Bill Gates

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Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28,

1955) is an American business magnate,
software developer, and philanthropist.
He is best known as the co-founder of
Microsoft Corporation.[2][3] During his
career at Microsoft, Gates held the
positions of chairman, chief executive
officer (CEO), president and chief
software architect, while also being the
largest individual shareholder until May
2014. He is one of the best-known
entrepreneurs and pioneers of the
microcomputer revolution of the 1970s
and 1980s.
Bill Gates
Gates in 2018
Born William Henry Gates

III
October 28, 1955
Seattle, Washington,
U.S.
Education Harvard University

(dropped out)
Occupation Software developer •

investor •
entrepreneur
Years active 1975–present
Known for Co-founding
Microsoft
Net worth US$120.3 billion
(December 25,
2020)[1]
Title Co-chairman and co-

founder of the Bill
& Melinda Gates
Foundation
Chairman and
founder of Branded
Entertainment
Network
Chairman and co-
founder of
TerraPower
Chairman and
founder of
Cascade
Investment
Technology advisor
of Microsoft
Spouse(s) Melinda Gates (m. 1994)
Children 3
Parents Bill Gates Sr. (father)

Mary Maxwell
(mother)
Website www.gatesnotes
.com
Signature
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington,
Gates co-founded Microsoft with
childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, in
Albuquerque, New Mexico; it went on to
become the world's largest personal
computer software company.[4][a] 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.[7]
During the late 1990s, he had been
criticized for his business tactics, which
have been considered anti-competitive.
This opinion has been upheld by
numerous court rulings.[8] In June 2006,
Gates announced that he would be
transitioning to a part-time role at
Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, the private
charitable foundation that he and his
wife, Melinda Gates, established in
2000.[9] He gradually transferred his
duties to Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie.[10]
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.[11] In March 2020, Gates left his
board positions at Microsoft and
Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his
philanthropic endeavors including climate
change, global health and development,
and education.[12]
Since 1987, he has been included in the
Forbes list of the world's wealthiest
people.[13][14] From 1995 to 2017, he held
the Forbes title of the richest person in
the world all but four of those years.[15] In
October 2017, he was surpassed by
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos,
who had an estimated net worth of
US$90.6 billion compared to Gates's net
worth of US$89.9 billion at the time.[16]
As of November 2020, Gates had an
estimated net worth of US$120.3 billion,
making him the fourth-wealthiest person
in the world, behind Elon Musk, Bezos,
and Bernard Arnault.[17][b]
Later in his career and since leaving day-
to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008,
Gates has pursued a number of
philanthropic endeavors. He has given
sizable amounts of money to various
charitable organizations and scientific
research programs through the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to
be the world's largest private charity.[19]
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.[20]
Early life
Gates was born in Seattle, Washington,
on October 28, 1955.[3] He is the son of
William H. Gates Sr.[c] (1925–2020) and
Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994).[21] His
ancestry includes English, German, and
Irish/Scots-Irish.[22] His father was a
prominent lawyer, and his mother served
on the board of directors for First
Interstate BancSystem and the United
Way of America. Gates's maternal
grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a
national bank president. Gates has an
older sister Kristi (Kristianne) and a
younger sister Libby. He is the fourth of
his name in his family but is known as
William Gates III or "Trey" (i.e., three)
because his father had the "II"
suffix.[23][24] The family lived in the Sand
Point area of Seattle in a home that was
damaged by a rare tornado when Gates
was seven years old.[25]
Early in his life, Gates observed that his

parents wanted him to pursue a law
career.[26] When he was young, his family
regularly attended a church of the
Congregational Christian Churches, a
Protestant Reformed
denomination.[27][28][29] Gates was small
for his age and was bullied as a child.[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".[30]
Gates (right) with Paul Allen at Lakeside School in

1970
At 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside

prep school,[31][32] where he wrote his
first software program.[33] 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 students.[34] Gates took
an interest in programming the GE
system in BASIC, and he 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.[35] After the Mothers Club
donation was exhausted, Gates 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 for the
summer Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland,
and Gates's best friend and first business
partner Kent Evans, after it caught them
exploiting bugs in the operating system
to obtain free computer time.[36][24]
The four students formed the Lakeside

