Bill Gates

Bill Gates, in full William Henry Gates III, (born October 28, 1955, Seattle, Washington, U.S.), American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest personal-computer software company.

Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school’s payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data, a company that sold traffic-counting systems to local governments. In 1975 Gates, then a sophomore at Harvard University joined his hometown friend Paul G. Allen to develop software for the first microcomputers. They began by adapting BASIC, a popular programming language used on large computers, for use on microcomputers. With the success of this project, Gates left Harvard during his junior year and, with Allen, formed Microsoft. Gate’s sway over the infant microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to International Business Machines Corporation—then the world’s biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter—for use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC (personal computer). After the machine’s release in 1981, IBM quickly set the technical standard for the PC industry, and MS-DOS likewise pushed out competing operating systems. While Microsoft’s independence strained relations with IBM, Gates deftly manipulated the larger company so that it became permanently dependent on him for crucial software. Makers of IBM-compatible PCs, or clones, also turned to Microsoft for their basic software. By the start of the 1990s he had become the PC industry’s ultimate kingmaker.

Internet Explorer (IE), World Wide Web (WWW) browser and set of technologies created by Microsoft Corporation, a leading American computer software company. After being launched in 1995, Internet Explorer became one of the most popular tools for accessing the Internet. There were 11 versions between 1995 and 2013. In July 1995 Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 as an add-on to the Windows 95 operating system. By November the company had produced IE 2.0 for both Apple Inc.’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows 32-bit operating systems. This release featured support for the virtual reality modeling language (VRML), browser “cookies” (data saved by Web sites within the user’s browser), and secure socket layering (SSL). The success of IE and the rapidly expanding online world led Microsoft to produce several editions of the program in rapid succession. In August 1996 IE 3.0, designed for use with Windows 95, added important components such as Internet Mail and News (an e-mail and newsgroup client) and Windows Media Player, a computer graphics program that allowed users to view GIF (graphics interchange format) and JPEG (joint photographic experts group) files; IE 3.0 also supported MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) sound files. (Although new IE versions for the Macintosh often lagged behind Windows releases, Microsoft never discontinued its support for the Macintosh.)

IE 4.0, which came out in 1997, was tightly integrated into the company’s main operating systems, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. This incarnation replaced Internet Mail and News with Outlook Express, a freeware version of Microsoft Office Outlook, the company’s commercial e-mail and newsgroup client. IE 5, released in September 1998, expanded Web design capabilities and allowed for further personalization. IE 6, released in 2001 and designed to work with the Windows XP operating system, featured more privacy and security options. IE 6 was Microsoft’s primary Web browser until the 2006 development of IE 7, which was compatible with the Windows Vista operating system. IE 8, which was released in 2009, added more support for Web 2.0 features. IE 9 was released in 2011 and featured increased speed and compliance with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) 5 standards for video and audio. Later that same year, IE 10 brought the browser further into complete adherence to the HTML 5 standards. IE 11, released in 2013, had features built for touch screens such as those on smart phones and tablets. In January 2016 Microsoft discontinued its active technical support for all other versions of Internet Explorer except IE 11. Microsoft Edge replaced Internet Explorer as the company’s preferred browser in 2016.

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. 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. 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. 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. As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity; the couple plan to eventually donate 95% of their wealth to charity.

Since 1987, he has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every year except from 2010 to 2013. 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. As of April 2021, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$146.7 billion, making him the third-richest person in the world.