{"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates", "html": "Bill Gates Wikipedia Bill Gates From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation search For other people named Bill Gates see Bill Gates disambiguation Bill Gates Gates in June 2015 Born William Henry Gates III 1955-10-28 October 28 1955 age61 Seattle Washington U.S Residence Medina Washington U.S Yearsactive 1975present Networth US$89 billion June 2017 Title Technology Advisor of Microsoft Co-Chairman of the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation CEO of Cascade Investment Chairman of Branded Entertainment Network Chairman of TerraPower Board memberof Microsoft Berkshire Hathaway Spouse(s Melinda Gates m.1994 Children Parent(s William Gates Sr Mary Maxwell Gates Website gatesnotes.com Signature William Henry Gates III born October 28 1955 is the co-founder of Microsoft and is an American business magnate investor author and philanthropist In 1975 Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft which became the world's largest PC software company During his career at Microsoft Gates held the positions of chairman CEO and chief software architect while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014 a Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000 but he remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect for himself In June 2006 Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work and full-time work at the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 taking on a new post as technology adviser to support the then newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution He has been criticized for his business tactics which have been considered anti-competitive an opinion that has in some cases been upheld by numerous court rulings Later in his career Gates pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation established in 2000 Since 1987 Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people As of May 2017[update Gates is the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$88.5billion In 2009 Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy Contents Early life Microsoft 2.1 BASIC 2.2 IBM partnership 2.3 Windows 2.4 Management style 2.5 Antitrust litigation 2.6 Appearance in ads Post-Microsoft Personal life 4.1 Philanthropy 4.1.1 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 4.1.2 Personal 4.1.3 Criticism 4.1.4 Charity Sports Events 4.2 Recognition 4.3 External business ventures and investments Books films social media and radio 5.1 Books 5.2 Documentaries 5.3 Feature films 5.4 Social media 5.5 Video and film clips 5.6 Radio See also Notes References 8.1 Citations 8.2 Bibliography Further reading 10 External links Early life Gates was born in Seattle Washington on October 28 1955 He is the son of William Gates Sr.[b born 1925 and Mary Maxwell Gates 19291994 His ancestry includes English German Irish and Scots-Irish His father was a prominent lawyer and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way Gates maternal grandfather was JW Maxwell a national bank president Gates has one elder sister Kristi Kristianne and one younger sister Libby He is the fourth of his name in his family but is known as William Gates III or Trey because his father had the II suffix Early on in his life Gates parents had a law career in mind for him When Gates was young his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches a Protestant Reformed denomination The family encouraged competition one visitor reported that it didn't matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock there was always a reward for winning and there was always a penalty for losing The Poker Room in Currier House at Harvard College At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School a private preparatory school When he was in the eighth grade the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric GE computer for the school's students Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest He wrote his first computer program on this machine an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly When he reflected back on that moment he said There was just something neat about the machine After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation CCC which banned four Lakeside students Gates Paul Allen Ric Weiland and Kent Evans for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time At the end of the ban the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time Rather than use the system via Teletype Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system including programs in Fortran Lisp and machine language The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970 when the company went out of business The following year Information Sciences Inc hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL providing them computer time and royalties After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with a disproportionate number of interesting girls He later stated that it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success At age 17 Gates formed a venture with Allen called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor In early 1973 Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S House of Representatives Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973 and was a National Merit Scholar He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973 He chose a pre-law major but took mathematics and graduate level computer science courses While at Harvard he met fellow student Steve Ballmer Gates left Harvard after two years while Ballmer would stay and graduate magna cum laude Years later Ballmer succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft before resigning from the company in 2014 In his second year Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems presented in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis one of his professors Gates solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years its successor is faster by only one percent His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard and spent a lot of time using the school's computers Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974 The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time He had talked this decision over with his parents who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start his own company Gates explained his official status with Harvard that if things Microsoft hadn't worked out I could always go back to school I was officially on a leave of absence Microsoft Main articles History of Microsoft and Microsoft BASIC MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch 200mm floppy disk system After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800 Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems MITS the creators of the new microcomputer to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform In reality Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer and then the BASIC interpreter The demonstration held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC Paul Allen was hired into MITS and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975 They named their partnership Micro-Soft and had their first office located in Albuquerque Within a year the hyphen was dropped and on November 26 1976 the trade name Microsoft was registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed In February 1976 Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90 of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and by doing so the Altair hobby market was in danger of eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce distribute and maintain high-quality software This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976 and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue Washington on January 1979 During Microsoft's early years all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business Gates oversaw the business details but continued to write code as well In the first five years Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit unreliable source IBM partnership IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 regarding its upcoming personal computer the IBM PC The computer company first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system Gates referred them to Digital Research DRI makers of the widely used CP/M operating system IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly and they did not reach a licensing agreement IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS QDOS an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products SCP had made for hardware similar to the PC Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent and later the full owner of 86-DOS After adapting the operating system for the PC Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of 50,000 Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system They did and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry Despite IBM's name on the operating system the press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the new computer PC Magazine asked if Gates were the man behind the machine and InfoWorld quoted an expert as stating it's Gates computer Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25 1981 which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates the president of Microsoft and its board chairman Windows Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20 1985 and in August the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2 Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system mounting creative differences caused the partnership to deteriorate Management style Bill Gates in January 2008 From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006 Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy He gained a reputation for being distant from others as early as 1981 an industry executive complained in public that Gates is notorious for not being reachable by phone and for not returning phone calls Another executive recalled that after he showed Gates a game and defeated him 35 of 37 times when they met again a month later Gates won or tied every game He had studied the game until he solved it That is a competitor As an executive Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk He interrupted presentations with such comments That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard and Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until hopefully Gates was fully convinced When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating he was known to remark sarcastically I'll do it over the weekend Gates was an active software developer in Microsoft's early history particularly on the company's programming language products but his role most of its history was primarily as management and executive Gates has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100 but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products He remained interested in technical details Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1985 that when watching Gates announcing Microsoft Excel Something else impressed me Bill Gates likes the program not because it's going to make him a lot of money although I'm sure it will do that but because it's a neat hack On June 15 2006 Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy He divided his responsibilities between two successors placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy Antitrust litigation Further information United States Microsoft antitrust case and European Union Microsoft competition case Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August 27 1998 Many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates approval In the 1998 United States Microsoft case Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words such as compete concerned and we The judge and other observers in the court room were seen laughing at various points during the deposition BusinessWeek reported Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying I don't recall so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle Worse many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail that Gates both sent and received Gates later said he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions As to his demeanor during the deposition he said Did I fence with Boies I plead guilty Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me rudeness to Boies in the first degree Despite Gates denials the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying and blocking competition both in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act Appearance in ads Mugshots of Gates following his 1977 arrest for a traffic violation in Albuquerque New Mexico Gates appeared in a series of ads to promote Microsoft in 2008 The first commercial co-starring Jerry Seinfeld is a 90-second talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store Shoe Circus in a mall and notices Gates buying shoes inside The salesman is trying to sell Mr Gates shoes that are a size too big As Gates is buying the shoes he holds up his discount card which uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation As they are walking out of the mall Seinfeld asks Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers after getting a Yes he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible again getting a Yes Some say that this is an homage to Seinfeld's own show about nothing Seinfeld In a second commercial in the series Gates and Seinfeld are at the home of an average family trying to fit in with normal people Post-Microsoft Gates meeting with U.S Secretary of Defense James Mattis in February 2017 Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft Gates has continued his philanthropy and works on other projects According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index Gates was the world's highest-earning billionaire in 2013 as his net worth increased by US$15.8billion to US$78.5billion As of January 2014 most of Gates assets are held in Cascade Investment LLC an entity through which he owns stakes in numerous businesses including Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Corbis Corp On February 2014 Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft to become Technology Advisor alongside Satya Nadella In a substantial interview with Rolling Stone magazine published in March 27 2014 issue Gates provided his perspective on a range of issues such as climate change his charitable activities various tech companies and people involved in them and the state of America In response to a question about his greatest fear when he looks 50 years into the future Gates stated there'll be some really bad things that'll happen in the next 50 or 100 years but hopefully none of them on the scale of say a million people that you didn't expect to die from a pandemic or nuclear or bioterrorism Gates also identified innovation as the real driver of progress and pronounced that America's way better today than it's ever been Gates days are planned for him similar to the US President's schedule on a minute-by-minute basis Personal life Bill and Melinda Gates in June 2009 Gates married Melinda French in Hawaii on January 1994 he was 38 and she was 29 They have three children Jennifer Katharine born 1996 Rory John born 1999 and Phoebe Adele born 2002 The family resides in the Gates home an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina near Seattle in the state of Washington United States According to 2007 King County public records the total assessed value of the property land and house is 125million and the annual property tax is 991,000 The 66,000sqft 6,100m2 estate has a 60-foot 18m swimming pool with an underwater music system as well as a 2,500sqft 230m2 gym and a 1,000sqft 93m2 dining room In an interview with Rolling Stone Gates stated in regard to his faith The moral systems of religion I think are super important We've raised our kids in a religious way they've gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in I've been very lucky and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world And that's kind of a religious belief I mean it's at least a moral belief In the same interview Gates said I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that we sought false explanations for them Now science has filled in some of the realm not all that religion used to fill But the mystery and the beauty of the world is overwhelmingly amazing and there's no scientific explanation of how it came about To say that it was generated by random numbers that does seem you know sort of an uncharitable view laughs I think it makes sense to believe in God but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it I don't know Among Gates private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci which Gates bought for 30.8million at an auction in 1994 Gates is also known as an avid reader and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby He also enjoys playing bridge tennis and golf In 1999 his wealth briefly surpassed 101billion causing the media to call Gates a centibillionaire Despite his wealth and extensive business travel Gates usually flew coach until 1997 when he bought a private jet Since 2000 the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multibillion-dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations In a May 2006 interview Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought In March 2010 Gates was the second wealthiest person behind Carlos Slim but regained the top position in 2013 according to the Bloomberg Billionaires List Carlos Slim retook the position again in June 2014 but then lost the top position back to Gates Between 2009 and 2014 his wealth doubled from US$40billion to more than US$82billion Gates has several investments outside Microsoft which in 2006 paid him a salary of 616,667 and 350,000 bonus totalling 966,667 He founded Corbis a digital imaging company in 1989 In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett In 2016 he revealed that he was color-blind when discussing his gaming habits Philanthropy Gates with Bono Queen Rania of Jordan former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria and others during the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland In 2009 Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Main article Bill Melinda Gates Foundation Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William Gates Foundation In 2000 Gates and his wife combined three family foundations to create the charitable Bill Melinda Gates Foundation which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013 as the world's wealthiest charitable foundation with assets reportedly valued at more than 34.6billion The Foundation allows benefactors to access information that shows how its money is being spent unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust The foundation is organized into four program areas Global Development Division Global Health Division United States Division and Global Policy Advocacy Division Gates has credited the generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller as a major influence Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times and their charity work is partly modeled on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus whereby they are interested in tackling the global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations As of 2007 Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America having given over 28billion to charity the couple plan to eventually donate 95 percent of their wealth to charity The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports the use of genetically modified organisms in agricultural development Specifically the foundation is supporting the International Rice Research Institute in developing Golden Rice a genetically modified rice variant used to combat Vitamin A deficiency Personal Melinda Gates suggested that people should emulate the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family which had sold its home and given away half of its value as detailed in The Power of Half Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done and on December 2010 Gates investor Warren Buffett and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg signed a commitment they called the Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge The pledge is a commitment by all three to donate at least half of their wealth over the course of time to charity Gates has recently expressed concern about the existential threats of superintelligence in a Reddit ask me anything he stated that First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent That should be positive if we manage it well A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned In a March 2015 interview with Baidu's CEO Robin Li Gates claimed he would highly recommend Nick Bostrom's recent work Superintelligence Paths Dangers Strategies Gates has also provided personal donations to educational institutions In 1999 Gates donated 20million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT for the construction of a computer laboratory named the William Gates Building that was designed by architect Frank Gehry While Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution this was the first personal donation received from Gates The Maxwell Dworkin Laboratory of the Harvard John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is named after the mothers of both Gates and Microsoft President Steven A Ballmer both of whom were students Ballmer was a member of the School's graduating class of 1977 while Gates left his studies for Microsoft and donated funds for the laboratory's construction Gates also donated 6million to the construction of the Gates Computer Science Building completed in January 1996 on the campus of Stanford University The building contains the Computer Science Department CSD and the Computer Systems Laboratory CSL of Stanford's Engineering department On August 15 2014 Bill Gates posted a video of himself dumping a bucket of ice water on his head after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg challenged him to do so in order to raise awareness for the disease ALS amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Bill Gates and his foundation are taking an interest in solving global sanitation problems since about 2005 for example by announcing the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge which has received considerable media interest To raise awareness for the topic of sanitation and possible solutions Bill Gates drank water which was produced from human feces in 2014 in fact it was produced from a sewage sludge treatment process called the Omni-processor In early 2015 he also appeared with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show and challenged him to see if he could taste the difference between this reclaimed water or bottled water Bill and Melinda Gates have said that they intend to leave their three children 10million each as their inheritance With only 30million kept in the family they appear to be on a course to give away about 99.96 percent of their wealth Criticism In 2007 the Los Angeles Times criticized the foundation for investing its assets in companies which have been accused of worsening poverty polluting heavily and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world In response to press criticism the foundation announced a review of its investments to assess social responsibility It subsequently canceled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return while using voting rights to influence company practices The Gates Millennium Scholars program has been criticized by Ernest Lefever for its exclusion of Caucasian students The scholarship program is administered by the United Negro College Fund In 2014 Bill Gates sparked a protest in Vancouver when he decided to donate 50 million dollars to UNAIDS through the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation for the purpose of mass circumcision in Zambia and Swaziland Charity Sports Events Bill Gates partnered with Swiss Tennis legend Roger Federer in playing a non competitive tennis match to a packed Key Arena in Seattle on April 29 2017 The event was in support of Roger Federer Foundation's charity efforts in Africa Roger Federer and Bill Gates played against John Isner and Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McReady Gates and Feder won the game 6-4 Recognition Gates and Steve Jobs at the fifth All Things Digital conference D5 in 2007 In 1987 Gates was listed as a billionaire in Forbes magazine's 400 Richest People in America issue just days before his 32nd birthday As the world's youngest self-made billionaire he was worth 1.25billion over 900million more than he'd been worth the year before when he'd debuted on the list Since 1987 Gates has been included in the Forbes The World's Billionaires list and was the wealthiest from 1995 to 1996 1998 to 2007 2009 and has been since 