Programmers Club to make money.[24] At
the end of the ban, they offered to find
bugs in CCC's software in exchange for
extra computer time. Rather than use the
system remotely via Teletype, Gates
went to CCC's offices and studied source
code for various programs that ran on
the system, including Fortran, Lisp, and
machine language. The arrangement with
CCC continued until 1970 when the
company went out of business.
The following year, a Lakeside teacher

enlisted Gates and Evans to automate
the school's class-scheduling system,
providing them computer time and
royalties in return. The duo worked
diligently in order to have the program
ready for their senior year. Towards the
end of their junior year, Evans was killed
in a mountain climbing accident, which
Gates has described as one of the
saddest days of his life. Gates then
turned to Allen who helped him finish the
system for Lakeside.[24]
At 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen
called Traf-O-Data to make traffic
counters based on the Intel 8008
processor.[37] In 1972, he served as a
congressional page in the House of
Representatives.[38][39] He was a National
Merit Scholar when he graduated from
Lakeside School in 1973.[40] He scored
1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic
Aptitude Tests (SAT) and enrolled at
Harvard College in the autumn of
1973.[41][42] He chose a pre-law major but
took mathematics and graduate level
computer science courses.[43] While at
Harvard, he met fellow student Steve
Ballmer. Gates left Harvard after two
years while Ballmer stayed and
graduated magna cum laude. Years later,
Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft's
CEO and maintained that position from
2000 until his resignation in 2014.[44][45]
Gates devised an algorithm for pancake

sorting as a solution to one of a series of
unsolved problems[46] presented in a
combinatorics class by professor Harry
Lewis. His solution held the record as the
fastest version for over 30 years, and its
successor is faster by only 2%.[46][47] His
solution was formalized and published in
collaboration with Harvard computer
scientist Christos Papadimitriou.[48]
Gates remained in contact with Paul

Allen and joined him at Honeywell during
the summer of 1974.[49] In 1975, the MITS
Altair 8800 was released based on the
Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw
the opportunity to start their own
computer software company.[50] 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.[51] 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."[52]
Microsoft
BASIC
MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm)
floppy disk system, of which the first programming
language for the machine was Microsoft's founding
product, the Altair BASIC
Gates read the January 1975 issue of

Popular Electronics which demonstrated
the Altair 8800, and he contacted Micro
Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems
(MITS) to inform them that he and others
were working on a BASIC interpreter for
the platform.[53] 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
demonstration, 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 was held at MITS's
offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it
was a success and resulted in a deal
with MITS to distribute the interpreter as
Altair BASIC. MITS hired Allen,[54] and
Gates took a leave of absence from
Harvard to work with him at MITS in
November 1975. Allen named their
partnership "Micro-Soft", a combination
of "microcomputer" and "software", and
their first office was in Albuquerque. The
first employee Gates and Allen hired was
their high school collaborator Ric
Weiland.[54] They dropped the hyphen
within a year and officially registered the
trade name "Microsoft" with the
Secretary of the State of New Mexico on
November 26, 1976.[54] 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 out and was being widely copied
and distributed. In February 1976, he
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 the Altair "hobby
market" was in danger of eliminating the
incentive for any professional developers
to produce, distribute, and maintain high-
quality software.[55] 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.[54] The company moved
from Albuquerque to Bellevue,
Washington on January 1, 1979.[53]
Gates said he personally reviewed and

often rewrote every line of code that the
company produced in its first five years.
As the company grew he transitioned into
a manager role, then an executive.[56]
IBM partnership
IBM, the leading supplier of computer

