| Bill Gates | |
|---|---|
Gates in June 2015.
| |
| Born | William Henry Gates III October 28, 1955 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Residence | Medina, Washington, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (no degree) |
| Occupation | Technology Advisor of Microsoft Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO of Cascade Investment Chair of Corbis |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Net worth | US$75.9 billion (May 2016)[1] |
| Board member of | Microsoft Berkshire Hathaway |
| Spouse(s) | Melinda Gates (m. 1994) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | |
| Website | the Gates Notes |
| Signature | |
 | |
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, andprogrammer.[2][3] In 1975, Gates and Paul Allenco-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, and was the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.[4][a] Gates has authored and co-authored several books.
Starting in 1987, Gates was included in theForbes list of the world's wealthiest people[7]and was the wealthiest from 1995 to 2007, again in 2009, and has been since 2014.[8]Between 2009 and 2014, his wealth doubled from US$40 billion to more than US$82 billion.[9]Between 2013 and 2014, his wealth increased by US$15 billion.[10] Gates is currently the wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of US$77.3 billion.[11]
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates 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.[12][13] 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.
Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect for himself.[14] 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.[15] He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie (chief software architect) and Craig Mundie (chief research and strategy officer).[16] Ozzie later left the company. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008.[16] He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft, in February 2014, taking on a new post as technology adviser to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella.[17]
Early life
Gates was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. He is the son of William H. Gates, Sr.[b] and Mary Maxwell Gates. Gates' ancestral origin includes English, German, andIrish, Scots-Irish.[18][19] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates's maternal grandfather was JW Maxwell, a national bank president. Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had the "II" suffix.[20] Early on in his life, Gates's parents had a law career in mind for him.[21] When Gates was young, his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches, a ProtestantReformed denomination.[22][23][24] 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".[25]
Microsoft
Main articles: History of Microsoft and Microsoft
BASIC
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.[44] 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 Altairemulator 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,[45] 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.[45]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.[45]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.[46]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.[45] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington, on January 1, 1979.[44]
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.[47]
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