2014 Gates was number one on Forbes 400 Richest Americans list from 1993 through to 2007 needs update Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004 2005 and 2006 Time also collectively named Gates his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts In 2006 he was voted eighth in the list of Heroes of our time Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999 named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994 ranked number one in the Top 50 Cyber Elite by Time in 1998 ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the Top 100 influential people in media in 2001 According to Forbes Gates was ranked as the fourth most powerful person in the world in 2012 up from fifth in 2011 In 1994 he was honored as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society In 1999 Gates received New York Institute of Technology's President's Medal Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit Breukelen The Netherlands in 2000 the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm Sweden in 2002 Waseda University Tokyo Japan in 2005 Tsinghua University Beijing China in April 2007 Harvard University in June 2007 the Karolinska Institute Stockholm in 2007 and Cambridge University in June 2009 He was also made an honorary trustee of Peking University in 2007 Gates was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire KBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 In November 2006 he was awarded the Placard of the Order of the Aztec Eagle together with his wife Melinda who was awarded the Insignia of the same order both for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education particularly in Mexico and specifically in the program Un pas de lectores Gates received the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership from The Franklin Institute for his achievements at Microsoft and his philanthropic work Also in 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America its highest award for adults for his service to youth Entomologists named Bill Gates flower fly Eristalis gatesi in his honor in 1997 In 2002 Bill and Melinda Gates received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged In 2006 Gates received the James Morgan Global Humanitarian Award from The Tech Awards In 2015 Gates along with his wife Melinda received the Padma Bhushan India's third-highest civilian award for their social work in the country In 2016 President Barack Obama honored Gates and his wife Melinda with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their philanthropic efforts In 2017 President Franois Hollande awarded Gates and his wife Melinda with the France's highest national award Legion of Honour in Paris for their charity efforts External business ventures and investments Cascade Investments LLC a private investment and holding company incorporated in United States is controlled by Bill Gates and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland Washington bgC3 a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates Corbis a digital image licensing and rights services company TerraPower a nuclear reactor design company ResearchGate a social networking site for scientists Gates participated in a 35million round of financing along with other investors Books films social media and radio Books To date Bill Gates has authored two books The Road Ahead written with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson was published in November 1995 It summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway Business the Speed of Thought was published in 1999 and discusses how business and technology are integrated and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition Documentaries External video The Machine That Changed The World Interview with Bill Gates 1990 raw video 44:03 Open Vault WGBH The Machine That Changed the World miniseries 1990 Triumph of the Nerds 1996 Nerds 2.0.1 1998 Waiting for Superman 2010 The Virtual Revolution 2010 Feature films 1999 Pirates of Silicon Valley a film which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft from the early 1970s to 1997 Gates is portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall 2002 Nothing So Strange a mocumentary featuring Gates as the subject of a modern assassination Gates briefly appears at the start played by Steve Sires 2010 The Social Network a film which chronicles the development of Facebook Gates is portrayed by Steve Sires 2015 Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates The Competition to Control the Personal Computer 19741999 Original film from the National Geographic Channel for the American Genius series Social media In 2013 Gates became a LinkedIn Influencer Video and film clips 1983 Steve Jobs hosts Bill Gates in the Macintosh dating game at the Macintosh pre-launch event with Steve Jobs and Mitch Kapor references the television show The Dating Game 2007 Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together at D5 Conference Radio Gates was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs on January 31 2016 in which he talks about his relationships with his father and Steve Jobs meeting his then future wife Melinda Ann French the start of Microsoft and some of his habits for example reading The Economist from cover to cover every week His choice of things to take on a desert island were for music Blue Skies by Willie Nelson book The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker and luxury item a DVD Collection of Lectures from The Teaching Company See also Big History academic discipline advocated by Bill Gates List of richest Americans in history List of wealthiest historical figures Notes Gates regularly documents his share ownership through public U.S Securities and Exchange Commission form filings While his father was named William Gates II he is now generally known as William Gates Sr to avoid confusion with his son References Citations a Bill Gates Forbes Retrieved June 16 2017 Manes 1994 p.11 Bill Gates American computer programmer businessman and philanthropist Retrieved March 20 2013 Sheridan Patrick May 2014 Bill Gates no longer Microsoft's biggest shareholder CNN Money Retrieved August 22 2014 MSFT Holdings NASDAQ retrieved April 10 2016 MSFT Symbol NASDAQ retrieved April 10 2016 Einstein David January 13 2000 Gates steps down as Microsoft CEO forbes.com Retrieved January 21 2016 Microsoft Chairman Gates to leave day-to-day role Jun 16 2006 money.cnn.com Retrieved January 21 2016 Bill Gates Development of Information and Knowledge Management tlu.ee Retrieved January 21 2016 a Bill Gates steps down as chairman will assist new CEO as technology advisor The Verge Retrieved February 2014 Lesinski 2006 p.96 Manes 1994 p.459 a Thibault Marie January 19 2010 The Next Bill Gates Forbes Archived from the original on July 19 2012 Retrieved December 20 2010 a The 600 billion challenge Fortune Retrieved April 16 2017 Ancestry of Bill Gates Wargs Archived from the original on September 16 2012 Retrieved June 2010 Scottish Americans Alba West Archived from the original on May 11 2008 Retrieved April 29 2009 Manes 1994 p.15 Manes 1994 p.47 Lesinski Jeanne September 2008 Bill Gates Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Twenty First Century Books ISBN978-1-58013-570-2 Retrieved March 10 2011 The Gates family regularly went to services at the University Congregational Church Lowe Janet January 2001 Bill Gates Speaks Insight from the World's Greatest Entrepreneur Wiley ISBN978-0-471-40169-8 Retrieved March 10 2011 The Gates family attended the University Congregational Church where the Reverend Dale Turner was pastor Berkowitz Edward 2006 Something Happened A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies Columbia University Press ISBN978-0-231-12494-2 Retrieved March 10 2011 Bill Gates was a member of the baby boom born in 1955 into an upper-middle-class family near Seattle He attended the Congregational Church participated in the Boy Scouts and went to a fancy private school Cringely Robert June 1996 Part II Triumph of the Nerds The Rise of Accidental Empires Season PBS Manes 1994 p.24 Manes 1994 p.27 a Gates 1996 p.12 Manes 1994 p.34 Paul Allen spills the beans on Gates criminal past UK V3 Remarks by Bill Gates co-chair Bill Melinda Gates Foundation Press Room Speeches retrieved July 13 2013 Gates 1996 p.14 Congressional Page History The United States House Page Association of America archived from the original on May 2015 The Page Program has produced many politicians Members of Congress as well as other famous men and women Some of these include the Honorable John Dingell the longest serving Member of Congress Bill Gates founder and CEO of the Microsoft Corporation and Donnald Anderson former Clerk of the House National Merit Scholarship Corporation Scholars You May Know nationalmerit.org Retrieved October 25 2015 The newand improved?SAT The Week Magazine Archived from the original on May 10 2006 Retrieved May 23 2006 Gates 1996 p.15 Timeline Bill Gates 1973 from google bill gates major in harvard result Michael Hitt Duane Ireland Robert Hoskisson Strategic Management Concepts and Cases Competitiveness and Globalization p.263 ISBN978-1-111-82587-4 Retrieved October 25 2015 a Kestenbaum David July 2008 Before Microsoft Gates Solved A Pancake Problem National Public Radio Archived from the original on September 16 2012 UT Dallas Team Bests Young Bill Gates With Improved Answer to So-Called Pancake Problem in Mathematics University of Texas at Dallas September 17 2008 Archived from the original on August 26 2010 Gates William Papadimitriou Christos 1979 Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal Discrete Mathematics 27 4757 doi:10.1016/0012-365X(79)90068-2 a Gates 1996 p.19 Wallace 1993 p.59 Gates 1996 p.18 The History of Microsoft 1976 Bill Gates explaining that his departure from Harvard was reversible if Microsoft had failed a Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information Key Events in Microsoft History Microsoft Archived from the original DOC on February 26 2008 Retrieved February 18 2008 a Microsoft history The History of Computing Project Archived from the original on May 14 2008 Retrieved March 31 2008 Manes 1994 p.81 Gates William Bill October 13 2005 Remarks Speech Waterloo ON Archived from the original on April 2008 Retrieved March 31 2008 a Bunnell David FebMar 1982 The Man Behind The Machine PC Magazine interview p.16 Retrieved February 17 2012 Gordon John Steele Maiello Michael December 23 2002 Pioneers Die Broke Forbes Archived from the original on September 16 2012 Retrieved March 31 2008 a Gates 1996 p.54 Manes 1994 p.193 Freiberger Paul August 23 1982 Bill Gates Microsoft and the IBM Personal Computer InfoWorld p.22 Retrieved January 29 2015 Challenges and Strategy PDF Groklaw Retrieved November 17 2011 Freiberger Paul August 31 1981 Bugs in Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III How Bad Are They InfoWorld p.49 Retrieved February 28 2011 Thorlin Fred April 2000 Fred Thorlin The Big Boss at Atari Program Exchange Interview Interview with Kevin Savetz Atari archives Retrieved December 2012 Rensin David 1994 The Bill Gates Interview Playboy Ballmer Steve October 1997 Steve Ballmer Speech Transcript Church Hill Club Microsoft Archived from the original on April 20 2008 Retrieved March 31 2008 a Isaacson Walter January 13 1997 The Gates Operating System Time Archived from the original on June 19 2000 Retrieved March 31 2008 Bank David February 1999 Breaking Windows The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on April 16 2016 Retrieved March 31 2008 Chapman Glenn June 27 2008 Bill Gates Signs Off Agence France-Presse Archived from the original on June 30 2008 a Gates Bill September 26 1997 Remarks by Bill Gates Speech San Diego Archived from the original on April 20 2008 Retrieved March 31 2008 Herbold Robert 2004 The Fiefdom Syndrome The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies And How to Overcome Them ISBN0-385-51067-5 Gates Bill Bill Gates Interview Transcript of a Video History Interview Computer History Collection Interview Interview with David Allison National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution Retrieved April 10 2013 Pournelle Jerry September 1985 PCs Peripherals Programs and People BYTE p.347 Retrieved March 20 2016 Microsoft Announces Plans for July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates Microsoft June 15 2006 Archived from the original on June 19 2006 Wasserman Elizabeth November 17 1998 Gates deposition makes judge laugh in court CNN Retrieved April 10 2013 Microsoft's Teflon Bill BusinessWeek November 30 1998 Archived from the original on April 2008 Retrieved March 30 2008 a Heilemann John November 2000 The Truth The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth Wired 8.11 Archived from the original on May 28 2014 Retrieved March 31 2008 Mugshots The Smoking Gun Archived from the original on July 24 2010 Retrieved June 2010 Adblog MSNBC September 2008 Retrieved May 23 2014 Ina Fried September 11 2008 Seinfeld and Gates Hit the Road for Vista CNET Retrieved July 26 2015 Matthew Miller Peter Newcomb January 2014 Billionaires Worth 3.7 Trillion Surge as Gates Wins 2013 Bloomberg Businessweek Retrieved January 2014 Microsoft names Satya Nadella to replace Steve Ballmer BBC News February 2014 Retrieved February 2014 Jeff Goodell March 13 2014 Bill Gates The Rolling Stone Interview Rolling Stone Jann Wenner Retrieved March 28 2014 Mary Riddell October 21 2016 Bill Gates He eats Big Macs for lunch and schedules every minute of his day meet the man worth 80 billion The Telegraph Retrieved October 24 2016 coverage of the Gates Medina Washington estate Forbes May 22 2002 Archived from the original on September 2012 Retrieved June 2010 a Goodell Jeff March 27 2014 Bill Gates The Rolling Stone Interview Rolling Stone Retrieved April 14 2014 Lesinski 2006 p.74 Paterson Thane June 13 2000 He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it\"-FSF Advice for Bill Gates A Little Culture Wouldn't Hurt Business Week Archived from the original on May 2008 Retrieved April 28 2008 Bill Gates Chairman Microsoft Corporation 2008 Archived from the original on August 28 2008 Profile Bill Gates BBC news January 26 2004 Archived from the original on July 21 2012 Retrieved January 2010 Fridson 2001 p.113 Zuckerman Laurence October 27 1997 New Jet Eases Travel Hassles For Bill Gates The New York Times Archived from the original on September 16 2012 Retrieved September 2012 Bolger Joe May 2006 I wish I was not the richest man in the world says Bill Gates The Times UK Archived from the original on July 10 2012 Retrieved March 31 2008 Cuadros Alex Harrison Crayton May 17 2013 Bill Gates Retakes World's Richest Title From Carlos Slim Forbes Retrieved May 30 2013 Bill Gates regains world's richest man title Forbes The Times of India March 2014 Forbes Billionaires list Archived from the original on May 25 2012 Estevez Dolia June 2014 Mexico's Carlos Slim Reclaims World's Richest Man Title From Bill Gates Forbes Retrieved September 2014 The World's Billionaires Forbes Retrieved November 30 2014 Microsoft 2006 Proxy Statement Microsoft October 2007 Archived from the original on February 19 2008 Retrieved February 14 2008 Fried Ina December 14 2004 Gates joins board of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway CNET Archived from the original on September 2012 Retrieved March 31 2008 Alex Osborn February 18 2016 This Was Bill Gates Favorite XBLA Game IGN Ziff Davis Gates foundation Archived from the original on May 23 2012.[dead link Robin Toal September 16 2013 The Top Ten US Charitable Foundations Funds For NGOs Funds For NGOs LLC Retrieved April 2014 Cronin Jon January 25 2005 Bill Gates billionaire philanthropist BBC News Archived from the original on July 31 2012 Retrieved April 2008 Our Approach to Giving Bill Melinda Gates Foundation Archived from the original on April 2008 Retrieved April 2008 What We Do Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2014 Retrieved April 2014 2005 Annual Report PDF Rockefeller Brothers Fund January 2006 Archived from the original PDF on February 16 2008 Retrieved February 14 2008 The 50 most generous Americans Archived from the original on February 22 2012 Bill and Melinda Gates give 95 of wealth to charity BBC News October 18 2010 Archived from the original on July 19 2012 Agricultural Development Golden Rice Archived from the original on February 2016 Retrieved February 2016 Bina Abraham October 2010 They half it in them Gulf News Archived from the original on January 21 2011 Retrieved March 17 2011 Moss Rosabeth December 14 2010 Four Strategic Generosity Lessons Business Week Archived from the original on February 25 2011 Retrieved March 2011 40 billionaires pledge to give away half of wealth Archived from the original on November 2012 Retrieved August 2010 Robyn Griggs Lawrence February 22 2011 A Rich Gift Homemade Jelly for Bill and Melinda Gates Mother Earth News Archived from the original on February 24 2011 Retrieved March 10 2011 Mack Eric January 28 2015 Bill Gates Says You Should Worry About Artificial Intelligence Forbes Retrieved February 19 2015 Lumby Andrew January 28 2015 Bill Gates Is Worried About the Rise of the Machines The Fiscal Times Retrieved February 19 2015 Holley Peter March 24 2015 Apple co-founder on artificial intelligence The future is scary and very bad for people The Washington Post Retrieved April 2015 Permalink to an answer from Hi Reddit I'm Bill Gates and I'm back for my third AMA Ask me anything r/IAmA reddit Retrieved June 10 2015 Baidu CEO Robin Li interviews Bill Gates and Elon Musk at the Boao Forum March 29 2015 YouTube Retrieved April 2015 Matthew G.H Chun April 14 1999 Bill Gates Donates 20million to MIT The Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson Inc Retrieved April 2014 Our Campus TEACHING RESEARCH AND ADMINISTRATIVE SPACES Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences President and Fellows of Harvard College 2014 Retrieved April 2014 Gates Computer Science Building Stanford Engineering Stanford University 2014 Archived from the original on April 2014 Retrieved April 2014 Bill Gates Facebook Retrieved August 15 2014 Kass Jason November 18 2013 Bill Gates Can't Build a Toilet New York Times Opinion Pages New York Times Retrieved March 24 2015 BBC news article Bill Gates drinks water distilled from human faeces Retrieved January 11 2015 From poop to portable This Ingenious Machine Turns Feces into Drinking Water gatesnotes The Blog of Bill Gates January 2015 Retrieved January 13 2015 Bill Gates and Jimmy Drink Poop Water Youtube Channel of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon January 22 2015 Briefly Noted Excellence in Philanthropy The Philanthropy Roundtable www.philanthropyroundtable.org Retrieved March 10 2016 Dark butt over good works of Gates Foundation Los Angeles Times January 2007 Archived from the original on September 16 2012 Los Angeles Times January 2006 Heim Kristi January 10 2007 Gates Foundation to review investments The Seattle Times Archived from the original on May 16 2007 The Seattle Times January 10 2007 Gates Foundation to maintain its investment plan The Austin Statesman January 14 2007.[dead link Lefever Ernest November 1999 Bill Gates Diversity Subverts Merit Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on July 10 2012 Los Angeles Times November 1999 The Gates Millennium Scholars program Archived from the original on January 15 2013 Bill Gates faces circumcision protest Vancouver 24 hrs Retrieved March 29 2016 Andy Coghlan Bill Gates helps fund mass circumcision programme New Scientist Retrieved March 29 2016 Live blog Bill Gates and Roger Federer play tennis for charity in Seattle April 30 2017 see Forbes World's Richest People 1996 1997 and 1998 Wahba Phil September 17 2008 Bill Gates tops US wealth list 15 years continuously Reuters Archived from the original on September 16 2012 Retrieved November 2008 Lesinski 2006 p.102 Cowley Jason June 22 2006 Heroes of our time the top 50 New Statesman UK Archived from the original on December 31 2007 Retrieved February 17 2008 Gates second only to Blair BBC News September 26 1999 Archived from the original on July 11 2012 Retrieved March 30 2008 The World's Most Powerful People Forbes December 2012 Archived from the original on December 30 2012 Retrieved June 30 2013 The World's Most Powerful People Forbes November 2011 Archived from the original on November 2011 Retrieved June 30 2013 Bill Gates Speaks of Opportunities and Challenges Facing Generation I News Center Microsoft Retrieved October 25 2015 Eredoctoraat Universiteit Nyenrode voor Wim Kok Press release in Dutch Nyenrode Business Universiteit August 13 2003 Archived from the original on February 18 2008 Retrieved February 18 2008 Honorary doctors at KTH About KTH Stockholm KTH Royal Institute of Technology Retrieved January 19 2015 Bill Gates Awarded Honorary Doctorate of Tsinghua Tsinghua University April 19 2007 Archived from the original on July 2011 Retrieved June 2010 Hughes Gina June 2007 Bill Gates Gets Degree After 30 Years Yahoo Archived from the original on July 17 2012 Retrieved February 18 2008 Karolinska Institutet Medicine hedersdoktorer 19102013 Honorary doctors of medicine at the Karolinska Institute 1910-2013 PDF in Swedish Karolinska Institutet May 22 2013 Retrieved January 19 2015 University of Cambridge June 12 2009 The Chancellor in Cambridge to confer Honorary Degrees University of Cambridge Archived from the original on August 17 2009 Retrieved August 20 2009 Blakely Rhys July 18 2007 Gates how piracy worked for me in China The Times London Archived from the original on July 2012 Retrieved April 26 2010 Knighthood for Microsoft's Gates BBC News March 2005 Archived from the original on July 11 2012 Retrieved February 18 2008 Proclamation of the Award Diario Oficial de la Federacin Archived from the original on March 2008 Retrieved March 30 2008 Bower Award for Business Leadership The Franklin Institute 2010 Retrieved June 30 2013 2010 Silver Buffalo Recipients Scouting 39 SeptemberOctober 2010 Thompson Christian August 19 1999 Bill Gates Flower Fly Eristalis gatesi Thompson The Diptera Site Archived from the original on February 12 2008 Retrieved February 18 2008 National Winners public service awards Jefferson Awards.org Retrieved on September 2013 The 2006 James Morgan Global Humanitarian Award The Tech Museum of Innovation Retrieved April 2014 Padma Awards Press Information Board of India Ministry of Home Affairs India Archived from the original on January 26 2015 Padma awards 2015 announced Advani Amitabh among 104 awardees Zee News President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom whitehouse.gov The White House November 16 2016 Retrieved November 16 2016 Bill and Melinda Gates receive Lgion d'Honneur medals Levy Jared Ari June 2013 Bill Gates Joins 35 Million Funding in Startup ResearchGate Bloomberg Retrieved January 28 2015 Machine That Changed The World The Interview with Bill Gates 1990 raw video WGBH Open Vault 1990 Retrieved September 19 2016 Bill Gates Goes to Sundance Offers an Education ABC News January 23 2010 Archived from the original on July 2012 Bogus Bill has a blast playing billionaire in The Social Network KVAL 13 Archived from the original on July 30 2015 Retrieved October 25 2015 American Genius American Genius Retrieved September 10 2015 Wills Amanda Bill Gates Joins LinkedIn Mashable New York June 13 2013 Retrieved on July 30 2013 BBC Radio Desert Island Discs Bill Gates BBC Retrieved March 29 2016 Bibliography Fridson Martin 2001 How to Be a Billionaire Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth John Wiley Sons ISBN0-471-41617-7 Gates Bill 1996 The Road Ahead Penguin Books ISBN0-14-026040-4 Lesinski Jeanne 2006 Bill Gates biography A&E Television Networks ISBN0-8225-7027-0 Manes Stephen 1994 Gates How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America Touchstone Pictures ISBN0-671-88074-8 Wallace James 1993 Hard Drive Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire New York City HarperCollins Publishers ISBN0-471-56886-4 Further reading Bank David 2001 Breaking Windows how Bill Gates fumbled the future of Microsoft New York City Free Press ISBN0-7432-0315-1 Rivlin Gary 1999 The plot to get Bill Gates an irreverent investigation of the world's richest man and the people who hate him New York City Times Business ISBN0-8129-3006-1 83 Reasons Why Bill Gates's Reign Is Over Wired 12 December 1998 Archived from the original on August 22 2010 Kildall Gary October 25 2004 The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates Bloomberg BusinessWeek Archived from the original on April 2006 Retrieved June 2010 The Meaning of Bill Gates As his reign at Microsoft comes to an end so does the era he dominated The Economist June 28 2008 External links Wikiquote has quotations related to Bill Gates Official website Bill Melinda Gates Foundation Profile at Microsoft Appearances on C-SPAN Bill Gates on Internet Movie Database Bill Gates at TED Works by or about Bill Gates in libraries WorldCat catalog Works by Bill