equipment to commercial enterprises at
the time, approached Microsoft in July
1980 concerning software for its
upcoming personal computer, the IBM
PC.[57] IBM first proposed that Microsoft
write the BASIC interpreter. IBM's
representatives also mentioned that they
needed an operating system, and Gates
referred them to Digital Research (DRI),
makers of the widely used CP/M
operating system.[58] IBM's discussions
with Digital Research went poorly,
however, and they did not reach a
licensing agreement. IBM representative
Jack Sams mentioned the licensing
difficulties during a subsequent meeting
with Gates and asked if Microsoft could
provide an operating system. A few
weeks later, Gates and Allen proposed
using 86-DOS, an operating system
similar to CP/M, that Tim Paterson of
Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had
made for hardware similar to the PC.[59]
Microsoft made a deal with SCP to be
the exclusive licensing agent of 86-DOS,
and later the full owner. Microsoft
employed Paterson to adapt the
operating system for the PC[60] and
delivered it to IBM as PC DOS for a one-
time fee of $50,000.[61]
The contract itself only earned Microsoft

a relatively small fee. It was the prestige
brought to Microsoft by IBM's adoption
of their operating system that would be
the origin of Microsoft's transformation
from a small business to the leading
software company in the world. Gates
had not offered to transfer the copyright
on the operating system to IBM because
he believed that other personal computer
makers would clone IBM's PC
hardware.[61] They did, making the IBM-
compatible PC, running DOS, a de facto
standard. The sales of MS-DOS (the
version of DOS sold to customers other
than IBM) made Microsoft a major player
in the industry.[62] The press quickly
identified Microsoft as being very
influential on the IBM PC. PC Magazine
asked if Gates was "the man behind the
machine?".[57]
Gates oversaw Microsoft's company

restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-
incorporated the company in Washington
state and made Gates the president and
chairman of the board, with Paul Allen as
vice president and vice chairman. In early
1983, Allen left the company after
receiving a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis,
effectively ending the formal business
partnership between Gates and Allen,
which had been strained months prior
due to a contentious dispute over
Microsoft equity.[53][63] Later in the
decade, Gates repaired his relationship
with Allen and together the two donated
millions to their childhood school
Lakeside.[24] They remained friends until
Allen's death in October 2018.[64]
Windows
Microsoft launched its first retail version
of Microsoft Windows on November 20,
1985. In August of the following year, 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, the partnership
deteriorated due to mounting creative
differences.[65]
Management style
Gates delivers a speech at the World Economic
Forum in Switzerland, January 2008
Gates had primary responsibility for

Microsoft's product strategy from the
company's founding in 1975 until 2006.
He gained a reputation for being distant
from others; an industry executive
complained in 1981 that "Gates is
notorious for not being reachable by
phone and for not returning phone
calls."[66] An Atari executive recalled that
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".[67]
Gates met regularly with Microsoft's

senior managers and program managers,
and the managers described him as
being verbally combative. He also
berated them for perceived holes in their
business strategies or proposals that
placed the company's long-term interests
at risk.[68][69] He interrupted presentations
with such comments as "that's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard"[70] and
"why don't you just give up your options
and join the Peace Corps?"[71] The target
of his outburst would then have to
defend the proposal in detail until Gates
was fully convinced.[70] When
subordinates appeared to be
procrastinating, he was known to remark
sarcastically, "I'll do it over the
weekend."[72][73][74]
During Microsoft's early years, Gates was

an active software developer, particularly
in the company's programming language
products, but his primary role in most of
the company's history was as a manager
and executive. He has not officially been
on a development team since working on
the TRS-80 Model 100,[75] but he wrote
code that shipped with the company's
products as late as 1989.[73] Jerry
Pournelle wrote in 1985 when Gates
announced Microsoft Excel: "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."[76]
On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that

he would transition out of his role at
Microsoft to dedicate more time to
philanthropy. He divided his
responsibilities between two successors
when he placed Ray Ozzie in charge of
management and Craig Mundie in charge
of long-term product strategy.[77]
Antitrust litigation
Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August

