William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist who is the co-founder of Microsoft and longtime acquaintance of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Contents
- 1 Education
- 2 Career
- 2.1 Microsoft
- 2.2 After Microsoft
- 3 Media portrayal
- 4 References
- 5 External links
Education[]
Gates scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.[1] He chose a pre-law major but took mathematics and graduate level computer science courses.[2] While at Harvard, he met fellow student Steve Ballmer. Gates left Harvard after less than two years while Ballmer stayed and graduated magna cum laude. Ballmer would later succeed Gates as Microsoft's CEO in 2000.[3][4]
Career[]
In 1972, Gates and classmate Paul Allen formed a venture called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.[5]
Microsoft[]
Gates left Harvard to co-found Microsoft on April 4, 1975 with Paul Allen to pursue an opportunity to develop a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800.[5]
In 1983, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs invited Gates to preview the pre-release development of the Macintosh. After Jobs was forced out and Microsoft had released Windows 2.0 with a GUI that was similar to the Mac, Apple Computer, under CEO John Sculley, filed a federal lawsuit in 1988 against Microsoft.[6][7]
After Jobs returned to a financially troubled Apple Computer, he negotiated an end to the lawsuits with Microsoft and agreed to cross-license technology between the two companies in exchange for Microsoft's commitment to continue developing software such as Microsoft Office for the Mac and an investment of $150 million in Apple non-voting stock. Apple also agreed to include the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser by default with future Mac OS releases for the next 5 years. Though the joint announcement by Jobs and Gates was met with shock at Macworld Expo Boston in 1997, the investment from Microsoft helped save Apple from bankruptcy.[6]
In 2019, the Microsoft board of directors hired an outside law firm to investigate allegations that Bill Gates had been carrying on an affair with a Microsoft employee. He resigned from the board in March 2020 before the investigation had been completed.[8] Current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella responded by stating that the "Microsoft of 2021 is very different from the Microsoft of 2000".[9]
After Microsoft[]
In 2000, Gates and his wife Melinda had combined three family foundations and donated stock valued at US$5billion to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was identified as the world's wealthiest charitable foundation in 2013, with assets reportedly valued at more than $34.6billion at the time.[10][11] As of November 2019, foundation indirectly owned $1.8billion worth of Apple stock through its investment in Berkshire Hathaway.[12] On May 3, 2021, Gates announced that he and Melinda were divorcing,[13] leaving the future of their foundation in question.[14] Melinda had reportedly hired divorce lawyers after discovering that Bill had been associating with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.[15]
Media portrayal[]
Gates was portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall in the television dramatization Pirates of Silicon Valley.[16]
References[]
- ↑ The new—and improved?—SAT. The Week Magazine. Archived from the original on May 10, 2006. Retrieved on May 23, 2006.
- ↑ Timeline: Bill Gates: 1973; from google (bill gates major in harvard) result 3. Archived from the original on October 5, 2015.
- ↑ "Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization", January 1, 2012, p.263. Retrieved on October 25, 2015.
- ↑ Mejia, Zameena (April 29, 2018). The No. 1 thing Bill Gates wishes he'd done in college (en).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Road Ahead by Bill Gates, Penguin Books. 1996. ISBN 0-14-026040-4.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Microsoft's relationship with Apple by Christoph Dernbach, Mac History. 2011-01-30.
- ↑ Today in Apple history: Microsoft gets sued for ripping off Mac OS by Luke Dormehl, Cult of Mac. 2019-03-17.
- ↑ Microsoft board members thought Gates should step down after affair with employee: WSJ by Sam Byford, The Verge. 2021-05-16.
- ↑ Microsoft CEO responds to news of Bill Gates' affair with employee by Clare Duffy, CNN Business. 2021-05-21.
- ↑ Gates foundation. Archived from the original on May 23, 2012.
- ↑ Robin Toal (September 16, 2013). The Top Ten US Charitable Foundations. Funds For NGOs. Funds For NGOs, LLC. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved on April 6, 2014.
- ↑ Why Microsoft founder Bill Gates owns a $2.7 billion stake in Apple by Anastasia Santoreneos. 2020-02-05.
- ↑ After a great deal of though and a lot of work on our relationship, by Bill Gates., Twitter. 2021-05-03.
- ↑ Bill and Melinda Gates are getting divorced, future of foundation in question by Tim Stelloh, Dylan Byers and Ben Popken, NBC News. 2021-05-03.
- ↑ What We Know About Bill Gates’s Friendship with Jeffrey Epstein by Mia Mercado, New York. 2021-05-17.
- ↑ Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), Internet Movie Database. Accessed 2020-02-09.
External links[]
- GatesNotes the blog of Bill Gates
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Bill Gates at C-SPAN
- Bill Gates at Forbes
- Bill Gates at the Internet Movie Database
- Bill Gates at TED
- Bill Gates official Twitter
- Bill Gates official YouTube channel
- Bill Gates at the Microsoft Wiki
- Bill Gates at Wikipedia
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