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Bill Gates Is Born
Bill Gates is born in Seattle, Washington in 1955. He would become the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest and most successful men in the world. -
Bill Gates Writes His First Computer Program
Bill Gates attended Lakeside School, a private preparatory school. At the age of 13, he gained an interest in computes and programming. It was at this age that he wrote his first computer program using a GE system and BASIC. This program was a game that allowed the user to play tic-tac-toe against the computer. -
Bill Gates Gets An Internship
At just 16, Bill Gates started working with Information Sciences Inc. He was hired to write a payroll program in COBOL, thus furthering Gates' knowledge of several computer languages and systems. This same year he was even asked to write a computer program to let students at his school enroll in classes. -
Gates Starts Traf-O-Data
At just 17, Gates starts a business called Traf-O-Data with friends Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert. The objective of the company was to read the raw data from roadway traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers. The company had modest success but the experience was important in Bill Gates' creation of Microsoft. -
Bill Gates Enrolls at Harvard
Bill Gates enrolled at Harvard in the autumn of 1973. He chose a pre-law major, but took graduate level computer courses. It was at Harvard that he would meet Steve Ballmer, who would later succeed Gates as Microsoft's CEO. -
Bill Gates Shows His Computer Genius at Harvard
In just his second year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems that was presented in a combinatorics class he took at Harvard. His solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years and its successor is faster by only one percent. His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with another Harvard computer scientist, Christos Papadimitriou. -
Bill Gates Trademarks Microsoft
Bill Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard and decided to start his Microsoft company with friend and previous business partner, Paul Allen. Gates and Allen register the trademark “Microsoft" and Gates writes an open letter to computer hobbyists, condemning the early adopters for sharing, instead of paying for, software. -
Microsoft Starts Strong
Bill Gates had taken a second leave of absence and headquartered Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Microsoft would later be headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Microsoft's year-end sales exceed $1 million and the company starts building its reputation. -
Gates Helps IBM Launch its Personal Computers
During this year, Microsoft incorporated and bought the rights to the operating system “DOS” from Seattle Computer Products. The system was modified and renamed as "MS-DOS," and the company licensed it to IBM for the company’s new personal computer. -
Microsoft Announces "Windows"
Paul Allen had to leave Microsoft after developing Hodgkin’s disease. Microsoft continued to succeed, even without Allen, and announced Windows as an extension of its MS-DOS operating system. Windows would become incredibly successful. -
Bill Gates Billionaire
Microsoft's success continues at an incredible rate. It is during this year that Bill Gates not only becomes the youngest billionaire, but also the year that he meets his future wife, Melinda French, during a Microsoft event in New York. -
Bill Gates Starts Corbis
As if Microsoft was not enough to keep Gates busy, he also founded Corbis. Corbis is an archive of art and photography from public and private collections. Corbis would later become one of the largest collections of visual information in the world. -
Internet Explorer and Windows 95
At 39 years old with a fortune of $12.9 billion, Gates became the richest man in the world. Later that year, Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer, as part of Windows 95. Always looking ahead, Gates begins to shift Microsoft’s focus toward the Internet. -
Gates Steps Down As CEO of Microsoft
Gates’ former Harvard dorm-mate and good friend, Steve Ballmer, takes over the company. However, Gates becomes chief software architect and is still largely involved in the company. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is formed, merging with his previous foundations; the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation. -
Bill Gates Moves on From Microsoft
Bill Gates decides that his time with Microsoft is almost at an end and announces that his role as an executive at Microsoft will be phased out over the following two years. Gates states that his intention now is to spend more time working with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