27, 1998
Gates approved of many decisions that

led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's
business practices. In the 1998 United
States v. 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". Later in
the year, when portions of the videotaped
deposition were played back in court, the
judge was seen laughing and shaking his
head.[78] 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.[79]
Gates later said that he had simply

resisted attempts by Boies to
mischaracterize his words and actions.
"Did I fence with Boies? … I plead guilty…
rudeness to Boies in the first degree."[80]
Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled
that Microsoft had committed
monopolization, tying and blocking
competition, each in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act.[80]
Post-Microsoft
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$15.8 billion to
US$78.5 billion. As of January 2014,
most of Gates's 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.[81] On February 4, 2014, Gates
stepped down as chairman of Microsoft
to become "technology advisor"
alongside CEO Satya Nadella.[11][82]
Gates provided his perspective on a

range of issues in a substantial interview
that was published in the March 27, 2014
issue of Rolling Stone magazine. In the
interview, Gates provided his perspective
on 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."[83]
Gates has expressed concern about the

potential harms 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.[84][85][86][87]
In an interview that was held at the TED

conference in March 2015, with Baidu's
CEO, Robin Li, Gates said he would "highly
recommend" Nick Bostrom's recent work,
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers,
Strategies.[88] During the conference,
Gates warned that the world was not
prepared for the next pandemic, a
situation that would come to pass in late
2019 when the COVID-19 pandemic
began.[89] In March 2018, Gates met at
his home in Seattle with Mohammed bin
Salman, the reformist crown prince and
de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia to discuss
investment opportunities for Saudi Vision
2030.[90][91] In June 2019, Gates admitted
that losing the mobile operating system
race to Android was his biggest mistake.
He stated that it was within their skill set
of being the dominant player, but partially
blames the antitrust litigation during the
time.[92] That same year, Gates became
an Advisory Board Member of the
Bloomberg New Economy Forum.[93]
On March 13, 2020, Microsoft announced

Gates would be leaving his board
positions at Berkshire Hathaway and
Microsoft to dedicate his efforts in
philanthropic endeavors such as climate
change, global health and development,
and education.[12]
Philanthropy
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
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
Gates studied the work of Andrew
Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and
donated some of his Microsoft stock in
1994 to create the "William H. Gates
Foundation." In 2000, Gates and his wife
combined three family foundations and
Gates donated stock valued at $5 billion
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 $34.6 billion.[94][95] 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.[96][97] Gates, through his
foundation, also donated $20 million to
Carnegie Mellon University for a new
building to be named Gates Center for
Computer Science which opened in
2009.[98][99]
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.[100] As of 2007, Bill and
Melinda Gates were the second-most
generous philanthropists in America,
having given over $28 billion to
charity;[101] the couple plan to eventually
donate 95% of their wealth to charity.[102]
The foundation is organized into five

program areas: Global Development
Division, Global Health Division, United
States Division, and Global Policy &
Advocacy Division. Among others, it
supports a wide range of public health
projects, granting aid to fight
transmissible diseases such AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria, as well as
widespread vaccine programs to
eradicate polio. It grants funds to
learning institutes and libraries and
supports scholarships at universities.
The foundation established a water,
sanitation and hygiene program to
provide sustainable sanitation services in
poor countries.[103] Its agriculture division
supports the International Rice Research
Institute in developing Golden Rice, a
genetically modified rice variant used to
combat vitamin A deficiency.[104] The
goal of the foundation is to provide
120 million women and girls, in the
poorest countries, with high-quality
contraceptive information and services,
with the longer-term goal of universal
access to voluntary family planning.[105]
In 2007, the Los Angeles Times criticized
the foundation for investing its assets in
companies that have been accused of
worsening poverty, pollution and
pharmaceutical firms that do not sell to
developing countries.[106] Although the
foundation announced a review of its
investments to assess social
responsibility,[107] it was subsequently
canceled and upheld its policy of
investing for maximum return, while using
voting rights to influence company
practices.[108]
G t i fi id h t d t d b Sh Bh
Gates in a fireside chat moderated by Shereen Bhan
virtually at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2020.
Gates delivered his thoughts in a fireside

chat moderated by journalist and news
anchor Shereen Bhan virtually at the
Singapore FinTech Festival on December
8, 2020 on the topic, “Building
Infrastructure for Resilience: What the
COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About
How to Scale Financial Inclusion”.[109]
Governments are there to