Gates at Open Library Business positions First Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft 19752000 Succeededby Steve Ballmer First Chairman of Microsoft 19752014 Succeededby John Thompson Honorary titles Precededby Warren Buffett World's richest person 1996 Succeededby Hassanal Bolkiah Precededby Hassanal Bolkiah World's richest person 19982007 Succeededby Warren Buffett Precededby Warren Buffett World's richest person 2009 Succeededby Carlos Slim Precededby Carlos Slim World's richest person 2014present Incumbent Bill Gates Life and history Microsoft History Bill Melinda Gates Foundation bgC3 Cascade Investment Corbis United States Microsoft antitrust case Writings Open Letter to Hobbyists 1976 The Road Ahead 1995 Business the Speed of Thought 1999 Films Triumph of the Nerds 1996 Pirates of Silicon Valley 1999 The Social Network 2010 Family William Gates Sr father Mary Maxwell Gates mother Melinda Gates spouse Mimi Gardner Gates stepmother Possessions Codex Leicester Residence Lost on the Grand Banks Porsche 959 Links to related articles Berkshire Hathaway Board of directors Warren Buffett Chairman and CEO Charlie Munger Howard Graham Buffett Susan Decker Bill Gates David Gottesman Charlotte Guyman Donald Keough Thomas Murphy Ronald Olson Walter Scott Jr Insurance Applied Underwriters Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies Kansas Bankers Surety Company Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance BoatUS Central States Indemnity Gateway Underwriters Agency GEICO GEICO Marine Insurance Company Gen Re Medical Protective National Indemnity Company GUARD Insurance United States Liability Insurance Group Materials and construction Acme Brick Benjamin Moore Co Charter Brokerage Clayton Homes International Metalworking Companies Johns Manville Lubrizol Marmon Marmon-Herrington Procor Union Tank Car Company MiTek Mouser Electronics Precision Castparts Corp Carlton Forge Works Special Metals Timet Wyman-Gordon Shaw Industries TTI Furniture CORT Business Services Jordan's Furniture Larson-Juhl Nebraska Furniture Mart RC Willey Home Furnishings Star Furniture Apparel Brooks Sports Fruit of the Loom Russell Vanity Fair Fechheimer Brothers Garanimals H.H Brown Shoe Group Acme Boots Justin Brands Louis Transportation Berkshire Hathaway Automotive Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation FlightSafety International Forest River Marquis Jet McLane NetJets NetJets Europe UTLX XTRA Lease Food CTB International International Dairy Queen Dairy Queen Karmelkorn Orange Julius Kraft Heinz The Pampered Chef See's Candies Media The Buffalo News Business Wire BH Media Newspapers Bristol Herald Courier Culpeper Star-Exponent The Daily Nonpareil Danville Register Bee Dothan Eagle Eden Daily News The Eagle Enterprise Ledger Grand Island Independent Hickory Daily Record Independent Tribune Jackson County Floridan Kearney Hub Martinsville Bulletin The Morning News Nelson County Times News Record News Messenger North Platte Telegraph 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Singh Shivakumara Swami Khadg Singh Valdiya 2016 Ravindra Chandra Bhargava Robert Blackwill Hafeez Contractor Indu Jain Heisnam Kanhailal Anupam Kher Sania Mirza Pallonji Mistry Udit Narayan Saina Nehwal Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad Vinod Rai Ramanuja Tatacharya A Rama Rao Nageshwar Reddy Dayananda Saraswati Barjinder Singh Hamdard Ram Sutar Tejomayananda 2017 Vishwa Mohan Bhatt Deviprasad Dwivedi Ratnasundarsuri Niranjanananda Saraswati Cho Ramaswamy Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Tehemton Erach Udwadia Posthumous conferral 19541959 19601969 19701979 19801989 19901999 20002009 20102019 Microsoft History All topics People list Founders Bill Gates Paul Allen Board of directors John Thompson Chairman Satya Nadella CEO Dina Dublon Maria Klawe David Marquardt Charles Noski Helmut Panke Mason Morfit John Stanton Senior leadership team Satya Nadella CEO Scott Guthrie Amy Hood CFO Terry Myerson Harry Shum Corporate VPs Gabe Aul VP Joe Belfiore Richard Rashid SVP Somasegar SVP Divisions Engineering 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Jerry Brown Dr Kent Brantly Ella Watson-Stryker Foday Gollah Salome Karmah 2014 Angela Merkel 2015 Donald Trump 2016 Complete roster 19271950 19511975 19762000 2001present The World's Billionaires Top ten richest people in the world as of 20 April 2017 Bill Gates 86.0B United States Warren Buffett 75.6B United States Jeff Bezos 72.8B United States Amancio Ortega 71.3B Spain Mark Zuckerberg 56.0B United States Carlos Slim 54.5B Mexico Larry Ellison 52.2B United States Charles Koch 48.3B United States David Koch 48.3B United States Michael Bloomberg 47.5B United States Portals Access related topics Biography portal Information technology portal Microsoft portal Software portal Find out more on Wikipedia's Sister projects Media from Commons News stories from Wikinews Textbooks from Wikibooks Quotations from Wikiquote Source texts from Wikisource Learning resources from Wikiversity Data from Wikidata Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF 102370574 LCCN n91008414 ISNI 0000 0001 0929 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{"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft", "html": "History of Microsoft Wikipedia History of Microsoft From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation search This article may require copy editing for grammar style cohesion tone or spelling You can assist by editing it June 2017 Learn how and when to remove this template message Microsoft logo since August 23 2012 Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation The history of Microsoft began on April 1975 when it was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system Microsoft Office suite of productivity software Xbox a line of entertainment of games music and video and Bing a line of search engines In 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with to bundle Microsoft's operating system with IBM computers paying Microsoft a royalty for every sale In 1985 IBM requested that Microsoft write a new operating system for their computers called OS/2 Microsoft wrote the operating system but also continued to sell their own alternative which proved to be in direct competition with OS/2 Microsoft Windows eventually overshadowed OS/2 in terms of sales When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s they had captured over 90 market share of the world's personal computers As of June 30 2015 Microsoft has a global annual revenue of 86.83 Billion USD and 128,076 employees worldwide It develops manufactures licenses and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices Contents 19721985 The founding of Microsoft 19851994 Windows and Office 19952007 Foray into the Web Windows 95 Windows XP and Xbox 20072011 Microsoft Azure Windows and Microsoft Stores 20112014 Windows Outlook.com and Surface devices 2014present Windows 10 and HoloLens See also References External links 19721985 The founding of Microsoft[edit Microsoft staff Albuquerque Dec 1978 Top Steve Wood Bob Wallace Jim Lane Middle Bob O'Rear Bob Greenberg Marc McDonald Gordon Letwin Bottom Bill Gates Andrea Lewis Marla Wood Paul Allen Not pictured Ric Weiland Miriam Lubow Gates described this photo in 2009 as that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion The idea that would spawn Microsoft initiated when Paul Allen showed Bill Gates the first of January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800 Allen and Gates saw potential to develop an implementation of the programming language BASIC interpreter for the system Bill Gates called the creators of the new microcomputer Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems MITS offering to demonstrate the implementation in order to win a contract with the company Allen and Gates had neither an interpreter nor an Altair system yet in the eight weeks before the demo theydeveloped an interpreter When Allen flew to Albuquerque New Mexico to meet with MITS the interpreter worked and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC Allen and Gates left Boston where Allen worked for Honeywell and Gates was enrolled in Harvard moved to Albuquerque where MITS was located and co-founded Microsoft there Revenues of the company totaled 16,005 by the end of 1976 Allen came up with the original name of Micro-Soft a portmanteau of microcomputer and software Hyphenated in its early incarnations on November 26 1976 the company was registered under that name with the Secretary of State of New Mexico The company's first international office was founded on November 1978 in Japan entitled ASCII Microsoft now called Microsoft Japan and on November 29 1979 the term Microsoft was first used by Bill Gates On January 1979 the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue Washington since it was hard to recruit top programmers to Albuquerque Shortly before the move eleven of the then-thirteen employees posed for the staff photo on the right Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11 1980 and would later succeed Bill Gates as CEO from January 2000 until February 2014 The company restructured on June 25 1981 to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington with a further change of its name to Microsoft Corporation Inc As part of the restructuring Bill Gates became president of the company and chairman of the board and Paul Allen became Executive Vice President Microsoft's early products were different variants of Microsoft BASIC which was the dominant programming language in late 1970s and early 1980s home computers such as Apple II Applesoft BASIC and Commodore 64 Commodore BASIC and were also provided with early versions of the IBM PC as the IBM Cassette BASIC Microsoft also marketed through an Apple dealer in West Palm Beach Florida two products for the Radio-Shack TRS-80 One was Typing Tutor which led the user through learning to use a keyboard The other was authored by a professor at the University of Hawaii called MuMATH and had the ability to do mathematics in long integer math to avoid floating point numbers In this sense it was similar to the early ARPANET The first hardware product was the Z-80 SoftCard which enabled the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system at the time an industry-standard operating system for running business software and many compilers and interpreters for several high-level languages on microcomputers The SoftCard was first demonstrated publicly at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980 It was an immediate success 5,000 cards a large number given the microcomputer market at the time were purchased in the initial three months at 349 each and it was Microsoft's number one revenue source in 1980 The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25 1980 Acquired from AT&T through a distribution license Microsoft dubbed it Xenix and hired Santa Cruz Operation in order to port/adapt the operating system to several platforms This Unix variant would become home to the first version of Microsoft's word processor Microsoft Word Originally titled Multi-Tool Word Microsoft Word became notable for its use of What You See Is What You Get or WYSIWYG pioneered by the Xerox Alto and the Bravo text editor in the 1970s Word was first released in the spring of 1983 and free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine However Xenix was never sold to end users directly although it was licensed to many software OEMs for resale It grew to become the most popular version of Unix measured by the number of machines running it note that Unix is a multi-user operating system allowing simultaneous access to a machine by several users By the mid-1980s Microsoft had got out of the Unix business except for an interest in SCO DOS Disk Operating System was the operating system that brought the company its real success International Business Machines IBM first approached Microsoft about its upcoming IBM Personal Computer IBM PC in July 1980 On August 12 1981 after negotiations with Digital Research failed IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft to provide a version of the CP/M operating system which was set to be used in the IBM PC For this deal Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products for less than US$100,000 which IBM renamed to IBM PC DOS Microsoft did not have an operating system when they closed the deal with IBM and IBM had not done their homework Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40 respectively with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price 35 of the company's 100 employees worked on the IBM project for more than a year When the IBM PC debuted Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system programming language and application software for the new computer InfoWorld stated in 1984 that Microsoft with 55 million in 1983 sales is widely recognized as the most influential company in the microcomputer-software industry Claiming more than a million installed MS-DOS machines founder and chairman Bill Gates has decided to certify Microsoft's jump on the rest of the industry by dominating applications operating systems peripherals and most recently book publishing Some insiders say Microsoft is attempting to be the IBM of the software industry In 1983 in collaboration with numerous companies Microsoft created a home computer system MSX which contained its own version of the DOS operating system called MSX-DOS this became relatively popular in Japan Europe and South America Later the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones after Columbia Data Products successfully cloned the IBM BIOS quickly followed by Eagle Computer and Compaq The deal with IBM allowed Microsoft to have control of its own QDOS derivative MS-DOS and through aggressive marketing of the operating system to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones Microsoft rose from a small player to one of the major software vendors in the home computer industry With the release of the Microsoft Mouse on May 1983 Microsoft continued to expand its product line in other markets This expansion included Microsoft Press a book publishing division on July 11 the same year which debuted with two titles Exploring the IBM PCjr Home Computer by Peter Norton and The Apple Macintosh Book by Cary Lu 19851994 Windows and Office[edit The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus The Redmond campus today includes more than million square feet approx 750,000m and 28,000 employees Ireland became home to one of Microsoft's international production facilities in 1985 and on November 20 Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows Windows 1.0 originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system In August Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a different operating system called OS/2 OS/2 was marketed in connection with a new hardware design proprietary to IBM the PS/2 On February 16 1986 Microsoft relocated their headquarters to a corporate office campus in Redmond Washington Around one month later on March 13 the company went public with an IPO raising US$61 million at US$21.00 per share By the end of the trading day the price had risen to US$28.00 In 1987 Microsoft eventually released their first version of OS/2 to OEMs By then the company was the world's largest producer of software for personal computersahead of former leader Lotus Developmentand published the three most-popular Macintosh business applications That year the company purchased Forethought the developer of PowerPoint and Microsoft's first major software acquisition Meanwhile Microsoft began introducing its most prominent office products Microsoft Works an integrated office program which combined features typically found in a word processor spreadsheet database and other office applications saw its first release as an application for the Apple Macintosh towards the end of 1986 Microsoft Works would later be sold with other Microsoft products including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Bookshelf a reference collection introduced in 1987 that was the company's first CD-ROM product Later on August 1989 Microsoft would introduce its most successful office product Microsoft Office Unlike the model of Microsoft Works Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications such as Microsoft Word Microsoft Excel and so forth While Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office were mostly developed internally Microsoft also continued its trend of rebranding products from other companies such as Microsoft SQL Server on January 13 1988 a relational database management system for companies that was based on technology licensed from Sybase On May 22 1990 Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 The new version of Microsoft's operating system boasted such new features as streamlined graphic user interface GUI and improved protected mode ability for the Intel 386 processor it sold over 100,000 copies in two weeks Windows at the time generated more revenue for Microsoft than OS/2 and the company decided to move more resources from OS/2 to Windows In an internal memo to Microsoft employees on May 16 1991 Bill Gates announced that the OS/2 partnership was over and that Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel Some people especially developers who had ignored Windows and committed most of their resources to OS/2 were taken by surprise and accused Microsoft of deception This changeover from OS/2 was frequently referred to in the industry as the head-fake In the recent years the popularity of OS/2 declined and Windows quickly became the favored PC platform 1991 also marked the founding of Microsoft Research an organization in Microsoft for researching computer science subjects and Microsoft Visual Basic a popular development product for companies and individuals The Microsoft sign at the entrance of the German Microsoft campus Konrad-Zuse-Str Unterschleiheim Germany Microsoft became an international company with headquarters in many countries During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows the success of Microsoft's product Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 Novell an owner of WordPerfect for a time alleged that Microsoft used its inside knowledge of the DOS and Windows kernels and of undocumented Application Programming Interface features to make Office perform better than its competitors Eventually Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors In March 1992 Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market In October Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was released with integrated networking abilities such as peer-to-peer file and printing sharing In November Microsoft released the first version of their popular database software Microsoft Access The Microsoft sign at the entrance of the Dubai Microsoft campus Dubai Internet City Microsoft has developed Arabic versions for most of its products By 1993 Windows had become the most widely used GUI operating system in the world Fortune Magazine named Microsoft as the 1993 Most Innovative Company Operating in the U.S The year also marked the end of a five-year copyright infringement legal case brought by Apple Computer dubbed Apple Computer Inc Microsoft Corp in which the ruling was in Microsoft's favor the release of Windows for Workgroups 3.11 a new version of the consumer line of Windows and Windows NT 3.1 a server-based operating system with a similar user interface to consumer versions of the operating system but with an entirely different kernel As part of its strategy to broaden its business Microsoft released Microsoft Encarta on March 22 1993 the first encyclopedia designed to run on a computer Soon after the Microsoft Home brand was introduced encompassing Microsoft's new multimedia applications for Windows 3.x Microsoft changed its slogan to Where do you want to go today in 1994 as part of an attempt to appeal to nontechnical audiences in a US$100 million advertising campaign 19952007 Foray into the Web Windows 95 Windows XP and Xbox[edit Microsoft continued to make strategic decisions directed at consumers The company released Microsoft Bob a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users in March 1995 The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers Microsoft Bob is widely regarded as Microsoft's most unsuccessful product why?]DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft formed a new company DreamWorks Interactive in 2000 acquired by Electronic Arts which named it EA Los Angeles to produce interactive and multimedia entertainment properties On August 24 1995 Microsoft released Microsoft Windows 95 a new version of the company's flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface including a novel start button more than a million copies of Microsoft Windows 95 were sold in the first four days after its release Windows 95 was released without a web browser as Microsoft had not yet developed one The success of the web caught them by surprise and they subsequently approached Spyglass to license their browser as Internet Explorer Spyglass went on to later dispute the terms of the agreement as Microsoft was to pay a royalty for every copy sold However Microsoft sold no copies of Internet Explorer choosing instead to bundle it for free with the operating system Internet Explorer was first included in the Windows 95 Plus Pack that was released in August 1995 In September the Chinese government chose Windows to be the operating system of choice in that country and entered into an agreement with the Company to standardize a Chinese version of the operating system Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market On May 26 1995 Bill Gates sent the Internet Tidal Wave memorandum to Microsoft executives The memo described Netscape with their Netscape Navigator as a new competitor born on the Internet The memo outlines Microsoft's failure to grasp the Internet's importance and in it Gates assigns the Internet the highest level of importance from then on Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web On August 24 1995 it launched a major online service MSN Microsoft Network as a direct competitor to AOL MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services using Microsoft Passport now called a Microsoft account as a universal login system for all of its web sites The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996 starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24-hour cable news television station MSNBC The station was launched on July 15 1996 to compete with similar news outlets such as CNN Microsoft also launched Slate an online magazine edited by Michael Kinsley which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market the company acquired WebTV which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant PDA market in November with Windows CE 1.0 a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system designed to run on low-memory low-performance machines such as handhelds and other small computers 1996 saw the release of Windows NT 4.0 which brought the Windows 95 GUI and Windows NT kernel together While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s One of the most prominent of these was ActiveX an application programming interface built on the Microsoft Component Object Model COM this enabled Microsoft and others to embed controls in many programming languages including the company's own scripting languages such as JScript and VBScript ActiveX included frameworks for documents and server solutions The company also released the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 which had built-in support for internet applications Later in 1997 Microsoft Office 97 as well as Internet Explorer 4.0 were released marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rival Netscape and by agreement with Apple Computer Internet Explorer was bundled with the Apple Macintosh operating system as well as with Windows Windows CE 2.0 the handheld version of Windows was released this year including a host of bug fixes and new features designed to make it more appealing to corporate customers In October the Justice Department filed a motion in the federal district court in which they stated that Microsoft had violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows Windows 95-98 desktop The year 1998 was significant in Microsoft's history with Bill Gates appointing Steve Ballmer as president of Microsoft but remaining as Chair and CEO himself The company released an update to the consumer version of Windows Windows 98 Windows 98 came with Internet Explorer 4.0 SP1 which had Windows Desktop Update bundled and included new features from Windows 95 OSR 2.x including the FAT32 file system and new features designed for Windows 98 such as support for multiple displays Microsoft launched its Indian headquarters as well which would eventually become the company's second largest after its U.S headquarters Finally a great deal of controversy took place when a