-
William Henry Gates III is Born
Bill Gates is born in Seattle Washington to parents Mary Maxwell Gates and William H. Gates Senior. -
Gates Enrolls in Lakeside School
At Lakeside, Gates gets his first taste of programming and meets future co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen. Gates spends as much time as possible hacking in the Lakeside computer room, becoming a master of the BASIC programming language. -
Gates Gets a Near Perfect SAT
Gates scores a 1590 on the SAT. At the time, only 7 in a million scored above a 1580. -
Gates Enrolls at Harvard
Gates begins his college career as a pre-law major, but takes mostly math and computer science courses, blazing through graduate level courses with ease. Harvard is where Gates meets Steve Ballmer, who later assumes the role of Microsoft CEO. -
Gates and Allen License an implementation of BASIC to MITS
Gates and Allen spend countless hours developing a BASIC to run on MITS Altair computer. Working with a limit of 4K memory size to store the source code, Gates and Allen hire Monte Davidoff to handle the floating point arithmetic implementation for $400. Once they get it working Allen flies to Albuquerque NM to Demo the software to the CEO of MITS, Ed Roberts. It works and history is made as the pair broker their first deal. -
Homebrew Computer Club Publishes Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists"
Gates' letter was an irate condemnation of the "ripping off" of software, specifically the implementation of BASIC that Gates and Allen had developed for use on the Altair 8800. The reaction from the community of computer hobbyists was largely negative and Gates caught a lot of flack from those that believed software should be free. -
Microsoft Licences DOS to IBM
Gates Brokers a deal to License DOS to IBM who would end up making it a global standard. A savvy deal-maker, Gates made sure of two provisions to the deal. First, the licensing agreement would be nonexclusive, allowing Microsoft to License MS-DOS to any other company. Second, Microsoft would control the source code, prohibiting IBM from altering it into something it could claim as proprietary. -
Paul Allen Leaves Microsoft
Paul Allen's diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1982 leads to his parting with Microsoft the following year. Allen wisely refuses Gates' attempt to buy him out with an offer of $5 dollar per Microsoft share. -
Microsoft Launches Word
Word encourages users to navigate primarily using the mouse as opposed to terminal commands and the keyboard. This was a novel approach and initially met with some criticism. -
Microsoft Releases Windows 1.0
Microsoft releases Windows 1.0 with a GUI bearing much similarity to the Macintosh, prompting Apple to eventually file a copyright infringement suit against Microsoft in 1988. Windows 1.0, although historically important, was not well received by critics for being too slow and lacking in dedicated software. -
Gates Marries Melinda (née French)
Gates and French meet at Microsoft in 1987 where French had just started as a product manager. The couple marry in Maui Hawaii where Gates reportedly books all the rooms of the Hotel where the marriage takes place and rents all helicopters on the Island of Maui to prevent unwanted fly-overs. -
Department of Justice Files Antitrust Charges Against Microsoft
The DOJ files antitrust charges against Microsoft, claiming that Microsoft's practice of grouping other software with its operating systems into one bundle constitutes actions of a monopolistic nature. In 2000, the DOJ rules against Microsoft and determines that the practice does indeed violate antitrust laws. -
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is Created
With a current endowment estimated at $50.7 billion, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is currently the largest private foundation in the world. Warren Buffett has given an estimated $34 billion to the foundation since 2006. The foundation has done monumental work towards eradicating polio as well as solving issues of sanitation in developing countries among other things. -
Gates Steps Down as CEO of Microsoft
Gates steps down as CEO and former Harvard classmate Steve Ballmer steps in as CEO. Gates begins new role as Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. -
Gates Retires from Day-to-Day work at Microsoft
Gates announces that he will no longer perform day-to-day work at Microsoft and will instead devote his time and energy to the philanthropic work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