think ahead to bad things that
might happen. In the case of
(the Covid-19) pandemic, not
enough was done. We can't
forget that another pandemic
will come and we'll need to
invest in being ready in that,
......while not forgetting that we
were not prepared and we're
going to have to invest - just
like having a fire department -
some money in an intelligent
way and actually simulate
what might happen and make
sure that we're ready for
it.[109]
Personal donations
Melinda Gates suggested that people
should emulate the philanthropic efforts
of the Salwen family, who sold their
home and gave away half of its value, as
detailed in their book, The Power of
Half.[110] Gates and his wife invited Joan
Salwen to Seattle to speak about what
the family had done, and on December 9,
2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and investor
Warren Buffett each signed a
commitment they called the "Giving
Pledge", which is a commitment by all
three to donate at least half of their
wealth, over the course of time, to
charity.[111][112][113]
Gates has also provided personal
donations to educational institutions. In
1999, Gates donated $20 million to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
for the construction of a computer
laboratory named the "William H. 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.[114]
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.[115] Gates also donated
$6 million 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 and the Computer Systems
Laboratory (CSL) of Stanford's
Engineering department.[116]
Since 2005, Gates and his foundation

have taken an interest in solving global
sanitation problems. For example, they
announced the "Reinvent the Toilet
Challenge", which has received
considerable media interest.[117] To raise
awareness for the topic of sanitation and
possible solutions, Gates drank water
that was "produced from human feces" in
2014 – in fact it was produced from a
sewage sludge treatment process called
the Omni Processor.[118][119] 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.[120]
In November 2017, Gates said he would
give $50 million to the Dementia
Discovery Fund, a venture capital that
seeks treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
He also pledged an additional $50 million
to start-up ventures working in
Alzheimer's research.[121] Bill and Melinda
Gates have said that they intend to leave
their three children $10 million each as
their inheritance. With only $30 million
kept in the family, they are expected to
give away about 99.96% of their
wealth.[122] On August 25, 2018, Gates
distributed $600,000 through his
foundation via UNICEF which is helping
flood affected victims in Kerala, India.[123]
Charity sports events
On April 29, 2017, Gates partnered with

Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer in play
in the Match for Africa 4, a
noncompetitive tennis match at a sold-
out Key Arena in Seattle. The event was
in support of Roger Federer Foundation's
charity efforts in Africa.[124] Federer and
Gates played against John Isner, the top-
ranked American player for much of this
decade, and Mike McCready, the lead
guitarist for Pearl Jam. The pair won the
match 6 to 4. Overall, they raised
$2 million for children in Africa.[125] The
following year, Gates and Federer
returned to play in the Match for Africa 5
on March 5, 2018, at San Jose's SAP
Center. Their opponents were Jack Sock,
one of the top American players and a
grand slam winner in doubles, and
Savannah Guthrie, a co-anchor for NBC's
Today show. Gates and Federer recorded
their second match victory together by a
score of 6–3 and the event raised over
$2.5 million.[126]
Work on energy and climate

change
Gates considers climate change and
global access to energy to be critical,
interrelated issues. He has urged
governments and the private sector to
invest in research and development to
make clean, reliable energy cheaper.
Gates envisions that a breakthrough
innovation in sustainable energy
technology could drive down both
greenhouse gas emissions and poverty,
and bring economic benefits by
stabilizing energy prices.[127] In 2011, he
said:
If you gave me the choice

between picking the next 10
presidents or ensuring that
energy is environmentally
friendly and a quarter as
costly, I'd pick the energy
thing.[128]
In 2015, he wrote about the challenge of

transitioning the world's energy system
from one based primarily on fossil fuels
to one based on sustainable energy
sources. Global energy transitions have
historically taken decades. He wrote, “I
believe we can make this transition
faster, both because the pace of
innovation is accelerating, and because
we have never had such an urgent reason
to move from one source of energy to
another.” [129] This rapid transition,
according to Gates, would depend on
increased government funding for basic
research and financially risky private-
sector investment, to enable innovation in
diverse areas such as nuclear energy,
grid energy storage to facilitate greater
use of solar and wind energy, and solar
fuels.[130]
Gates spearheaded two initiatives that he