set of internal memos from the company were leaked on the Internet These documents colloquially referred to as The Halloween Documents were widely reported by the media and go into detail of the threats that free software open source software poses to Microsoft's own software previously voiced mainly by analysts and advocates of open source software The documents also allude to legal and other actions against Linux as well as other open source software While Microsoft acknowledges the documents it claims that they are merely engineering studies Despite this some believe that these studies were used in the real strategies of the company Bill Gates gives a presentation at IT-Forum in Copenhagen in 2004 Microsoft in 2000 released new products for all three lines of the company's flagship operating system and saw the beginning of the end of one of its most prominent legal cases On February 17 2000 Microsoft released an update to its business line of software in Windows 2000 It provided a high level of stability similar to that of its Unix counterparts due to its usage of the Windows NT kernel and matching features found in the consumer line of the Windows operating system including a DOS emulator that could run many legacy DOS applications On April 2000 a judgment was handed down in the case of United States Microsoft calling the company an abusive monopoly and forcing the company to split into two separate units Part of this ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court and eventually settled with the U.S Department of Justice in 2001 On June 15 2000 the company released a new version of its hand-held operating system Windows CE 3.0 The main change was the new programming APIs of the software Previous versions of Windows CE supported only a small subset of the WinAPI the main development library for Windows and with Version of Windows CE the operating system now supported nearly all of the core functionality of the WinAPI The next update to the consumer line Windows Me or Windows Millennium Edition was released on September 14 2000 It sported several new features such as enhanced multimedia abilities and consumer-oriented PC maintenance options but is often regarded as one of the worst versions of Windows due to installation problems and other issues Windows XP introduced a new interface along with many other new features This screenshot shows Windows XP Professional Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001 a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines The release included an updated version of the Windows 2000 kernel enhanced DOS emulation abilities and many of the home-user features found in previous consumer versions XP introduced a new graphical user interface the first such change since Windows 95 The operating system was the first to require Microsoft Product Activation an anti-piracy mechanism that requires users to activate the software with Microsoft within 30 days Later Microsoft would enter the multibillion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo with the release of the Xbox The Xbox finished behind the dominant PlayStation selling 24 million units compared to the PlayStation 2's 136 million however they managed to outsell the Nintendo Gamecube which sold 21 million units Microsoft launched their second console the Xbox 360 in 2005 which has turned out to be a lot more successful than their first console It has sold 40 million units as of 2010 and it has outsold Sony's PlayStation which has so far sold 35 million units However despite beating Sony with their last Xbox console Microsoft so far has been outsold by the Nintendo Wii which introduced gesture control and opened up a new market for video games Microsoft later used their popular controller-free Kinect peripheral to increase the popularity of the Xbox This was very successful As of 2011[update Kinect was the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history It sold million units from November 2010 to January 2011 its first 60 days It averaged 133,333 units per day outselling the iPhone and iPad over equivalent post-launch periods In 2002 Microsoft launched the NET initiative along with new versions of some of its development products such as Microsoft Visual Studio The initiative has been an entirely new development API for Windows programming and includes a new programming language Windows Server 2003 was launched featuring enhanced administration abilities such as new user interfaces to server tools In 2004 the company released Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 a version of Windows XP designed for multimedia abilities and Windows XP Starter Edition a version of Windows XP with a smaller feature set designed for entry-level consumers However Microsoft would encounter more turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action would be brought against it by the European Union for allegedly abusing its market dominance see European Union Microsoft antitrust case Eventually Microsoft was fined 497 million US$613 million ordered to divulge certain protocols to competitors and to produce a new version of its Windows XP platformcalled Windows XP Home Edition Nthat did not include its Windows Media Player Microsoft was also ordered to produce separate packages of Windows after South Korea also landed a settlement against the company in 2005 It had to pay out US$32 million and produce more than one version of Windows for the country in the same vein as the European Union-one with Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger and one without the two programs In guise of competing with other Internet Companies such as the search service Google in 2005 Microsoft announced a new version of its MSN search service Later in 2006 the company launched Microsoft adCenter a service that offers pay per click advertisements in an effort to further develop their search marketing revenue Soon afterward Microsoft created the CodePlex collaborative development site for hosting open source projects Activity grew quickly as developers from around the world began to participate and by early 2007 commercial open source companies such as Aras Corp began to offer enterprise open source software exclusively on the Microsoft platform On June 15 2006 Bill Gates announced his plans for a two-year transition period out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft until July 31 2008 After that date Gates will continue in his role as the company's chairman head of the board of directors and act as an adviser on key projects His role as Chief Software Architect will be filled immediately by Ray Ozzie the Chief Technical Officer of the company as of June 15 2006 Bill Gates stated My announcement is not a retirement its a reordering of my priorities 20072011 Microsoft Azure Windows and Microsoft Stores[edit Formerly codenamed Longhorn in the early development stages Windows Vista was released to consumers on January 30 2007 Microsoft also released a new version of its Office suite called Microsoft Office 2007 alongside Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 the next versions of the company's server operating system and development suite respectively were released on February 27 2008 Windows Vista was criticized for being heavy and needing large amounts of power to run the desktop widgets and the Aero theme Many people continued to use Windows XP for many years after due to its stability and low processing needs On December 19 2007 Microsoft signed a five-year 500 million contract with Viacom that included content sharing and advertisements The deal allowed Microsoft to license many shows from Viacom owned cable television and film studios for use on Xbox Live and MSN The deal also made Viacom a preferred publisher partner for casual game development and distribution through MSN and Windows On the advertisement side of the deal Microsoft's Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned web sites Microsoft also purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks and collaborated on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows two Viacom owned cable networks In 2008 Microsoft wanted to purchase Yahoo first completely later partially in order to strengthen its position on the search engine market vis--vis Google The company rejected the offer saying that it undervalued the company In response Microsoft withdrew its offer In 2009 the opening show of the Consumer Electronics Show CES was hosted by Steve Ballmer for the first time In past years it has been hosted by Bill Gates In the show Ballmer announced the first public Beta Test of Windows for partners and developers on January but also for the general public on January 10 On June 26 2009 Microsoft started taking pre-orders at a discounted price for Windows which was launched on October 22 2009 Windows has several editions which acknowledge the rise of netbook computers with reduced processing power On May 10 2011 Microsoft Corp acquired Skype Communications r.l for US 8.5 billion 20112014 Windows Outlook.com and Surface devices[edit This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose You can help by converting this section to prose if appropriate Editing help is available April 2017 On June 18 2012 CEO Steve Ballmer announced that they would be releasing a range of Surface tablets running both Windows RT and Windows Pro On August 23 2012 Microsoft unveiled a new corporate logo at the opening of its 23rd Microsoft store in Boston indicating the company's shift of focus from the classic style to the tile-centric Metro interface which is used on the Windows Phone Xbox 360 and Windows platforms The new logo also includes four squares with the colors red green blue and yellow of the then-current Windows logo and it incorporates the company's Segoe font On October 26 2012 Microsoft released Windows to the general public Nearly a year later Microsoft released the first major revision to Windows Windows 8.1 on October 17 2013 On January 31 2013 I/P Engine filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for search related patents On April 2013 Microsoft sold its IPTV business Mediaroom to Ericsson On July 12 2013 Microsoft sued the U.S Customs and Border Protection agency to attempt to force a ban on imports of Motorola Mobility phones Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is also named in the lawsuit On September 2013 Microsoft acquired Nokia's smartphone and cellular business for 7.2 billion Microsoft paid billion for Nokia's Devices Services and 2.2 billion to license Nokia's patents On October 22 2013 Surface and Surface Pro were released featuring a number of improvements including improved battery life and a redesigned kickstand In late November 2013 Microsoft launched the Xbox One and the Kinect sensor to succeed the Xbox 360 On the February 2014 Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft On May 20 2014 Microsoft announced the Surface Pro with it being released the following month 2014present Windows 10 and HoloLens[edit On September 30 2014 Microsoft announced the replacement to the Windows 8/8.1 operating system Windows 10 with the first public technical preview build first being released on October 2014 On July 29 2015 Microsoft officially released Windows 10 On March 30 2016 Microsoft released Hololens a pair of mixed reality sunglasses See also[edit Companies portal History of Microsoft Windows History of Microsoft Word Microsoft litigation References[edit Bill Gates A Timeline BBC News June 15 2006 Retrieved 2006-07-03 Microsoft 2014 Facts Retrieved October 22 2014 Microsoft 2005 Annual Report DOC Retrieved October 2005 Fast Facts About Microsoft microsoft.com Microsoft Corporation August 2007 Archived from the original on August 2007 Retrieved 2007-08-15 MSFT Investor Relations July 19 2007 Microsoft Fourth Quarter FY 2007 Earnings Release Microsofts Annual Revenue Surpasses 50 Billion microsoft.com Microsoft Corporation Retrieved 2007-08-15 Paul Allen 19 April 2011 Idea Man A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft Penguin Group US p.85 ISBN978-1-101-47645-1 Bill Gates My 1979 Memories Retrieved November 30 2012 a i What We'll Miss About Bill Gates a Very Long Good-Bye Wired May 19 2008 Retrieved May 2011 Key Events in Microsoft History Retrieved June 26 2012 DOC format a i Microsoft Company 15 September 1975 The History of Computing Project Retrieved August 11 2005 Alfred Randy April 1975 Bill Gates Paul Allen Form a Little Partnership Wired Magazine Archived from the original on May 15 2013 Retrieved May 20 2013 Gates Bill October 1995 Bill Gates Paul Allen Talk CNN Retrieved May 2011 Iconic Albuquerque Photo Re-Created Archived from the original on April 24 2014 Retrieved 31 March 2014 Lock Robert MayJune 1980 An Apple Breakthru Compute p.6 Retrieved 25 October 2013 Z-80 Board Puts CP/M on Apple Infoworld Popular Computing April 28 1980 ISSN0199-6649 Seminar Spills Negotiating Secrets Infoworld Popular Computing 21 24 November 24 1980 ISSN0199-6649 Unsure of the demand for the product Microsoft took a prototype to the last West Coast Computer Faire Ballmer Steve Microsoft Surface Keynote Retrieved 19 June 2012 a Jason Levitt June 12 2000 Is It Time Again For Microsoft And Unix Information Week Archived from the original on November 2006 Retrieved 2006-04-29 Dafydd Neal Dyar November 2002 Under The Hood Part Computer Source Archived from the original on September 2006 Retrieved 2006-07-04 hjk Xerox Alto CHM Revolution Check url value help Retrieved 2014-08-27 BRAVO text editor screen CHM Revolution Retrieved 2014-08-27 A Allen Roy October 2001 Chapter 12 Microsoft in the 1980s PDF A History of the Personal Computer The People and the Technology 1st ed Allan Publishing pp.1213 Retrieved 2006-07-04 Leffler Samuel et al October 1989 The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System Addison-Wesley p.7 ISBN0-201-06196-1 a Bunnell David FebMar 1982 The Man Behind The Machine A PC Exclusive Interview With Software Guru Bill Gates PC Magazine p.16 Retrieved February 17 2012 Digital Research History Retrieved 2006-07-03 Gordon John Steele Maiello Michael December 23 2002 Pioneers Die Broke Forbes Retrieved 2006-07-05 Caruso Denise 1984-04-02 Company Strategies Boomerang InfoWorld pp.8083 Retrieved 10 February 2015 comp.sys.msx FAQ Retrieved October 14 2005 MSX History OLD-COMPUTERS.COM Retrieved 2006-07-04 Booting Your PC Getting Up Close Personal With A Computers BIOS Smart Computing November 1999 Retrieved 2006-09-02 What Is The BIOS Smart Computing July 1994 Retrieved 2006-09-02 Everything You Want or Need to Know About Your BIOS Extreme Tech Archived from the original on December 2007 Retrieved September 2006 Appendix PDF Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age ISBN0-7355-3652-X Retrieved 2006-09-02 Multiple MS-DOS and PC DOS Lexikon's History of Computing Retrieved 2006-07-05 When It Comes To DOS You Now Have A Choice Smart Computing June 1994 Retrieved 2006-07-05 Microsoft to Microsoft disk operating system MS-DOS Smart Computing March 2002 Retrieved 2006-07-05 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Staff May 18 2005 Redmond council OKs Microsoft expansion Seattle Post-Intelligencer Retrieved 2006-07-04 Techworld Article:OS/2 users must look elsewhere Retrieved 2005-08-05 Microsoft OS/2 announcement Archived from the original on April 10 2010 Retrieved 2005-08-05 Zonona Victor 1987-07-31 14-Million Deal Microsoft Buys Software Competitor Los Angeles Times Retrieved 26 October 2016 Microsoft Buys Software Unit The New York Times 1987-07-31 Retrieved 26 October 2016 Obsolete Microsoft products Archived from the original on July 2006 Retrieved 2006-07-03 Windows History Retrieved 2006-07-03 OS/2 History Archived from the original on July 20 2006 Retrieved 2006-07-03 Lewyn Mark January 24 1994 Going After Microsoft National Review Archived from the original on March 25 2005 Retrieved 2007-02-06 This article can also be purchased out of the archives at the National Review's website GrokLaw:The Novell Antitrust Complaint in text Retrieved October 2005 Behind the Pearly Gates Archived from the original on August 29 2007 Retrieved 2006-07-04 Novell's MS complaint we wuz robbed Retrieved 2006-07-04 Harry McCracken September 13 2000 A Peek at Office Upgrade PCWorld.com Archived from the original on September 2005 Retrieved 2006-07-04 Feature Brand Microsoft Sales Promotion Archived from the original on April 23 2009 Retrieved 2008-04-02 Multiple Microsoft Bob the social interface Soft-Letter January 17 1995 Archived from the original on January 10 2009 Retrieved July 2006 Microsoft's Top 10 Flops No Microsoft Bob eWeek Retrieved 2006-07-03.[permanent dead link Remembering Microsoft Bob Retrieved 2006-07-03 Michael Newman May 23 1999 Bob is dead long live Bob Post-Gazette Retrieved 2006-07-04 Ken Polsson Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers 1995 Confusion Archived from the original on May 15 2006 Retrieved July 2006 a Top 10 worst products CNet Retrieved 2006-07-04 Microsoft The History of Internet Explorer Retrieved 2007-02-06 Gates Bill The Internet Tidal Wave Archived July 15 2009 at the Wayback Machine Microsoft May 26 1995 Made publicly available at United States Department of Justice United States Microsoft Trial Exhibits MSN Historical Time line Archived from the original on 2005-06-18 Retrieved 2006-07-03 American Public Media archive Archived from the original on 2004-12-09 Retrieved 2006-07-03 a Windows CE History Retrieved 2006-07-03 Windows Server 2003 The Road To Gold Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows Archived from the original on June 2010 Retrieved 2006-07-03 Introducing MS Windows 98 Second Edition Chapter 18 Retrieved 2006-07-03 The Halloween Documents Archived from the original on May 13 2006 Retrieved 2006-05-18 Bob Trott November 1998 Microsoft pondering legal challenge to Linux CNN Retrieved 2006-05-18 Halloween Document Retrieved 2006-05-18 United States Microsoft U.S Department of Justice Retrieved 2005-08-05 homepage at the United States Department of Justice U.S vs Microsoft findings of fact Retrieved 2006-05-18 The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time PCWorld Retrieved 2006-07-04 Windows XP Professional Features Retrieved 2006-07-03 a Kinect Confirmed As Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device community.guinnessworldrecords.com March 2011 Retrieved May 19 2012 Microsoft hit by record EU fine CNN March 25 2004 Archived from the original on April 13 2006 Retrieved 2006-05-19 Text of the European Union ruling against Microsoft PDF Archived from the original PDF on October 28 2008 Retrieved 2005-08-05 from the official EU website Dan Nystedt December 2005 Update Microsoft fined 32M by South Korea IDG News Service Retrieved 2006-05-19 Juan Carlos Perez February 2005 Microsoft Spotlights Its Search Engine PCWorld Retrieved 2006-07-04 Robert A Guth Kevin Delaney May 2006 With adCenter Microsoft Bids For Web-Search Bonanza Wall Street Journal Retrieved 2006-07-04 Neil McAllister January 15 2007 Soft Sell for Open Source Apps InfoWorld Retrieved 2007-01-15 Microsoft Announces Plans for July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates Archived from the original on June 19 2006 Retrieved June 16 2006 Richard Waters June 15 2006 Bill Gates calls time on career at Microsoft Financial Times Retrieved 2006-06-17 It's Official Windows Vista RC1 Is Complete Retrieved 2006-09-01 Microsoft Updates Windows Vista Road Map Archived from the original on March 30 2006 Retrieved 2006-03-21 Nate Mook New Windows Server Visual Studio SQL Server to Launch in February BetaNews Retrieved 2007-07-11 Viacom Microsoft ink content ad deal Yahoo-Google agree online ad deal BBC News June 13 2008 Retrieved 2010-05-04 Microsoft mulls fresh Yahoo deal BBC News May 19 2008 Retrieved 2010-05-04 Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo Microsoft.com May 2008 Archived from the original on November 14 2012 Retrieved 2012-09-25 Microsoft to acquire Skype May 10 2011 Retrieved May 10 2011 Microsoft sued over search-related patents Reuters January 31 2013 Retrieved January 31 2013 Microsoft plans to focus on Xbox for TV sells Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson The Verge Retrieved 2013-04-08 Microsoft sues U.S Customs office to force Google phone ban ZDNet Retrieved July 12 2013 Krantz Matt September 2013 Microsoft reaches 7.2B deal for Nokia handset business USA Today Retrieved September 2013 Microsoft Board names Satya Nadella as CEO February 2014 Archived from the original on April 26 2014 Retrieved May 2014 Archived copy Archived from the original on March 2016 Retrieved 2014-06-17 Archived copy Archived from the original on September 10 2015 Retrieved 2014-10-01 Windows 10 Free Upgrade Available in 190 Countries Today Windows Experience Blog 2015-07-29 Retrieved 2016-06-08 External links[edit The History of Microsoft at Channel Bill Gates Money In Realtime Inside The Deal That Made Bill Gates 350,000,000 Bro Uttal Fortune July 21 1986 reprinted on March 13 2011 The History of Microsoft and Bill Gates Timeline Rahul Vijay Manekari February 2013 Microsoft History All topics People list Founders Bill Gates Paul Allen Board of directors John Thompson Chairman Satya Nadella CEO Dina Dublon Maria Klawe David Marquardt Charles Noski Helmut Panke Mason Morfit John Stanton Senior leadership team Satya Nadella CEO Scott Guthrie Amy Hood CFO Terry Myerson Harry Shum Corporate VPs Gabe Aul VP Joe Belfiore Richard Rashid SVP Somasegar SVP Divisions Engineering groups Mobile Skype unit Digital Crimes Unit Garage Press Research Studios NET Foundation Outercurve Foundation Estates Microsoft Redmond campus Microsoft Talo Microsoft Algeria Microsoft Egypt Microsoft India Microsoft Japan Product families Operating systems Windows Software Office Servers Visual Studio Hardware HoloLens Surface Xbox Web properties Bing Channel CodePlex Developer Network MSN Mixer Office.com OneDrive Outlook.com TechNet Windows Store Conferences Build MIX PDC TechEd WinHEC Inspire Criticism Bundling of Microsoft Windows Clippy iLoo Internet Explorer Microsoft Bob NSAKEY Windows ME XP Vista 10 Litigation Alcatel-Lucent Microsoft Apple Microsoft European Union Microsoft competition case Microsoft Lindows Microsoft vs MikeRoweSoft Microsoft Shah United States Microsoft Acquisitions 6Wunderkinder Altamira Software aQuantive Azyxxi The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks Beam Bungie Calista Technologies Colloquis Connectix Consumers Software Danger Farecast FASA Studio Fast Search Transfer Firefly Forethought GIANT Company Software GreenButton Groove Networks High Heat Major League Baseball Hotmail Jellyfish.com LinkExchange Lionhead Studios Maluuba Massive Incorporated Mobile Data Labs Mojang Nokia Devices and Services Onfolio Pando Networks Perceptive Pixel PlaceWare Powerset ProClarity Rare Revolution Analytics ScreenTonic Secure Islands Simplygon Skype Sunrise Atelier SwiftKey Winternals Software Teleo Telekinesys Research Tellme Networks Twisted Pixel Games Vermeer Technologies Visio Corporation Vivaty VoloMetrix VXtreme WebTV Networks Xamarin Yammer Yupi LinkedIn Category Portal Retrieved from", "title": ["History of Microsoft - Wikipedia"]}
