William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born: October 28, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and software developer, best known for co-founding Microsoft and is one of the richest people in the world.
History[]
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Microsoft went on to be the world's largest personal computer software company. Bill Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, but he remained chairman and became chief software architect.
He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella. In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his endeavors including climate change, global health and development, and education.
Personal life[]
Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955. He is the son of William H. Gates Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. He is of English, German, and Irish ancestry.
Early in his life, Gates observed that his parents wanted him to pursue a law career. At 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school, where he wrote his first software program. Bill Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.
In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 was released based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Bill Gates and Paul saw the opportunity to start their own computer software company. Gates dropped out of Harvard that same year. His parents were supportive of him after seeing how much he wanted to start his own company. He explained his decision to leave Harvard: "If things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I was officially on leave."
