Bill Gates
Bill Gates (1955-)
With Paul Allen, Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, Inc., the world’s largest personal computer software company. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. He is a business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer and inventor. He discovered computers at age 13. While at Harvard he developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer. He and childhood friend Paul Allen believed that the computer would be useful in business – a computer on every office desktop – as well as at home. His foresight for personal computing has been central to the success of Microsoft. He retired from Microsoft to devote full time effort to his philanthropic endeavors with his wife, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – a global health and education initiative.