announced at the 2015 United Nations
Climate Change Conference in Paris. One
was Mission Innovation, in which 20
national governments pledged to double
their spending on research and
development for carbon-free energy over
five years.[127] Another initiative was
Breakthrough Energy, a group of
investors who agreed to fund high-risk
startups in clean energy technologies.
Gates, who had already invested $1
billion of his own money in innovative
energy startups, committed a further $1
billion to Breakthrough Energy.[130] In
December 2020, he called for the U.S.
federal government to create institutes
for clean energy research, analogous to
the National Institutes of Health.[131]
Gates's views have been criticized as

undermining strategies to aggressively
deploy existing solar and wind energy
technologies, which have also led to
innovation and to plummeting
costs.[132][133] Gates has rejected calls
from environmentalists to divest from
fossil fuels, saying that doing so would
have little impact compared to increasing
investment in clean energy
innovation.[130]
Recognition
Play media
Bill and Melinda Gates being awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack
Obama in 2016.
In 1987, Gates was listed as a

billionaire in Forbes magazine's 400
Richest People in America issue. He
was worth $1.25 billion and was the
world's youngest self-made
billionaire.[14] Since 1987, Gates has
been included in the Forbes The
World's Billionaires list and was the
wealthiest from 1995 to 1996,[134] 1998
to 2007, 2009, and held the spot until
2018 before being overtaken by Jeff
Bezos.[15] Gates was number one on
the Forbes 400 list from 1993 through
to 2007, 2009, and 2014 through
2017.[135][136]
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.[137] In
2006, he was voted eighth in the list of
"Heroes of our time".[138]
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.[139]
Gates was elected Member of the US
National Academy of Engineering in
1996 "for contributions to the founding
and development of personal
computing".[140]
He was named Honorary Member of
the American Library Association in
1998.[141]
He was elected a foreign member of
the Chinese Academy of Engineering in
2017.[142]
According to Forbes, Gates was ranked
as the fourth most powerful person in
the world in 2012,[143] up from fifth in
2011.[144]
In 1994, he was honored as the 20th
Distinguished Fellow of the British
Computer Society (DFBCS). In 1999,
Gates received New York Institute of
Technology's President's Medal.[145]
Gates has received honorary
doctorates from Nyenrode Business
Universiteit (2003),[146] KTH Royal
Institute of Technology (2002),[147]
Waseda University (2005),[148]
Tsinghua University (2007),[149] Harvard
University (2007),[150] the Karolinska
Institute (2007),[151] and Cambridge
University (2009).[152]
He was also made an honorary trustee
of Peking University in 2007.[153]
Gates was made an Honorary Knight
Commander of the Order of the British
Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in
2005.[154]
In January 2006, he was awarded the
Grand Cross of the Order of Prince
Henry by the President of Portugal
Jorge Sampaio
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 país de lectores".[155]
Gates received the 2010 Bower Award
for Business Leadership from The
Franklin Institute for his achievements
at Microsoft and his philanthropic
work.[156]
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.[157]
In 2002, Bill and Melinda Gates
received the Jefferson Award for
Greatest Public Service Benefiting the
Disadvantaged.[158]
He was given the 2006 James C.
Morgan Global Humanitarian Award
from the Tech Awards.[159]
In 2015, Gates and his wife Melinda
received the Padma Bhushan, India's
third-highest civilian award for their
social work in the country.[160][161]
Barack Obama honored Bill and
Melinda Gates with the Presidential
Medal of Freedom for their
philanthropic efforts in 2016,[162] and
François Hollande awarded Bill and
Melinda in the following year with
France's highest national order – as
Commander of the Legion of Honour
for their charity efforts.[163]
Entomologists named Bill Gates'
flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor in
1997.[164]
Personal life
Gates and his wife, Melinda, 2009
Gates married Melinda French on a golf

course on the Hawaiian island of Lanai
on January 1, 1994. They have three
children. The family's residence is an
earth-sheltered mansion in the side of a
hill overlooking Lake Washington in
Medina, Washington. In 2009, property
taxes on the mansion were reported to
be US$1.063 million, on a total assessed
value of US$147.5 million.[165] The
66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) estate has
a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an
underwater music system, as well as a
2,500-square-foot (230 m2) gym and a
1,000-square-foot (93 m2) dining
room.[166]
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."[167]
Gates also 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."[167]
Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, a

collection of scientific writings by
Leonardo da Vinci, for US$30.8 million at
an auction in 1994.[168] Gates is an avid
reader, and the ceiling of his large home
library is engraved with a quotation from
The Great Gatsby.[169] He also enjoys
playing bridge, tennis, and golf.[170][171]
Gates's days are planned for him on a
minute-by-minute basis, similar to the
U.S. President's schedule.[172] Despite his
wealth and extensive business travel,
Gates flew coach in commercial aircraft
until 1997, when he bought a private jet.
Gates meets with U.S. Secretary of Defense James

