

However, when revenue and profits start to turn soar, the same investors who played a significant role in a leader’s ascendancy can readily orchestrate a subsequent fall from grace. Marc Barros, co-founder of wearable-technology firm Contour Cameras, warned that even when relationships with investors go bad, directors still have a responsibility to work with them. “The reality is that investors don’t get fired,” he said. “They may get squashed in a recapitalisation, minimised in a down round or bought out, but they don’t get removed. Because the minute they give you money, they aren’t going anywhere. Unlike an employee that quits or a founder that gets replaced, your investors aren’t walking away until they get their money back – regardless of how painful the process is.”

While Bill Gates, who started Microsoft in 1975, is one of the most respected figures in the technology sector, even he is not exempt from investor criticism. Departed CEO Steve Ballmer had been under intense pressure from shareholders to improve both the company’s performance and share price, which have been stagnant for the past decade. Now according to inside sources, some investors who collectively have a 5% stake are directing their concerns at Gates, who himself owns 4.5% of the company.

Principally the three investors are concerned that Gates’ presence on the board effectively blocks the adoption of new strategies and would limit the power of a new chief executive to make substantial changes, as Microsoft struggles to make up lost ground on Apple and Google in the move towards mobile computing. Whether the board will act upon those concerns is another matter entirely – but it wouldn’t be the first time that a founder has been banished from his own company.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was famously forced out of the organisation following his unsuccessful bid to have CEO John Sculley removed, but later returned to the firm when Apple acquired his NeXT startup. Then there is David Neeleman, founder of Jet Blue, who was pushed out of the company’s top job in 2007 after investors deemed that the firm would be more profitable under different leadership.

It can indeed be lonely at the top.

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Image of Bill Gates courtesy of 3777190317 / Shutterstock