{"url": "http://fundersandfounders.com/how-bill-gates-started/", "html": "How Bill Gates Started His Life Visualized Infographic\r Show Navigation Hide Navigation Infographic Maker Learn Hire Us About Buy Visual Startup Blog Facebook Twitter Latest How Elon Musk Started Infographic How Mark Zuckerberg Started Infographic How Bill Gates Started Infographic How Steve Jobs Started Infographic Too Late To Start Life Crisis and Late Bloomers Infographic Types Of Startup Metrics Infographic How Bill Gates Started Infographic Anna Vital\r Oct 28 14 It was a regular day in the Gates household When the family was getting ready and Bill known in his family as Trey was still downstairs his mother called down to his room in the basement Trey what are you doing down there Im thinking mother Dont you ever think he shot back Create an infographic like this on Adioma Bill Gatess father was a lawyer A very successful one His mother a teacher Reading business magazines in middle school Bill Jr had a different dream to open a company You could say thats how he started with a childish dream Many kids have dreams though How was he different How Bill GatesStarted To Hack Next Bill Gates saw a computer at 13 The school he went to bought one machine and a teletype He paid for the time to use it When money ran out he hacked into the computer to use it for free Then he got banned by the school Then the school realized he had a rare skill so they asked him to use the computer and help them find bugs He started to be a hacker Bill Gates believes he can improve the way he thinks in general He suggests and himself practices brain rules from the eponymous book by John Medina The rules explain how the brain works from musical memory to the ability to play baseball Since this is an infographic blog I should mentioned that Bill Gates is specifically concerned about the trend to distort facts and data with infographics To spot visual lie and learn what statistics actually say he recommends a very old but spot-on book How To Lie With Statistics Started to Hustle Next Bill scored 1590 out of 1600 on SAT He went to Harvard Only to find himself unsure about whereto start as a pre-law major or as something else Reading Popular Mechanics one day in college he read an ad about a new computer He called them to say that he wrote a programming language for it He hadnt He asked if they might buy it He hadnt even started to write the language But he started to be a hustler And yes the computer company was very interested in buying Being a Workaholic Next Bill sat down with his friend Paul from high school and the two wrote that programming language that he talked about on the phone Bill wrote 50 of the code using Harvards computers Bill coded all day long slept at the computer woke up and picked up programming exactly where he left off Bill started to be a workaholic Being aCopyright Guru When they were done Bill flew to New Mexico to show this new language he had written called BASIC The computer company bought it for 3,000 But Bill kept the copyright Did he somehow know it would be worth a lot in the future So hestarted to be a copyright guru Started to Visualizethe Future Five years later IBM knocked on Bills door to see if he had written an operating system they could buy Bill hadnt But he said Yes Real quick he found an operating system from another person in Seattle and bought it With the copyright Then he sold it to IBM For a lot more This was DOS And without copyright they never asked for it Who would pay for software they reasoned Its the hardware that people are after Bill saw the opportunity to make people pay for software Bill started to see the future He was now a visionary Bill Gates Started to Be a Perfectionist Then Steve Jobs showed up He wanted Bill to write new software that was visual Programslike Excel and Words Programs that looked human Bill got down to work Jobs thought Bills teams product was tasteless but Bill kept at it He got better and better until he got really good Bill started to be a perfectionist Beinga Visual Thinker But Bill was not going to spend his life working on Jobs brilliant ideas Ideas after all are worthless until executed Plus Jobs ideas were stolen anyway And so it was fair game to do the same Bill remembered where he saw this idea of visual interfaces it was Xerox And now he wanted to create a visual operating system of his own He called it Windows He started to be a visual thinker Beinga Tough Cookie When Jobs heard about Windows he went ballistic He lashed out at Bill calling him down to Cupertino In front of ten Apple employees Jobs accusedGates for robbing Apple Bill listened calmly and replied that Jobs stole the idea just as he did himself Bill started to be a tough cookie When Windows launched Bill visualized a world where every home had a computer and that computer was running Windows Bill started to become very rich And as his vision materialized by 39 he became the richest man in the world Most facts in the timeline are based on bio from Bill Gates website and Walter Isacsons book The Innovators How a Group of Hackers Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution This book is not entirely about Bill Gates but the book do have in depth story about how Bill Gates start microsoft The Innovators is Walter Isaacsons revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens Bill Gates has not written a book laying out exactly how he built Microsoft He gave no easily applicable recipes in the books that he did write Still We know that from early childhood Bill Gates has been reading an extraordinary number of books a habit he contunues to have to this day So when he says that some book ais a favorite of his is comes from a large sample Among all business books he has read Gates singled out a classic old book that lays bare the inner workings of Wall Street Business Adventures Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street Read more on Bill Gates biographies Written by Anna Vital Information Designer and Infographic Author How Steve Jobs Started Infographic How Albert Einstein Started Infographic", "title": ["How Bill Gates Started, His Life Visualized - Infographic"]}
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Contacts Press Releases Video Broll Worldwide News Leadership Find photos biographies and speech transcripts of Microsoft executives and Board of Directors members Press Contact WE CommunicationsMicrosoft Media Relations(503 443-7070 Home Leadership Board Members Bill Gates Bill Gates Founder and Technology Advisor William Bill Gates is founder technology advisor and board member of Microsoft Corporation the worldwide leader in software services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential He served as chairman of the board until Feb 2014 On June 27 2008 Gates transitioned out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation He shares his thoughts about the foundation and other topics on Gates Notes a website launched in January 2010 Gates continues to serve on Microsofts Board of Directors and as an advisor on key development projects Born on Oct 28 1955 Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters Their father William Gates II is a Seattle attorney Their late mother Mary Gates was a schoolteacher University of Washington regent and chairwoman of United Way International Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School There he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13 In 1973 Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer While at Harvard Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer the MITS Altair In his junior year Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home they began developing software for personal computers Gates foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry Under Gates leadership Microsofts mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology and to make it easier more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers The company is committed to a long-term view reflected in its industry-leading investment in research and development each year In 1999 Gates wrote Business the Speed of Thought a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries Business the Speed of Thought has received wide critical acclaim and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times USA Today The Wall Street Journal and on Amazon.com Gates previous book The Road Ahead published in 1995 was at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for seven weeks Gates has donated the proceeds of both books to non-profit organizations that support the use of technology in education and skills development In addition to his love of computers and software Gates founded Corbis which is developing one of the worlds largest resources of visual information a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe He is also a member of the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc which invests in companies engaged in diverse business activities Philanthropy is very important to Gates He and his wife Melinda started a foundation in 2000 to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world The Bill Melinda Gates Foundation supports philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning with the hope that in the 21st century advances in these critical areas will be available for all people To learn more about the foundation visit www.gatesfoundation.org Gates was married on Jan 1994 to Melinda French Gates They have three children Gates is an avid reader and enjoys playing golf tennis and bridge Back to Top Photos Download photos of Bill Gates web.jpg print.jpg web.jpg print.jpg Follow us Follow MSFTNews Share this page Tweet Learn Windows Office Skype Outlook OneDrive MSN Devices Microsoft Surface Xbox PC and laptops Microsoft Lumia Microsoft Band Microsoft HoloLens Microsoft Store Account profile Order tracking Store locations Returns Sales support Downloads Download Center Windows downloads Windows 10 apps Office apps Microsoft Lumia apps Internet Explorer Values Diversity and inclusion Accessibility Microsoft in education Microsoft philanthropies Corporate social responsibility Privacy at Microsoft Company Careers About Microsoft Company news Investors Research Site map Contact us Privacy cookies Terms of use Trademarks About our ads Microsoft 2017", "title": ["Bill Gates - Microsoft News Center"]}
{"url": "https://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520", "html": "Bill Gates Business Leader Entrepreneur Philanthropist Biography.comPeopleNostalgiaCelebrityHistory CultureCrime ScandalVideoJoinSubscribe to NewsletterAboutPeopleNostalgiaCelebrityHistory CultureCrime ScandalVideoJoinBill Gates Biography.comBusiness Leader Entrepreneur Philanthropist(1955)6.6KSHARESQuick FactsNameBill GatesOccupationBusiness Leader Entrepreneur PhilanthropistBirth DateOctober 28 1955 age 61)EducationLakeside School Harvard CollegePlace of BirthSeattle WashingtonFull NameWilliam Henry Gates IIIZodiac SignScorpioCite This PageEntrepreneur Bill Gates founded the world's largest software business Microsoft with Paul Allen and subsequently became one of the richest men in the world.IN THESE GROUPSFamous Lakeside School AlumniFamous People Born on October 28Famous BillionairesFamous People Born in WashingtonFamous People Born in 1955Famous Business LeadersFamous LeftiesCelebrities With Court-side SeatsFamous People Who Founded CharitiesFamous ScorpiosFamous People in ComputingGenerous DonorsFamous People Who Were KnightedModern Titans of TechFamous People Born in United StatesFamous People Born in SeattleFamous People Who Started BusinessesFamous DropoutsTech GiantsFamous People in EducationFamous People Named GatesFamous People Named BillFamous Harvard College AlumniEntrepreneurFamous Philanthropists current.i of 12 quotesSuccess is a lousy teacher It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.Be nice to nerds Chances are you'll end up working for one.Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything which I think is why he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas.We are all created equal in the virtual world and we can use this equality to help address some of the sociological problems that society has yet to solve in the physical world.I'm a big believer that as much as possible and there's obviously political limitations freedom of migration is a good thing.If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.Like almost everyone who uses e-mail I receive a ton of spam every day Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick It would be funny if it weren't so irritating.I believe that computers are the most incredible tool we can use to feed our curiosity and inventivenessto help us solve problems that even the smartest people couldn't solve on their own.I've always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted in my belief that the power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a better place.If being a geek means you're willing to take a 400-page book on vaccines and where they work and where they don't and you go off and study that and you use that to challenge people to learn more then absolutely I'm a geek.It's a nice reader but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say Oh I wish Microsoft had done it.'The technology business has a lot of twists and turns Probably the reason it's such a fun business is that no business gets to rest on its laurels.Bill GatesSynopsisBorn in Seattle Washington in 1955 famed entrepreneur Bill Gates began to show an interest in computer programming at age 13 Through technological innovation keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics he and partner Paul Allen built the world's largest software business Microsoft In the process Gates became one of the richest men in the world In February 2014 Gates announced that he was stepping down as Microsoft's chairman.21Gallery21 ImagesEarly LifeBill Gates was born William Henry Gates III on October 28 1955 in Seattle Washington Gates began to show an interest in computer programming at the age of 13 at the Lakeside School He pursued his passion through college Striking out on his own with his friend and business partner Paul Allen Gates found himself at the right place at the right time Through technological innovation keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics he built the world's largest software business Microsoft In the process Gates became one of the richest men in the world.Bill Gates grew up in an upper middle-class family with two sisters Kristianne who is older and Libby who is younger Their father William Gates Sr was a promising if somewhat shy law student when he met his future wife Mary Maxwell She was an athletic outgoing student at the University of Washington actively involved in student affairs and leadership The Gates family atmosphere was warm and close and all three children were encouraged to be competitive and strive for excellence Bill showed early signs of competitiveness when he coordinated family athletic games at their summer house on Puget Sound He also relished in playing board games Risk was his favorite and excelled at Monopoly.Bill had a very close relationship with his mother Mary who after a brief career as a teacher devoted her time to helping raise the children and working on civic affairs and with charities She also served on several corporate boards including those of the First Interstate Bank in Seattle founded by her grandfather the United Way and International Business Machines IBM She would often take Bill along when she volunteered in schools and at community organizations.READ ARTICLE undefined7 Fun Facts About Bill Gates.Bill was a voracious reader as a child spending many hours poring over reference books such as the encyclopedia Around the age of 11 or 12 Bill's parents began to have concerns about his behavior He was doing well in school but he seemed bored and withdrawn at times and his parents worried he might become a loner Though they were strong believers in public education when Bill turned 13 they enrolled him at Seattle's exclusive preparatory Lakeside School He blossomed in nearly all his subjects excelling in math and science but also doing very well in drama and English.While at Lakeside School a Seattle computer company offered to provide computer time for the students The Mother's Club used proceeds from the school's rummage sale to purchase a teletype terminal for students to use Bill Gates became entranced with what a computer could do and spent much of his free time working on the terminal He wrote a tic-tac-toe program in BASIC computer language that allowed users to play against the computer.It was at Lakeside School that Bill met Paul Allen who was two years his senior The two became fast friends bonding over their common enthusiasm for computers even though they were very different people Allen was more reserved and shy Bill was feisty and at times combative Regardless of their differences they both spent much of their free time together working on programs Occasionally they disagreed and would clash over who was right or who should run the computer lab On one occasion their argument escalated to the point where Allen banned Gates from the computer lab On another occasion Gates and Allen had their school computer privileges revoked for taking advantage of software glitches to obtain free computer time from the company that provided the computers After their probation they were allowed back in the computer lab when they offered to debug the program During this time Gates developed a payroll program for the computer company the boys hacked into and a scheduling program for the school.In 1970 at the age of 15 Bill Gates went into business with his pal Paul Allen They developed Traf-o-Data a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle and netted 20,000 for their efforts Gates and Allen wanted to start their own company but Gates's parents wanted him to finish school and go on to college where they hoped he would work to become a lawyer.Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside in 1973 He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the college SAT test a feat of intellectual achievement that for several years he boasted about when introducing himself to new people.Early CareerGates enrolled at Harvard University in the fall originally thinking of a career in law But his freshman year saw him spend more of his time in the computer lab than in class Gates did not really have a study regimen Instead he could get by on a few hours of sleep cram for a test and pass with a reasonable grade.Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen who after attending Washington State University for two years dropped out and moved to Boston Massachusetts to work for Honeywell Around this time Allen showed Gates an edition of Popular Electronics magazine featuring an article on the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit Both boys were fascinated with the possibilities that this computer could create in the world of personal computing The Altair was made by a small company in Albuquerque New Mexico called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems MITS Gates and Allen contacted the company proclaiming that they were working on a BASIC software program that would run the Altair computer In reality they didn't have an Altair to work with or the code to run it but they wanted to know if MITS was interested in someone developing such software MITS was and its president Ed Roberts asked the boys for a demonstration Gates and Allen scrambled spending the next two months writing the software at Harvard's computer lab Allen traveled to Albuquerque for a test run at MITS never having tried it out on an Altair computer It worked perfectly Allen was hired at MITS and Gates soon left Harvard to work with him much to his parents dismay In 1975 Gates and Allen formed a partnership they called Micro-Soft a blend of micro-computer and software.\"Microsoft Gates and Allen dropped the hyphen in less than a year started off on shaky footing Though their BASIC software program for the Altair computer netted the company a fee and royalties it wasn't meeting their overhead Microsoft's BASIC software was popular with computer hobbyists who obtained pre-market copies and were reproducing and distributing them for free According to Gates's later account only about 10 percent of the people using BASIC in the Altair computer had actually paid for it At this time much of the personal computer enthusiasts were people not in it for the money They felt the ease of reproduction and distribution allowed them to share software with friends and fellow computer enthusiasts Bill Gates thought differently He saw the free distribution of software as stealing especially when it involved software that was created to be sold.In February 1976 Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists saying that continued distribution and use of software without paying for it would prevent good software from being written In essence pirating software would discourage developers from investing time and money into creating quality software The letter was unpopular with computer enthusiasts but Gates stuck to his beliefs and would use the threat of innovation as a defense when faced with charges of unfair business practices.Gates had a more acrimonious relationship with MITS president Ed Roberts often resulting in shouting matches The combative Gates clashed with Roberts on software development and the direction of the business Roberts considered Gates spoiled and obnoxious In 1977 Roberts sold MITS to another computer company and went back to Georgia to enter medical school and become a country doctor Gates and Allen were on their own The pair had to sue the new owner of MITS to retain the software rights they had developed for Altair.Microsoft wrote software in different formats for other computer companies and at the beginning of 1979 Gates moved the company's operations to Bellevue Washington just east of Seattle Gates was glad to be home again in the Pacific Northwest and threw himself into his work All 25 employees of the young company had broad responsibilities for all aspects of the operation product development business development and marketing With his acumen for software development and a keen business sense Gates placed himself as the head of Microsoft which grossed approximately 2.5 million in 1979 Gates was only 23.The Rise of MicrosoftGates's acumen for not only software development but also business operations put him in the position of leading the company and working as its spokesperson He personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped often rewriting code himself when he saw it necessary As the computer industry began to grow with companies like Apple Intel and IBM developing hardware and components Bill was continuously out on the road touting the merits of Microsoft software applications He often took his mother with him Mary was highly respected and well connected with her membership on several corporate boards including IBM's It was through Mary that Bill Gates met the CEO of IBM.In November 1980 IBM was looking for software that would operate their upcoming personal computer PC and approached Microsoft Legend has it that at the first meeting with Bill Gates someone at IBM mistook him for an office assistant and asked him to serve coffee Gates did look very young but he quickly impressed IBM convincing them that he and his company could meet their needs The only problem was that Microsoft had not developed the basic operating system that would run IBM's new computers Not to be stopped Gates bought an operating system that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's PC He made a deal with the software's developer making Microsoft the exclusive licensing agent and later full owner of the software but not telling them of the IBM deal The company later sued Microsoft and Gates for withholding important information Microsoft settled out of court for an undisclosed amount but neither Gates nor Microsoft admitted to any wrongdoing.Gates had to adapt the newly purchased software to work for the IBM PC He delivered it for a 50,000 fee the same price he had paid for the software in its original form IBM wanted to buy the source code which would have given them the information to the operating system Gates refused instead proposing that IBM pay a licensing fee for copies of the software sold with their computers Doing this allowed Microsoft to license the software they called MS-DOS to any other PC manufacturer should other computer companies clone the IBM PC which they soon did Microsoft also released software called Softcard which allowed Microsoft BASIC to operate on Apple II machines.Between 1979 and 1981 Microsoft's growth exploded and staff increased from 25 to 128 Revenue also shot up from 2.5 million to 16 million In mid-1981 Gates and Allen incorporated Microsoft and Gates was appointed president and chairman of the board Allen was named executive vice president.By 1983 Microsoft was going global with offices in Great Britain and Japan and with 30 percent of the world's computers running on its software But 1983 also brought news that rocked Microsoft to its very foundation Paul Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease Though his cancer went into remission a year later with intensive treatment Allen resigned from company that same year Rumors abound as to why Allen left Microsoft Some say Bill Gates pushed him out but many say it was a life-changing experience for Allen and he saw there were other opportunities that he could invest his time in.The Invention of Microsoft WindowsThoughtheir rivalry is legend,Microsoft and Apple shared many of their early innovations In 1981 Apple invited Microsoft to help develop software for Macintosh computers Somedevelopers were involved in both Microsoft development and the development of Microsoft applications for Macintosh The collaboration could be seen in some shared names between the Microsoft and Macintosh systems It was through this knowledge sharing that Microsoft was to develop Windows a system that used a mouse to drive a graphic interface displaying text and images on the screen This differed greatly from the text-and-keyboard driven MS-DOS system where all text formatting showed on the screen as code and not what actually would be printed Bill Gates quickly recognized the threat this kind of software might pose for MS-DOS and Microsoft overall For the unsophisticated userwhich was most of the buying publicthe graphic imagery of the competing VisiCorp software used in a Macintosh system would be so much easier to use Gates announced in an advertising campaign that a new Microsoft operating system was about to be developed that would use a graphic interface It was to be called Windows and would be compatible with all PC software