Mattis, February 2017
In 1999, his wealth briefly surpassed

US$101 billion.[173][174] 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 multi-billion dollar
donations he has made to his charitable
foundations. In May 2006, Gates
remarked that he wished that he were not
the richest man in the world because he
disliked the attention it brought.[175] 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.[176][177] Slim retook the position
again in June 2014[178][179] (but then lost
the top position back to Gates). Between
2009 and 2014, his wealth doubled from
US$40 billion to more than
US$82 billion.[180] In October 2017, Gates
was surpassed by Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos as the richest person in the
world.[16] On November 15, 2019, he once
again became the richest person in the
world after a 48% increase in Microsoft
shares, surpassing Bezos.[181] Gates told
the BBC, "I've paid more tax than any
individual ever, and gladly so ... I've paid
over $6 billion in taxes."[182] He is a
proponent of higher taxes, particularly for
the rich.[183]
Gates has held the top spot on the list of

The World's Billionaires for 18 out of the
past 23 years.[184] Gates has several
investments outside Microsoft, which in
2006 paid him a salary of US$616,667
and US$350,000 bonus totalling
US$966,667.[185] In 1989, he founded
Corbis, a digital imaging company. In
2004, he became a director of Berkshire
Hathaway, the investment company
headed by long-time friend Warren
Buffett.[186]
In 2016, he revealed that he is color-

blind.[187]
External business ventures and

investments (partial list)
Gates has a multi-billion dollar

investment portfolio with stake in various
sectors[188] and has participated in
several entrepreneurial ventures beyond
Microsoft, including:
AutoNation, automotive retailer that

Gates has a 16% stake in trading on
the NYSE.
bgC3, a new think-tank company
founded by Gates.
Canadian National Railway (CN), a
Canadian Class I freight railway. As of
2019, Bill Gates is the largest single
shareholder of CN stock.[189]
Cascade Investment LLC, a private
investment and holding company
incorporated in the United States,
founded and controlled by Bill Gates
and headquartered in Kirkland,
Washington.
Corbis (originally named Interactive
Home Systems and now known as
Branded Entertainment Network), a
digital image licensing and rights
services company founded by Gates.
EarthNow, Seattle-based startup
company aiming to blanket the Earth
with live satellite video coverage.
Gates is a large financial backer.
Eclipse Aviation, a defunct
manufacturer of very light jets. Gates
was a major stake-holder early on in
the project.
Ecolab, global provider of water,
hygiene and energy technologies and
services to the food, energy,
healthcare, industrial and hospitality
markets. Gates increased his stake of
10.8% in Ecolab to 25% in 2012.
ResearchGate, a social networking site
for scientists. Gates participated in a
$35 million round of financing along
with other investors.[190]
TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design
company founded by Gates.
In media
Books
Gates has written three 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 to get an edge on
the competition.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, to be
published in 2021, Gates shares what
he has learned in over a decade of
studying climate change and investing
in innovations to address climate
problems.
Video game
DONKEY.BAS, is a computer game

written in 1981 and included with early
versions of the PC DOS operating
system distributed with the original
IBM PC. It is a driving game in which
the player must avoid hitting donkeys.
The game was written by Bill Gates
and Neil Konzen.[191][192]
Documentary films about Gates

External video
The Machine That Changed The World;
Interview with Bill Gates, 1990 (raw video),
44:03, Open Vault WGBH[193]
The Machine That Changed the World

(1990)
Triumph of the Nerds (1996)
Nerds 2.0.1 (1998)
Waiting for "Superman" (2010)[194]
The Virtual Revolution (2010)
Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates
(2019)
Feature films
1999: Pirates of Silicon Valley, a film
that 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
mockumentary 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 that
chronicles the development of
Facebook. Gates is portrayed by Steve
Sires.[195]
2015: Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates: The
Competition to Control the Personal
Computer, 1974–1999: Original film
from the National Geographic Channel
for the American Genius series.[196]
Video and film clips
Steve Jobs and Gates at D: All Things Digital in 2007
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 the D5 Conference , All
Things Digital
2009− : Bill Gates has given numerous
TED talks on current concerns such as
innovation, education and fighting
global diseases[197]
Radio
Gates was the guest on BBC Radio 4's

Desert Island Discs on January 31, 2016,
in which he talked about his relationships
with his father and Steve Jobs, meeting
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; a
book: The Better Angels of Our Nature by
Steven Pinker; and luxury item: a DVD
Collection of Lectures from The Teaching
Company.[198]
Television
Gates made a guest appearance as

himself on the Emmy Award winning TV
show The Big Bang Theory. The episode
on which he appeared was appropriately
entitled "The Gates Excitation."[199] He
also appeared in a cameo role in 2019 on
the series finale of Silicon Valley.[200]
See also
Big History Project
List of richest Americans in history
List of wealthiest historical figures
Notes
1. Gates regularly documents his share
ownership through public U.S.
Securities and Exchange
Commission form 4 filings.[5][6]
2. The pendulum frequently shifts to
either Gates or Bezos being the
richest person in the world.[18]
3. His father was named William H.
Gates II, but he is now generally
known as William H. Gates, Senior to
avoid confusion with his son.
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Leibovich, Mark. The New Imperialists
(Prentice Hall, 2002) pp 139–182.
online
Bank, David (2001). Breaking Windows:
how Bill Gates fumbled the future of
Microsoft . New York City: Free Press.
ISBN 0-7432-0315-1.
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. ISBN 0-8129-3006-1.
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Kildall, Gary (October 25, 2004). "The
Man Who Could Have Been Bill
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Gates, Bill. "An exclusive interview with

Bill Gates." Financial Times 1 (2013).
online
Gates, Bill. "Remarks of Bill Gates,
Harvard Commencement 2007."
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Kinsley, Michael, and Conor Clarke,
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External links
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It is Wikipedia's birthday!

William Henry Gates III (born October 28,

Born William Henry Gates

Education Harvard University

Occupation Software developer •

Title Co-chairman and co-

Parents Bill Gates Sr. (father)

Early in his life, Gates observed that his

Gates (right) with Paul Allen at Lakeside School in

At 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside

The four students formed the Lakeside

The following year, a Lakeside teacher

Gates devised an algorithm for pancake

Gates remained in contact with Paul

Gates read the January 1975 issue of

Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with

Gates said he personally reviewed and

IBM, the leading supplier of computer

The contract itself only earned Microsoft

Gates oversaw Microsoft's company

Gates had primary responsibility for

Gates met regularly with Microsoft's

During Microsoft's early years, Gates was

On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that

Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August

Gates approved of many decisions that

Early rounds of his deposition

Gates later said that he had simply

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires

Gates provided his perspective on a

Gates has expressed concern about the

First the machines will do a lot

In an interview that was held at the TED

On March 13, 2020, Microsoft announced

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Gates with Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, former

Gates has credited the generosity and

The foundation is organized into ﬁve

Gates delivered his thoughts in a ﬁreside

Governments are there to

The Maxwell Dworkin Laboratory of the

Since 2005, Gates and his foundation

On April 29, 2017, Gates partnered with

Work on energy and climate

If you gave me the choice

In 2015, he wrote about the challenge of

Gates spearheaded two initiatives that he

Gates's views have been criticized as

In 1987, Gates was listed as a

Gates and his wife, Melinda, 2009

Gates married Melinda French on a golf

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gates

Gates also said: "I agree with people like

Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, a

Gates meets with U.S. Secretary of Defense James

In 1999, his wealth brieﬂy surpassed

Gates has held the top spot on the list of

In 2016, he revealed that he is color-

External business ventures and

Gates has a multi-billion dollar