products developed on the MS-DOS system The announcement was a bluff in that Microsoft had no such program under development But as a marketing tactic it was sheer genius as nearly 30 percent of the computer market was using the MS-DOS system and would wait for Windows software rather than change to a new system Without people willing to change formats software developers were unwilling to write programs for the VisiCorp system and it lost momentum by early 1985.In November 1985 Bill Gates and Microsoft launched Windows nearly two years after his announcement Visually the Windows system looked very similar to the Macintosh system Apple Computer Corporation had introduced nearly two years earlier Apple had earlier given Microsoft full access to their technology while it was working on making Microsoft products compatible for Apple computers Gates had advised Apple to license their software but they ignored the advice being more interested in selling computers Once again Gates took full advantage of the situation and created a software format that was strikingly similar to the Macintosh Apple threatened to sue and Microsoft retaliated saying it would delay shipment of its Microsoft-compatible software for Macintosh users In the end Microsoft prevailed in the courts because it could prove that while there were similarities in how the two software systems operated each individual function was distinctly different.In March 1986 Bill Gates took Microsoft public with an initial public offering IPO of 21 per share Gates held 45 percent of the company's 24.7 million shares and became an instant millionaire at age 31 Gates's stake at that time was 234 million of Microsoft's 520 million Over time the company's stock increased in value and split numerous times In 1987 Bill Gates became a billionaire when the stock raised to 90.75 a share Since then Gates has been at the top or at least near the top of Forbes's annual list of the top 400 wealthiest people in America In 1999 with stock prices at an all time high and the stock splitting eight-fold since its IPO Gates's wealth briefly topped 101 billion Yet Bill Gates never felt totally secure about the status of his company Always having to look over his shoulder to see where the competition was he developed a white-hot drive and competitive spirit Gates expected everyone in the company to have the same dedication One story of Gates's assistant coming to work early to find someone sleeping under a desk She considered calling security or the police until she discovered it was Gates.Bill Gates's intelligence allowed him to be able to see all sides of the software industryproduct development and corporate strategy When analyzing any corporate move he would develop a profile of all the possible cases and run through them asking questions about anything that could possibly happen His confrontational management style became legend as he would challenge employees and their ideas to keep the creative process going An unprepared presenter could hear That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard from Gates But this was as much a test of the rigor of the employee as it was Gates's passion for his company He was constantly checking the people around him to see if they were really convinced of their ideas.Outside the company Bill Gates was gaining a reputation as a ruthless competitor Several tech companies led by IBM began to develop their own operating system called OS/2 to replace MS-DOS Rather than give in to the pressure Gates pushed ahead with the Windows software improving its operation and expanding its uses In 1989 Microsoft introduced Microsoft Office which bundled office productivity applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel into one system that was compatible with all Microsoft products The applications were not as easily compatible with OS/2 Microsoft's new version of Windows sold 100,000 copies in just two weeks and OS/2 soon faded away This left Microsoft with a virtual monopoly on operating systems for PCs Soon the Federal Trade Commission began to investigate Microsoft for unfair marketing practices.Throughout the 1990s Microsoft faced a string of Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigations Some related allegations that Microsoft made unfair deals with computer manufactures who installed the Windows operating system on their computers Other charges involved Microsoft forcing computer manufactures to sell Microsoft's Internet Explorer as a condition for selling the Windows operating system with their computers.At one point Microsoft faced a possible break up of its two divisionsoperating systems and software development Microsoft defended itself harking back to Bill Gates's earlier battles with software piracy and proclaiming that such restrictions were a threat to innovation Eventually Microsoft was able to find a settlement with the federal government to avoid a breakup Through it all Gates found some inventive ways to deflect the pressure with lighthearted commercials and public appearances at computer trade shows during which he posed as Star Trek's Mr Spock Gates continued to run the company and weather the federal investigations through the 1990s.Personal LifeIn 1987 a 23-year-old Microsoft product manager named Melinda French caught the eye of Bill Gates then 32 The very bright and organized Melinda was a perfect match for Gates In time their relationship grew as they discovered an intimate and intellectual connection On January 1994 Melinda and Bill were married in Hawaii But only a few months later heartbreak struck Bill Gates as his mother succumbed to breast cancer passing away that June Gates was devastated.Bill and Melinda took some time off in 1995 to travel to several countries and get a new perspective on life and the world In 1996 their first daughter Jennifer was born A year later Gates moved his family into a 55,000-square-foot 54-million house on the shore of Lake Washington Though the house serves as a business center it is said to be a very cozy home for the couple and their three children Their son Rory was born in 1999 and a second daughter Phoebe arrived in 2002.)Philanthropic EffortsWith Melinda's influence Gates took an interest in filling his mother's role as a civic leader He began to realize that he had an obligation to give more of his wealth to charity Being the consummate student he was Gates studied the philanthropic work of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller titans of the American industrial revolution In 1994 Gates and his wife established the William Gates Foundation which was dedicated to supporting education world health and investment in low-income communities In 2000 the couple combined several family foundations to form the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation They started out by making a 28 billion contribution to set up the foundation.Bill Gates stepped down from the day-to-day operations of Microsoft in 2000 turning over the job of CEO to college friend Steve Ballmer who had been with Microsoft since 1980 He positioned himself as chief software architect so he could concentrate on what was for him the more passionate side of the business though he remained chairman of the board.Over the next few years his involvement with the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation occupied much of his time and even more of his interest In 2006 Gates announced he was transitioning himself from full-time work at Microsoft to devote more quality time to the foundation His last full day at Microsoft was June 27 2008.In addition to all the accolades of being one of the richest and most successful businessmen in the history of the world Bill Gates has also received numerous awards for philanthropic work Time magazine named Gates one of the most influential people of the 20th century The magazine also named Gates his wife Melinda and rock band U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year Gates holds several honorary doctorates from universities throughout the world and an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 In 2006 Gates and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle by the Mexican government for their philanthropic work throughout the world in the areas of health and education In February 2014 Gates announced that he would be stepping down as chairman of Microsoft in order to move into a new position as technology adviser In addition to Gates's transition it was reported that longtime Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would be replaced by 46-year-old Satya Nadella.Gates continues to devote much of his time and energy to the work of the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation The organization tackles international and domestic issues such as health and education One aspect of its work in the United States is helping students become college ready In 2015 Gates spoke out in favor of national Common Core standards in grades through 12 and charter schools.Gates also proved to be a groundbreaking employer around this time The foundation announced that it would give its employees a year's paid leave after the birth of a child or the adoption of a child.In 2016 Gates and his wife Melinda were recognized for their philanthropic work when they were named recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Barack Obama.Videos Bill Gates Schoolboy to Businessman(TV-PG 2:04 Bill Gates Charity(TV-PG 0:57 Bill Gates Beating(TV-PG 1:26 Bill Gates Help from Mom(TV-PG 1:01 Bill Gates Mini Biography(TV-14 3:43 Related Videos Warren Buffett Brilliant but not the Handiest(TV-PG 0:47 Warren Buffett A Good Sense of Humor(TV-PG 1:20 Warren Buffett Unpretentious Billionaire(TV-PG 1:36 Steve Wozniak Revolution Generation(TV-14 2:16 Jeff Bezos Starts Amazon(TV-14 2:38 Steve Jobs Mini Biography(TV-14 3:40 Mark Zuckerberg Mini Biography(TV-14 3:42 Fact CheckWe strive for accuracy and fairness If you see something that doesn't look right contact us!Citation InformationArticle TitleBill Gates Biography.comAuthorBiography.com EditorsWebsite NameThe Biography.com websiteURL root.config.analytics.providers.Comscore.badge", "title": ["Bill Gates - Business Leader, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist - Biography ..."]}
{"url": "http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bill-gates-microsoft-fist-trillionaire-oxfam-inequality-a7547846.html", "html": "Bill Gates of Microsoft could become world's first trillionaire says new report The Independent NewsPolitics Brexit latest UK US World People Business Science Media Obituaries Long Reads InFact Politics VoicesGrace Dent Mary Dejevsky Robert Fisk John Rentoul Mark Steel Voices in Danger Giants Club Indy/LifeTravel Fashion beauty Food Recipes Money Health IndyBest Love sex Business Wimbledon SportBritish and Irish Lions Tour Transfer news Football Rugby union Cricket Tennis Golf Formula US sport TechMWC 2017 Tech news Tech culture Gaming CultureTV radio Film Music Books Art Theatre dance Ghost In The Shell SubscribeOffers Sign in Read now UK Edition US Edition Sign in Register NewsUK US World Politics People Science Business Media Obituaries VoicesCharity Appeal Robert Fisk Mark Steel Grace Dent Janet Street-Porter Holly Baxter John Rentoul Campaigns 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26 January 2017 15:57 GMT Click to followThe Independent US Microsoft founder Bill Gates is on path to becoming the worlds first trillionaire within the next 25 years a new study has found The report by Oxfam which works to alleviate global poverty has just released a briefing paper saying that since 2015 the top per cent of the population has owned more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent and that eight men currently possess the same amount of money as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet Oxfam uses these statistics to argue that current economic growth disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy while the poor remain poor PrettyFamous Graphiq The study predicts Gates future wealth using the average rate of growth of his investments which have been growing by 11 per cent since 2009 At this rate Gates who is currently number one on Forbes list of wealthiest people with a net worth of 85bn could easily be a trillionaire by the age of 86 Read more Worlds eight richest men own as much as poorest 50 Technology is the future but is it is not the solution to poverty Is having individual billionaires good or bad for a country's economy Gates is a founder of the Bill Melinda Gates foundation and of The Giving Pledge a commitment by the worlds wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy Nonetheless for all his willingness to give away his riches the study noted that Gates fortune has grown from 50bn to 75bn since he left Microsoft in 2006 And as Gates has said himself charitable donations by billionaires are welcome but do not substitute for adequate and fair taxation More about Bill Gates Oxfam Reuse content Comments Most Popular Video Sponsored Features Follow us User Policies Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Code of Conduct Complaint Form Contact Us Contributors All Topics Archive Newsletters Jobs Subscriptions Advertising Guide Syndication Evening Standard Novaya Gazeta Install our 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{"url": "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bill-gates/10616991/Bill-Gates-a-history-at-Microsoft.html", "html": "Bill Gates a history at Microsoft Telegraph\r Accessibility links Skip to article Skip to navigation Telegraph.co.uk Friday 07 July 2017 Home Video News World Sport Business Money Comment Culture Travel Life Women Fashion Luxury Tech Film Apple iPhone Technology News Technology Companies Technology Reviews Video Games Technology Video Mobile Apps Advertisement Home Technology Bill Gates Bill Gates a history at Microsoft Gates has stepped down as chairman of Microsoft to take a more active role in the business The Telegraph looks back over his time at Microsoft so far Bill Gates is stepping down as chairman of MicrosoftPhoto Andrew Crowley/The Telegraph By Sophie Curtis 4:21PM GMT 04 Feb 2014 Follow Bill Gates at Microsoft in pictures Microsoft has announced that Bill Gates will step down as chairman of the board of directors at Microsoft and will assume a new role on the board as founder and technology advisor In his new role Gates will return to Microsoft for an estimated three days a week to support the new chief executive Satya Nadella in shaping technology and product direction Gates has been under pressure to step down as Microsoft chairman for some time Reuters reported in October 2013 that investors were concerned that Gates role as chairman effectively blocked the adoption of new strategies and would limit the power of a new chief executive to make substantial changes They were also worried that Gates who spends most of his time on his philanthropic foundation wields power out of proportion to his declining shareholding Related Articles Look to your jobs the robots are coming 06 Feb 2014 Bill Gates funding scientific search for thinner condoms 14 Jan 2014 Bill Gates is back 04 Feb 2014 Gates reasserts dominance of global rich list 03 Jan 2014 Bill Gates outs himself as Reddit user's secret Santa 20 Dec 2013 Bill Gates uses zombies to explain the basics of computer programming 11 Dec 2013 However the changes announced today by Microsoft suggest that far from relinquishing his hold on Microsoft Gates will be getting more involved in the day-to-day running of the company he founded nearly 40 years ago Gates had an interest in computer programming from a young age and pursued his passion throughout college In 1975 together with his childhood friend Paul Allen Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer the MITS Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 kick-started the home computing revolution Gates and Allen approached MITS with their creation and the company agreed to distribute it as Altair BASIC Paul Allen was hired into MITS and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with him in Albuquerque in November 1975 They officially established Microsoft on April 1975 with Gates as the CEO Gates never returned to Harvard Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976 but continued to develop programming language software for various systems The company moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue Washington on January 1979 During Microsoft's early years all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business Gates oversaw the business details but continued to write code as well In the first five years he personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 to provide the operating system for its upcoming personal computer For this deal Microsoft bought a system called 86-DOS from a company called Seattle Computer Products and after adapting it for the PC delivered it to IBM as PC DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of 50,000 However Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system because he believed that other hardware companies would clone IBM's system He was right and the sales of PC DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry Despite IBM's name on the operating system Gates was quickly identified as the man behind the machine Paul Allen left and Bill Gates pose with IBM personal computers Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring in June 1981 which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates president of Microsoft and the chairman of the board By this time he had gained a reputation for being distant to others He met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers and was reportedly verbally pugnacious berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies that placed the company's long-term interests at risk Microsoft launched the first version of its Windows operating system on 20 November 1985 and in August the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2 Microsoft moved its headquarters to Redmond in February 1986 and on March 13 the company went public Creative differences caused the partnership between Microsoft and IBM to deteriorate in 1991 By then Microsoft had introduced its Office suite which bundled applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as well as Windows 3.0 Both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas Following Gates's internal Internet Tidal Wave in May 1995 Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web The company released Windows 95 in August 1995 featuring pre-emptive multitasking and a completely new user interface with a novel start button Gates handed over the CEO position in 2000 to Steve Ballmer an old college friend and employee of the company since 1980 Allen resigned after a long-term illness while Gates became chief software architect and chairman of the board Bill Gates left and Steve Ballmer Microsoft went on to release Windows XP in 2001 followed by Windows Vista in 2007 Windows in 2009 and Windows in 2011 It entered the game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo launching the first Xbox in 2001 and has begun to take on Apple in the smartphone market with the launch of Windows Phone in 2011 and the purchase of Nokia in 2013 Meanwhile Gates announced in June 2006 that he would begin transitioning out of his day-to-day role to dedicate more time to philanthropy He divided his responsibilities between two successors placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy He finally retired as chief software architect in June 2008 but retained his role as chairman in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects Since then Gates has dedicated the majority of his time to philanthropy through the Bill Melinda Gates foundation The primary aims of the foundation are globally to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty and in America to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology As of 16 May 2013 Bill Gates had donated 28 billion to the foundation Gates was the world's highest-earning billionaire in 2013 according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a fortune of 78.5 billion He still owns about 4.5 percent of Microsoft and is its largest individual shareholder He and his wife plan to eventually donate 95 per cent of their wealth to charity Now read Bill Gates is back to take a bite out of Apple Amazon and Google Bill Gates Technology Microsoft Technology News Mobile Sophie Curtis In Technology Galaxy S4 in pictures In Bill Gates Meet Amelia the computer that's after your job How hackers took over my computer iPhone and iOS 16 hidden features Computers are getting smarter We're not Read more from Telegraph Technology Home-made in China Ambitious Chinese inventors take on crazy do-it-yourself projects The biggest companies in the world in 2015 The Fortune Global 500 has been released the annual ranking of the largest companies in the world by revenues Here is a list of the 20 biggest corporate money-makers The Big Short hits UK cinemas these are the best films about business The Big Short the film adaptation of Michael Lewis book of the same name about the causes of the financial crisis opens in UK cinemas this weekend How will the story stack up against the greatest films about business The 20 bestselling mobile phones The mobile industry may be locked in a bitter battle between Samsung and Apple but history tells a very different story Most important inventions of the 21st Century From the Apple iPod to Google driverless cars we run down the technologies that have transformed our world since the start of the 21st century Apple's new spaceship HQ in Cupertino The futuristic building in California should be completed in 2016 The most famous photoshopped images of all time As an extraordinary photo showing the solar eclipse from space is revealed as fake a look back at famous photoshopped images The most popular Instagram accounts As Instagram announces that it now has more than more than 400 million monthly active users Sophie Curtis takes us through the ten most followed accounts on the Facebook-owned site Apple's iPhone a history in pictures Ahead of the launch of the new iPhone SE the Telegraph Tech team take a look at how the handset has changed the mobile phone industry since it was launched in 2007 Obsolete technologies that will baffle modern children Many children have never seen or used a video tape camcorder or floppy disc Take a look at the gadgets which will puzzle younger people Advertisement Advertisement Top Technology Videos Rise of a tech giant the history of Google The history of Uber Skype invent robot that delivers groceries Forget standing desks This office workstation lets you work lying down Instagram launches gif-like app Boomerang Now your iPhone will even weigh fruit Sponsored Features Loading Advertisement Advertisement Technology choice iPhone 6s and 6s Plus rumours all you need to know Seven tips to secure your iPhone from hackers How hackers took over my computer 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"title": ["Bill Gates: a history at Microsoft - Telegraph - The Telegraph"]}
{"url": "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/bill-gates-he-eats-big-macs-for-lunch-and-schedules-every-minute/", "html": "Bill Gates He eats Big Macs for lunch and schedules every minute of his day meet the man worth 80 billion Premium News Sport Business Money Opinion Obituaries Travel Tech Science Culture Film TV Lifestyle Fashion Luxury Cars Video Free Mobile App Jobs Financial Services Rewards Events Dating Offers Shop Garden Shop Bookshop Box Office Puzzles Fantasy Football Wine Shop Work at The Telegraph Log out My Account Subscribe Rewards Search Video Login Register Subscribe Rewards Search Video Log out Rewards My Account Search Video Home News Sport Business Lifestyle Men Thinking Man Active Fashion and Style Relationships The Filter Telegraph Dating Telegraph Lifestyle Men Thinking Man Bill Gates He eats Big Macs for lunch and schedules every minute of his day meet the man worth 80 billion Bill Gates Credit Kate Peters Mary Riddell 21 October 2016 6:38am With 80 billion Bill Gates is the worlds richestman So how does he spend his money?What makes his life worthwhile And is his a happy marriage Mary Riddell spends three monthswith the Microsoft billionaire to find the answers Microbes fascinate Bill Gates On his arrival for a recent meeting with Justin Trudeau the Canadian Prime Minister Gates is spotted clutching a book on bacteria presumably so that he might devour a chapter or two should any lull occur in the conversation When we meet shortly afterwards Gates though minus scientific tome has the faintly restless manner of someone who finds micro organisms more absorbing than some dignitaries and most journalists Gates and I have met several times and I think I know his approach Though unfailingly modest and courteous he loathes wasting a singlesecond When it comes to changing the world however no topic is too small to engage his attention and none too vast He is for instance so intrigued by chickens and their potential to feed the hungry that he recently addressed a conference accompanied by a coop full of the birds Bill gates 80bn On the practicalities of rearing poultry he is vague Im very much the product of an urban upbringing Once in high school we went to someones farm and had to kill the chickens to eat them I was like This ishorrific Somebody actually has to choke these things Oh my God!Why am I being asked to do it Then when we were in Africa somebody sacrificed a goat and we sat and watchedthem skin it The world's richest man at 61 More accustomed to the world of corporate bloodletting Gates allows himself a fastidious shudder at the memory At almost 61 his birthday is next week the founder of Microsoft remains the worlds richest man whose estimated wealth of about 80bn is a subject of endless fascination to almost everyone apart from him Rumpled bespectacled and unassuming his sole focus the odd bridge evening apart is on eradicating disease and deprivation in countries whose GDPs are frequently dwarfed by his own vast fortune In the three months that I have followed Gates speaking to him and his closest advisers he has criss-crossed the world Who are the five richest people in the world 01:03 His itinerary has taken him from boardrooms and lecture halls to clinics and laboratories He has dined with the King of the Zulus given advice to the President of Ethiopia over a takeaway met Italian Premier Matteo Renzi in an airport departure lounge and solicited help from Frances President Franois Hollande When Gates rattles the can even cash-strapped heads of state reach for their wallets Thirteen billion dollars to replenishThe Global Fund to fight Aids TB and malaria was duly pledged complete with 1.1 billion from Britain at a conference hosted by Trudeau in Montreal last month On Monday the Gates private jet will touch down in London where he will spend three days at the annual Grand Challenges forum launched by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation to showcase and fund the cutting-edge health and development research at which Britain has always excelled Bill Gates at the 14th Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Pretoria Credit Getty Gates will appear with celebrities ranging from Sir Richard Branson to the hip-hop artist will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas He will give a talk at the Science Museum and solicit the views of academics He loves a wonky dinner says one senior aide He will no doubt renew his acquaintance with Priti Patel International Development Secretary who is reported to want to limit the foreign aid budget Gates on Brexit When we last spoke Gates also told me I am hoping to meet Theresa May As this article went to press the meeting had yet to be confirmed Regular as his London trips have been this visit marks a critical moment for the UK and Gates His day is planned for him in the style of the US president on a minute-by-minute basis Every meeting and handshake is timed to the second Under prime ministers and chancellors from Blair and Brown to Cameron and Osborne the door of Number 10 always swung open for him Post-Brexit there are fewer certainties Though studiously nonpartisan on politics Gates had cautioned strongly against leaving the EU saying the UK would be a significantly less attractive place to do business Given that Microsoft where he is still an adviser and the Gates Foundation invest heavily in Britain the latter has 1.1bn tied up in UK-based research this seemed no empty warning Where does Brexit leave his relationship with Britain his best partner in the world I asked two days after the vote Britain has world-class universities Cambridge is our Microsofts European research centre No one is changing their plans overnight A lot of uncertainty has been created and in economic matters uncertainty always causes people to delay investments I dont have a crystal ball But I cant say enough good things about the support weve had from every British PM At a glance Billion dollar donations Is he impressed by Boris Johnson the Foreign Secretary Well he certainly is an internationalist I was a little surprised at the position he took during the Brexit campaign When we speak again weeks later Gates professes himself hopefulThe vote for Brexit did create uncertainty but so far there are positive signs about continuing the strong work Relief that the May Government is committed to maintaining Britains 12 billion aid budget at 0.7 per cent of gross national income is laced with a warning against cutting ties with the EU Our foundation puts a lot of money into British universities because they are the best in the world So obviously we hope the smart people can continue to move back and forth between Europe and the UK I doubt a mistake will get made says Gates But obviously the status quo would have been a little simpler An unruffledcharmed life If Britain needs Gates then Gates also needs Britain As he often says no country bar the United States has been more generous with development aid In an age when democracy wears thin and the world faces a multitude of threats the largesse of the rich world cannot be taken for granted by the poor or by philanthropists Superficially Gatess charmed life seems unruffled The centre of his universe is a book-lined study in his Seattle mansion from where he can watch his wife paddling her kayak over Lake Washington The Gateses enjoy the usual pursuits of the affluent I play tennis we take vacations we ski a lot of fun things Gates prizes the contentment his longmarriage has brought him The son of alawyer father and a philanthropist mother he was a geek entrusted with compiling school timetables on an early computer beforedropping out of Harvard to found his multi billion company Surrounded by world leaders at the World Climate Change Conference Paris 2015 Credit Getty Melinda whom he met at a work function has been his constant partner in philanthropy working with him to disperse the Gates billions and to persuade titans such as Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey to part with large slices of their own wealth Jobs The trouble with Bill Gates was apparently not always so generous The late Steve Jobs founder of Apple observed fairly or not The trouble with Bill is that he wants to take a nickel out of every dollar that passes through his hand Once an accumulator of money Gates will now give away up to 99 per cent of his fortune leaving his children Jennifer Rory and Phoebe only relatively modest bequests There is no family business he says My kids will make their own careers Im very much the product of an urban upbringing Once in high school we went to someones farm and had to kill the chickens to eat them I was like This is horrific Somebody actually has to choke these things Oh my God Nonetheless the Gates brood show signs of following in their parents footsteps My eldest has just finished at Stanford University Shes the one who rides horses a bit Jennifer Gates is an accomplished show jumper Rory has two more years of high school Hes been in Morocco this summer because he wants to learn more about the country My youngest has been in Rwanda teaching in a public school Theyve been lucky enough to get a lot of international exposure and theyve gotten really enthused particularly about Africa Once I asked Melinda if hers was really a fairytale marriage She replied that no relationship was wholly idyllic and that her husband hated her habit of chewing ice cubes When I tell Gates that his wife was keen to dispel the myth of the perfect marriage he looks aghast She was She never told me Is he difficult to live with Well theres the question of sorting out the calendar We have so many things to do and thats always a challenge And Im a night person If I have a good book or Im doing something on the computer I have a tendency to stay up I never tell Melinda Im tired the next day or shell say its all my fault but she can often tell Ill try to be energetic and shell say You stayed up too late again With Angela Merkel in 2014 Credit Getty Gatess timetable is planned for him in the style of the US president on a minute-by minute basis Long days are carved into five-minute slices with every meeting and handshake timed to the second Where possible he clings to routine Cheeseburgers Diet Coke and strategy Joe Cerrell a managing director of the Gates Foundation says the hallmarks of a Gates tour include hotel rooms full of Diet Coke And cheeseburgers for lunch no matter who you are If you get the lunchtime slot with Bill youre eating burgers Someone will always be sent to get bags of McDonalds I dont think Melinda lets him have them at home Informal he may be but Gates is also an uncompromising boss He can be prettyimpatient Cerrell says With Bill you really do have to know your stuff Its like briefingthe smartest guy in the room He can get very frustrated if he thinks his time has been wasted Hes very funny too absolutely not arrogant But our days are pretty structured Bill Gates Late in the summer Gates set off for South Africa on a mission that he regarded as unusually crucial His first task was to deliver the Nelson Mandela Lecture in Pretoria in honour of his hero In the words of Mark Suzman the president and chief strategy officer of the Gates Foundation who travelled with him Veryfew people and Bill gets to meet just about everybody truly measure up to expectations Nelson Mandela was one of those people In Cape Town Gates addressed an international Aids conference on a mounting crisis With drugs beginning to lose their power infection numbers soaring and funding declining it looks possible that the Aids epidemic will again spiral out of control with grim consequences for the rest of the world As Gates said this was a pivotal moment Unless we start to dramatically reduce new infections we face potentially catastrophic consequences Bill Gates Credit Kate Peters Between public appearances Gates was feted At a dinner thrown in his honour by Patrice Motsepe South Africas first blackbillionaire government ministers paid their respects Muslim Coptic and Anglican leaders bestowed their blessings and the continents chief rabbi send a message of goodwill The reverential welcome over Gates visited the laboratory of his long-time adviser Professor Salim Abdool Karim who is leading cutting-edge research into HIV infection There Gates looked on as PhD students worked on a womans reproductive organs which had just been removed in surgery Far from being squeamish Gates was enthralled by what he saw and its potential Those young scientists have recreated the exposure and found what makes it more likely that youll get infected Bill Gates on Creating Microsoft and Going Public 01:31 Professor Karim had also set up a private meeting with three girls likely to get infected with HIV It is hard to imagine the geekish Gates chatting to young women about their sex lives but the encounter was a high pointof his trip I talked to them about why two of the three are not taking daily pills that prevent you getting HIV The girls told me they were meeting lots of boys and having sex but their ability to talk to their parents about that is pretty limited One girl said she didnt feel she could explain she was at risk Another thought that if she took the pills it would look as if she already had HIV and she feared the stigma It was fairly daunting to listen to them Was it not heartbreaking to hear girls the same age as his older daughter condemning themselves to illness or early death Gates replies as if they had been discussing computer malware Its great to get the exposure to practicalities he says Bill and Melinda Gates during an interview in February 2016 Credit Getty Though he does not care to display emotion he does not lack empathy As another Aids/HIV expert Professor Linda-Gail Bekker says You see the father side of him a generosity of spirit He makes eye contact with young people He doesnt suffer fools or people who say something stupid but adolescents love that They thrive on frankness honesty and his no-bullshit approach Optimism of youth Perhaps they also detect in Gates the optimism of youth A believer in perfectibility he has faith that the world for all its upheavals is changing for the better Theres no Gotcha factor he admits Its about a 30-year time frame for malaria eradication These things dont happen overnight Still neither terror nor the exodus of refugees nor warnings of an Aids explosion has dented Gatess hopes I consider virtually all the trends to be positive But there are three dark clouds that are always worth worrying about One is a natural pandemic or a terrorist with either a biological or nuclear weapon One is artificial intelligence and making sure the technology is used appropriately The third potential nightmare is the possible breakdown of democracy itself Jennifer Gates their eldest child who is an accomplished horsewoman Credit Getty How well does democracy work on getting collective action on top problems Sometimes you think Wow this is a pretty chaotic process I think its going to be OK but I do worry that budgets and laws are so complex thatpeople feel distanced from government that what they hear is that things arent going well Microsoft versus Facebook If democracy is faltering vast corporations seem eager to plug the gap Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook has pledged billionto cure all disease by the end of the century while Microsoft has vowed to solve the problem of cancer But many fear that unelected corporations hold too much power Gates disagrees Mark Zuckerberg is a good person Larry Page of Google is a good person I dont think these companies are malign Digital stuff is more intimate but John Rockefeller theoil magnate philanthropist and wealthiest American of all time controlled a much larger percentage of the economy and business transparency in those days was really quite poor Is it really much better now With Apples tax arrangements in Ireland exposed does he deplore companies who use vehicles for paying less tax Most companies are professional and careful By and large they will be deemed to have followed the rules but its still up to countries to decide if those are the tax rules they want going forward Do they have a goal ofcollecting more from the corporate sector That seems the cautious reply of a man who is always reassessing the fragile ecology in which nations corporations and governments co-exist Gates and his ilk have been accused of wielding too much sway but the truth as he knows well is that philanthropists such as him are dependent on the money the influence and the goodwill of governments now rocked by financial instability and voter unrest Thus far Britain has been unstinting in its backing of Gatess agenda But a new and reportedly more sceptical Prime Minister and voter resentment over foreign-aidspending suggest that old certainties may no longer apply As Gates arrives in London onthe latest leg of his crusade to debug theworld he will know that 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{"url": "https://www.ft.com/content/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0", "html": "An exclusive interview with Bill Gates Accessibility help Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer Subscribe to the FT Sign In Subscribe Menu Search Financial Times myFT Search the FT Home World Sections World Home World Economy UK US China Africa Asia Pacific Emerging Markets Europe Latin America Middle East and North Africa Most Read Theresa May prepares to publish flagship Brexit legislation G20 allies learn to work with and around Donald Trump North Korea condemns reckless US bombing exercises Hungarys Jews recoil at Fidesz portrayal of George Soros Trump says time to move forward with Russia UK Sections UK Home UK Business Economy UK Politics Policy UK Companies Most Read Theresa May prepares to publish flagship Brexit legislation Theresa May must push ahead with radical social reform Investors warn tidal power project risks stalling Business leaders feel the heat during Chevening Brexit 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super-rich Sign In Subscribe Menu Search Home World UK Companies Markets Opinion Work Careers Life Arts Financial Times Sign In Subscribe Search the FT Bill Gates An exclusive interview with Bill Gates Read next The life and work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase Friday July 2017 Share on Twitter opens new window Share on Facebook opens new window Share on LinkedIn opens new window Share on Whatsapp opens new window Print this page November 2013 by Richard Waters Gates photographed at the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle in SeptemberBill Gates describes himself as a technocrat But he does not believe that technology will save the world Or to be more precise he does not believe it can solve a tangle of entrenched and interrelated problems that afflict humanitys most vulnerable the spread of diseases in the developing world and the poverty lack of opportunity and despair they engender I certainly love the IT thing he says But when we want to improve lives youve got to deal with more basic things like child survival child nutrition.These days it seems that every West Coast billionaire has a vision for how technology can make the world a better place A central part of this new consensus is that the internet is an inevitable force for social and economic improvement that connectivity is a social good in itself It was a view that recently led Mark Zuckerberg to outline a plan for getting the worlds unconnected billion people online an effort the Facebook boss called one of the greatest challenges of our generation But asked whether giving the planet an internet connection is more important than finding a vaccination for malaria the co-founder of Microsoft and worlds second-richest man does not hide his irritation As a priority Its a joke.Then slipping back into the sarcasm that often breaks through when he is at his most engaged he adds Take this malaria vaccine this weird thing that Im thinking of Hmm which is more important connectivity or malaria vaccine If you think connectivity is the key thing thats great I dont.At 58 Bill Gates has lost none of the impatience or intellectual passion he was known for in his youth Sitting in his office on the shore of Seattles Lake Washington the man who dropped out of Harvard University nearly four decades ago and went on to build the worlds first software fortune is more relaxed than he was He has a better haircut and the more pronounced air of self-deprecation that comes with being married and having children who have reached adolescence But with the relentless intellectual energy he has always brought to bear on whatever issue is before him he still cant resist the jibes at ideas he thinks are wrong-headed After the interview his minders call to try and persuade me to not report his comments on Zuckerberg as a senior statesman of the tech and philanthropic worlds it doesnt help these days to pick fights.There is no getting round the fact however that Gates often sounds at odds with the new generation of billionaire technocrats He was the first to imagine that computing could seep into everyday life with the Microsoft mission to put a PC on every desk and in every home But while others talk up the world-changing power of the internet he is under no illusions that it will do much to improve the lives of the worlds poorest.Innovation is a good thing The human condition put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes is improving because of innovation he says But while technologys amazing it doesnt get down to the people most in need in anything near the timeframe we should want it to.It was an argument he says he made to Thomas Friedman as The New York Times columnist was writing his 2005 book The World is Flat a work that came to define the almost end-of-history optimism that accompanied the entry of China and India into the global labour markets a transition aided by the internet revolution Fine go to those Bangalore Infosys centres but just for the hell of it go three miles aside and go look at the guy living with no toilet no running water Gates says now The world is not flat and PCs are not in the hierarchy of human needs in the first five rungs.It is perceptions such as this that have led Gates to spend not just his fortune but most of his time on good works Other billionaires may take to philanthropy almost as a mark of their social status but for Gates it has the force of a moral imperative The decision to throw himself into causes like trying to prevent childhood deaths in the developing world or improving education in the US was the result of careful ethical calculations he says.Quoting from an argument advanced by moral philosopher Peter Singer for instance he questions why anyone would donate money to build a new wing for a museum rather than spend it on preventing illnesses that can lead to blindness The moral equivalent is were going to take per cent of the people who visit this museum and blind them he says Are they willing because it has the new wing to take that risk Hmm maybe this blinding thing is slightly barbaric.Gates aged 25 photographed in 1981 with Microsoft co-founder Paul AllenThrough the stroke of pen on cheque book Gates probably now has the power to affect the lives and wellbeing of a larger number of his fellow humans than any other private individual in history The Bill Melinda Gates Foundation which he set up with his wife in 1997 and where he has been working since leaving his full-time role at Microsoft five years ago gives away nearly 4bn a year Much of the money goes toward improving health and fighting poverty in developing countries by tackling malaria or paying for vaccination drives against infectious diseases This is nearly half as much as the US government spent on global health initiatives in 2012.In many ways Gates was the archetype for the successful tech entrepreneur the driven nerd who created an industry with little more than foresight and drive But to the generation of aspiring techno-visionaries who have followed the arc of his career no longer has the allure it once did even if his iconic status is assured These include people such as Peter Diamandis a serial entrepreneur who founded the Prize which in 1996 offered a 10m award for the first private sector organisation that could create a suborbital space rocket He likes to think big and his latest brainstorm involves trying to mine minerals on passing asteroids According to Diamandis the Gates Foundation with its focus on alleviating the suffering of the poorest smacks of the early 20th-century philanthropy of the robber barons men such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller who built and then milked monopolies before spending their later years doling out cash to worthy causes The latest wave of techno-visionaries he says is focused instead on creating whole new industries capable of changing the world At the height of its powers the way that Microsoft wielded its PC monopoly to maximise profits from the computing industry made it feared and hated by rivals and start-ups alike Now with the PC world on the wane and the companys leadership and direction in doubt it is spoken of almost with disdain in Silicon Valley even though it remains the third biggest tech company based on stock market value behind Apple and Google.Gates Foundation projectPartnering with Coca-Cola and Ghanas health servicesCoca-Cola is found in the remotest places on the planet The foundation is working with the multinational beverage company to use their supply chain expertise to help Ghanas health service improve delivery of vaccines to the most difficult-to-access patients including more efficient management of refrigeration systems.Gates fends off questions about Microsoft though he says contrary to persistent speculation that he is not about to step back in to run it as Steve Jobs once returned to revive Apple He also admits that the company is taking up a much bigger slice of his time than the one day a week to which he signed up after he left As chairman and a member of the committee searching for a replacement to Steve Ballmer as chief executive Gates says he still holds regular meetings with some of the companys product groups and that he expects to spend considerable time working with the next boss after an appointment is made.To Diamandiss argument that there is more good to be done in the world by building new industries than by giving away money meanwhile he has a brisk retort Industries are only valuable to the degree they meet human needs Theres not some at least in my psyche this notion of oh we need new industries We need children not to die we need people to have an opportunity to get a good education.It takes more than money to rid the world of a scourge such as polio though having buckets of cash certainly helps Also needed are ambitious thinking organisational knowhow and the ability to bring new ideas to bear on old problems These are also the kind of things that go into creating a successful technology company This time around though Bill Gates the CEO has had to take a back seat to a less familiar persona Bill Gates the diplomat.When the Gates Foundation made polio eradication a priority five years ago the global anti-polio effort was running into the sand More than 10 years of progress had given way at around the turn of the millennium to a stalemate as vaccination efforts in the countries still harbouring the disease failed to reach the coverage levels needed to push it into extinction The organisations behind the existing drive such as Rotary International the business group that had long led the effort had sort of naively assumed it was on track but it wasnt Gates says The idea that business as usual was going to get us there it had to be broken out of that because it wasnt going to succeed It probably would have been better to just give up than do business as usual But that would have been horrific.Gates seems to relish nothing more than challenging business as usual often by applying a dose of more ambitious thinking It was the same impetus that led him to rethink familiar approaches to philanthropy throwing his money into the urgent pursuit of solutions to big problems rather than attempting a drip-feed of donations that would amount to little more than a Band-Aid While the foundations started by the likes of Howard Hughes and pharmaceuticals boss Sir Henry Wellcome are still among the handful of the worlds richest decades after their founders deaths the Gates Foundation has been programmed to dole out all its cash and wind itself up 20 years after their deaths.The instinct to shake up the complacent and challenge the intellectually lazy doesnt always win Gates friends Putting his personal money and reputation on the line to eradicate a disease has also risked accusations of vanity a case of the ego philanthropy that can distort goals when the super-rich get involved Wiping out a disease has only happened once before when the World Health Organisation declared in 1980 that smallpox had been eliminated Helping to finance and organise a second eradication would cap the Gates Foundations emergence as the most significant private charity in the world of global health It would also set the stage for the next items on the list of diseases it hopes eventually to wipe out starting with malaria Gates with his wife Melinda at a meeting in 2011 with members of the Mushar community in Jamsot near Patna IndiaGates brushes off questions about the merits of the eradication effort and whether other initiatives might be a better investment in terms of the immediate number of lives saved Eradications are special he says Zero is a magic number You either do what it takes to get to zero and youre glad you did it or you get close give up and it goes back to where it was before in which case you wasted all that credibility activity money that could have been applied to other things.Since he threw his organisation behind the effort polio has been eradicated in India But it remains rooted in Afghanistan Nigeria and Pakistan spilling over sporadically into their neighbours That these three countries remain among the worlds most difficult to operate in in Pakistan the Taliban has taken to bombing vaccination teams accusing them of being in cahoots with the CIA provides a clue about why nearly 30 years after the eradication campaign began polio persists Eradication has little to do with making advances in science and technology though work on new vaccines targeted more directly at the strains of the disease that remain has helped in the fight.Take one of the biggest challenges to managing immunisation campaigns against polio and other diseases in the developing world getting vaccines to where theyre required while keeping their temperature in a narrow 2C-8C range to prevent them spoiling Running the so-called cold chain needed for this to happen from big refrigerators in regional distribution centres to the cases vaccinators carry into the field requires painstaking logistical organisation Often kerosene or other fuels used in refrigeration are in short supply or antiquated equipment fails due to lack of maintenance According to Gates problems like these are too low-tech to attract the worlds best brains Unfortunately its a very mundane practical thing he says Its not sexy from a scientific point of view.A businessmans understanding of incentives helps The number of fridges needed is not large enough to provide a profitable market for manufacturers so the foundation has had to make financial commitments in advance The business model of the vaccine makers gives them little reason to lower their manufacturing costs to make their products more affordable he adds Their high costs are more than covered by prices they can charge in the developed world and any mistakes they might make as a result of tampering with their carefully regulated production processes would jeopardise that existing business Thats not science thats how the hell do you make 50 cent vaccines?Gates Foundation projectNeedle-free immunisationThe disposable-syringe jet injector DSJI is a needle-free immunisation system developed by Path a non-profit organisation with funding from the foundation Using a pressurised liquid stream to push through the skin it prevents cross-contamination and injuries to medical staff Management methods that would be immediately familiar to anyone involved in the fast-moving technology world are also being brought to bear These include employing the rapid cycle of trial and error that new tech companies engage in before pouring money into a formula that works a process known as scaling which takes place as they race to capitalise on a new market before rivals emerge.Apoorva Mallya a senior program officer who works on country implementation puts the success in stamping out the disease in India partly down to pouring money into local initiatives that had the potential to be effective across the country but which were being conducted on too small a scale to make a difference These included assigning community mobilisers to individual districts and neighbourhoods before vaccination drives began in order to organise meetings of women and overcome distrust or resistance We went in and funded them for a massive expansion across India he says.Another method familiar from the tech world involves more effective data collection and analysis Vaccination drives fail if too many children fall through the net To get a better understanding of effectiveness the foundation has paid for teams of researchers to use statistical sampling to see if adequate coverage levels have been reached.Measurement is also being brought to bear to build a more detailed understanding of how costs are incurred in vaccination drives Without that data its hard to know where to focus attention to make global health programmes more effective says Orin Levine who runs the foundations vaccination efforts We dont necessarily differentiate where the costs are in the system yet so it makes it harder to say an innovation in a particular area will be something we really want he explains.This kind of rigour would be familiar inside an engineering-centric company such as Microsoft where rationality reigns But in the more chaotic world of global aid with its loose alliance of government agencies NGOs and charities many of them operating with only partial information it does not pay to assume such disciplines Learning to work in that world is one of the greatest adjustments.The fact that people dont understand numbers and systems thinking and science and logic thats OK Gates says though his famous impatience might belie such a claim I only need a half of the people who contribute to really think in a way where I can say hey come on theres a theory of change here do you get it do you get if that piece doesnt happen it completely messes up that piece?Like many self-made business people Gates is wary about the ability of governments to deal with some of societys most pressing problems Personal experience might have something to do with it More than a decade ago his fight with the US Department of Justice over whether Microsoft had acted illegally to defend its PC software monopoly ended in defeat though a settlement with the George Bush White House saved the company from the forced break-up that a judge had ordered.Gates describes himself as a natural optimist But he admits that the fight with the US government seriously challenged his belief that the best outcome would always prevail With a typically generalising sweep across history he declares that governments have worked pretty well on balance in playing their role to improve the human condition and that in the US since 1776 the governments played an absolutely central role and something wonderful has happened But that doesnt settle his unease The closer you get to it and see how the sausage is made the more you go oh my God These guys dont even actually know the budget It makes you think can complex technocratically deep things like running a healthcare system properly in the US in terms of impact and cost can that get done It hangs in the balance.It isnt just governments that may be unequal to the task On this analysis the democratic process in most countries is also straining to cope with the problems thrown up by the modern world placing responsibilities on voters that they can hardly be expected to fulfil The idea that all these people are going to vote and have an opinion about subjects that are increasingly complex where what seems you might think the easy answer is not the real answer Its a very interesting problem Do democracies faced with these current problems do these things well?Gates Foundation projectCreating a vaccine that can survive at room temperatureIn 2010 the Serum Institute of India with funding from the Gates Foundation Meningitis Vaccine Project developed MenAfriVac the first meningitis vaccine to be pre-qualified by the World Health Organisation for use at temperatures of up to 40C for up to four days This made distributing the medication in rural areas much easier.Compared with fixing the US healthcare system the issues of global health and development taken on by Gates foundation are by his own estimate relatively straightforward But the work has required him to develop new skills a willingness to engage with politicians and to develop reserves of diplomacy and persuasiveness With more than 1,000 staff members and the ambition to shape the broad strategies directed at solving the problems it takes on the foundation does much more than simply hand over money It relies on partnerships with a wide range of government agencies and other bodies to have any effect and that has forced Gates the uncompromising and impatient tech leader to apply the human touch.Workers at the foundation say that he has been closely involved even at a regional and district level in winning the needed political backing Gates for instance says he personally bonded with Nitish Kumar the highly rated chief minister of the Indian state of Bihar over the latters strong backing for vaccination efforts Sometimes in the field of global development however it is enough simply to be Bill Gates the fame and wealth work their own magic If I need to go to the Indian parliament and say Lets get serious about vaccines then yes since Im giving my own money on a large scale and spending my life on it and Im a technocrat yes that can be quite valuable.If this brand of international development diplomacy has required new skills however some things havent changed Talk to almost anyone who has worked with Gates and they have a story about his intensity On trips to the developing world his tirelessness wears out those around him Inside the foundation he shows the kind of endurance that once inspired and exhausted Microsoft product managers He wants to do the work with us at the most granular level He will sit in four-hour meetings with us going over slide page after slide page says Raja Rao who heads the foundations work on perfecting the cold chain Ive seen him sit in a room for 11 hours nonstop just talking about technology eating snacks and drinking Diet Coke.Many of the works on the bookshelves in Gates office overlooking Lake Washington are scientific tomes on the diseases that he is combating of which with characteristic diligence he now has a deep personal understanding according to others at the foundation A voracious reader he has always taken periodic breaks from his regular routine to read about and ponder the biggest problems he has taken on his conversation is littered with references to authors Given the smallest excuse he plunges into a description of the different types of polio and vaccines and then into the genetic tests that show how the disease once persisted and spread in areas like Uttar Pradesh even when full outbreaks were rare.Gates Foundation projectRe-thinking the child health recordPaper health records are one of the most reliable sources of medical information Yet they are often less useful than they might be lacking enough space to include all relevant information and made of cheap paper which can disintegrate In June the foundation launched the 50,000 Records for Life Contest in search of a more durable format to increase usage and the accuracy of information recorded.This is the Gates who once ruled Microsoft with a command of detail and intellectual intensity that led to the kind of culture that was capable of dominating the tech world even as it tipped over into behaviour that brought a regulatory backlash I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient he says I dont think Ive given up either of those things entirely Hopefully its more measured in a way.If the manner has mellowed though the uncompromising attitude is still very much in evidence It is at once one of the strongest assets and one of the biggest hindrances in his plan to save some of the worlds poorest from the fate to which a sometimes oblivious world has left them Knowing how to pursue an unflinching personal logic without alienating people remains a work in progress for him When we had a meeting a couple of years ago when people werent thinking through the polio thing very well I was pretty critical he says His message to the assembled workers Hey this is not good thinking this is not good this is not going to get us there.The new Gates though was not prepared to leave it at that After the meeting was over he did what husbands the world over are liable to do at such times I said to Melinda was I too tough on that who should I send mail to was that motivational de-motivational Its all a matter of degree.Richard Waters is the FTs West Coast editor To comment on this article please email magazineletters@ft.comThis article was amended on November 2013 An argument forwarded by Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer was wrongly attritubted to hedge fund manager Paul Singer Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017 All rights reserved You may share using our article tools Please don't copy articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web Share on Twitter opens new window Share on Facebook opens new window Share on LinkedIn opens new window Share on Whatsapp opens new window Print this page Latest in FT Magazine The life and work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase Friday July 2017 The Inventory The Inventory Q&A with novelist Sarah Perry Friday July 2017 Douglas Coupland Douglas Coupland on the celebrities in your brain Friday July 2017 Gillian Tett How Trump is accidentally making America green again Friday July 2017 Drinks expert Pete Brown on the best beer festivals Friday July 2017 Read latest The life and work of Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase Friday July 2017 Latest on Bill Gates Latest in FT Magazine myFT Follow the topics 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{"url": "https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197526", "html": "Bill Gates Biography Home Top 50 How To Magazine Franchise 500 Spotlight Subscribe Growth Strategies Bill Gates The digital demagogue earned billions by anticipating the market's needs Now his philanthropic foundation is helping countless others across the globe Image credit Francois Lenoir REUTERS Shares Bill GatesCo-founder of Microsoft Corp.Founded 1975\"Ultimately the PC will be a window to everything people are interested in-and everything we need to know.\"-Bill GatesSome see him as an innovative visionary who sparked a computer revolution Others see him as a modern-day robber baron whose predatory practices have stifled competition in the software industry Regardless of what his supporters and detractors may think few can argue that Bill Gates is one of if not the most successful entrepreneur of the 20th century In just 25 years he built a two-man operation into a multibillion-dollar colossus and made himself the richest man in the world somewhere along the way Yet he accomplished this feat not by inventing new technology but by taking existing technology adapting it to a specific market and then dominating that market through innovative promotion and cunning business savvy.Gates first exposure to computers came while he was attending the prestigious Lakeside School in Seattle A local company offered the use of its computer to the school through a Teletype link and young Gates became entranced by the possibilities of the primitive machine Along with fellow student Paul Allen he began ditching class to work in the school's computer room Their work would soon pay off When Gates was 15 he and Allen went into business together The two teens netted 20,000 with Traf-O-Data a program they developed to measure traffic flow in the Seattle area.Despite his love and obvious aptitude for computer programming and perhaps because of his father's influence Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973 By his own admission he was there in body but not in spirit preferring to spend his time playing poker and video games rather than attending class.All that changed in December 1974 when Allen showed Gates a magazine article about the world's first microcomputer the Altair 8800 Seeing an opportunity Gates and Allen called the manufacturer MITS in Albuquerque New Mexico and told the president they had written a version of the popular computer language BASIC for the Altair When he said he'd like to see it Gates and Allen who actually hadn't written anything starting working day and night in Harvard's computer lab Because they did not have an Altair to work on they were forced to simulate it on other computers When Allen flew to Albuquerque to test the program on the Altair neither he nor Gates was sure it would run But run it did Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved with Allen to Albuquerque where they officially established Microsoft MITS collapsed shortly thereafter but Gates and Allen were already writing software for other computer start-ups including Commodore Apple and Tandy Corp.The duo moved the company to Seattle in 1979 and that's when Microsoft hit the big time When Gates learned IBM was having trouble obtaining an operating system for its new PC he bought an existing operating system from a small Seattle company for 50,000 developed it into MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System then licensed it to IBM The genius of the IBM deal masterminded by Gates was that while IBM got MS-DOS Microsoft retained the right to license it to other computer makers.Much as Gates had anticipated after the first IBM PCs were released cloners such as Compaq began producing compatible PCs and the market was soon flooded with clones Like IBM rather than produce their own operating systems the cloners decided it was cheaper to purchase MS-DOS off the shelf As a result MS-DOS became the standard operating system for the industry and Microsoft's sales soared from million in 1980 to 16 million in 1981.Microsoft expanded into applications software and continued to grow unchecked until 1984 when Apple introduced the first Macintosh computer The Macintosh's sleek graphical user interface GUI was far easier to use than MS-DOS and threatened to make the Microsoft program obsolete In response to this threat Gates announced that Microsoft was developing its own GUI-based operating system called Windows Gates then took Microsoft public in 1986 to generate capital The IPO was a roaring success making Gates one of the wealthiest people in the country overnight.When Windows was finally released in 1985 it wasn't exactly the breakthrough Gates had predicted Critics claimed it was slow and cumbersome Apple wasn't exactly pleased either They saw Windows as a rip-off of the Macintosh operating system and sued The case would drag on until the mid-1990s when the courts finally decided that Apple's suit had no merit.Meanwhile Gates worked on improving Windows Subsequent versions of the program ran faster and froze less frequently Third-party programmers began developing Windows-based programs and Microsoft's own applications became hot sellers By 1993 Windows was selling at a rate of million copies per month and was estimated to be running on nearly 85 percent of the world's computers.Microsoft solidified its industry dominance in the mid-1990s by combining Windows with its other applications into suites and persuading leading computer makers to preload their software on every computer they sold The strategy worked so well that by 1999 Microsoft was posting sales of 19.7 billion and Gates personal wealth had grown to a phenomenal 90 billion.But with success has come scrutiny Microsoft's competitors have complained that the company uses its operating system monopoly to retard the development of new technology a claim Gates soundly refutes Nevertheless the U.S Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in 1998 over its practice of bundling software with Windows.In November 1999 a U.S District Court ruled that Microsoft indeed had a monopoly in the market for desktop-computer operating systems The court also found that Microsoft engaged in tactics aimed at snuffing out any innovation that threatened its dominance of the multibillion-dollar computer industry A court settlement was approvedin 2002 with Microsoft consenting to curb some of its objectionablepractices Microsoft has since been the focus ofantitrust actions from the European Commission and private litigants.Attempting to explain his tremendous success industry experts have pointed out that there are really two Bill Gateses One is a consummate computer geek who can hack code with the best of them The other is a hard-driven businessman who unlike most of his fellow Silicon Valley superstars took readily to commerce and has an innate instinct for the marketplace This combination enabled Gates to see what his competitors could not While they were focusing on selling software Gates was focusing on setting standards first with MS-DOS and later with Windows The standards he helped set shaped the modern computer industry and will continue to influence its growth well into the next century.Dead GiveawayAs a child Bill Gates two favorite games were Risk where the object is world domination and Monopoly.\"Microsoft's Other Billionaire Bill Gates has become the singular face of Microsoft but the company wouldn't be what it is today without Paul Allen It was Allen who primarily wrote Microsoft's first program and according to Microsoft veterans he championed the company's biggest successes including MS-DOS Windows and Microsoft Word But Allen reached a turning point in 1983 when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.Forced to rethink his priorities Allen resigned from his day-to-day duties at Microsoft and resolved to spend more time enjoying the luxuries his great wealth could afford He pursued the good life for two or three years during which time the cancer went into remission Rather than return to Microsoft however he plunged into another start-up founding Asymetrix in 1985 and has since gone on to become one of the country's most successful high-tech venture capitalists Bill Gates Seattle Radicals Visionaries Grow Your Business Icons Next Article How to Prioritize Your Inbox Infographic Read Now Next Article How to Prioritize Your Inbox Infographi Company Advertise Brand Licensing Contact Us Staff Contribute Upcoming Events Customer Care Strategies Webinar Ask Entrepreneur Entrepreneur 360 Livestream Products Business Books Reprints Licensing Classifieds Editions United States Middle East India Espaol Albanian Philippines South Africa China Connect Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google Pinterest Instagram YouTube Flickr Tumblr RSS Feedly Join Our Newsletter Get our best stories of the week direct to your inbox Subscribe Now Gift Subscriptions Subscriber Services Digital Editions iOSAndroidKindle Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur Media Inc 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