Bill Gates

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American computer millionaire, the richest man in the world in the '90s. His company, Microsoft, went public in 1986. By 1991 he was worth some $4.4 billion, No.3 on Forbes' 1991 list of richest Americans. Born to William Henry Gates Jr., and Mary (Maxwell) Gates, the only son of a lawyer and an educator, Gates is the second of three children. His father is a partner in a prominent Seattle law firm, his mother, a former teacher, is a member of the University of Washington Board of Regents and the boards of several corporations. His parents enrolled him at Lakeside School, a private institution known for its rigorous academic standards. In 1967 the Lakeside Mothers Club used the proceeds from rummage sales to buy a Digital training terminal that was linked by phone to a computer at a local computer company. Gates became hooked on it along with Paul Allen and another friend, cutting classes and hanging out at the school's computer center day and night. His parents helped instill his competitive nature by turning leisure time into games that reward skill and cunning. He went to Harvard intending to become a lawyer but after reading about the first commercially available microcomputer, the Altair 8800, Gates and Allen knew the future was in computers. They built a computer in 1975, working day and night in Gates' dormitory room at Harvard. When their program worked, they dropped out of school to found Microsoft. When IBM was looking for a new operating system and were unable to make connections with the originator of the CPM operating system, they immediately contacted Microsoft. Microsoft called a local company named Seattle Computer Products and bought the rights to Tim Patterson's Q-DOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) for $50,000. Gates modified the program, renamed it MS-DOS and sold it to IBM. Microsoft incorporated on 6/25/1981, Bellevue, WA and the first trade of Microsoft on the New York stock market was on 3/13/1986. Gates is known for hiring shrewd, savvy businessmen and cream-of-the-crop computer experts to launch inexpensive and popular operating systems such as Windows 3, Windows '95 and Windows '98. During the 1990s, Microsoft Corp. has been involved in several federal lawsuits over unfair competitive practices. A formal lawsuit of the federal government against Microsoft began in Washington DC on 10/19/1998, 10:00 AM. Judge Jackson declared Microsoft to be a monopoly on 11/05/1999. Gates is known as a workaholic, turning vacations into "think weeks" and remarking that he did not take a day off for 13 years. He married Microsoft exec Melinda French 1/01/1994 on the tiny Hawaiian resort of Lanai in a Roman Catholic ceremony. They built a 40,000 square foot $50 million house on Lake Washington in Seattle, WA. Seven years after construction began, Gates, his wife and daughter Jennifer moved in, mid-September, 1997. The family makes every effort to retain a low-public profile. In May 1999, his son Rory John was born. The Gates donated $25 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative in early 1999. The world richest man with a net worth of some $90 billion, he has pledged $4 billion to various causes. In September 1999, he announced that his foundation will make the largest academic donation ever: $1 billion, to be distributed over the next 20 years to pay the full tab each year for about 1,000 black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian students seeking degrees in science, engineering, math and education. In 2000, Bill and Melinda contributed $22 billion to the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" which finances international vaccination and children's health programs; the largest philanthropic contribution in history to date. On 4/03/2000, federal judge Thomas Jackson ruled that Microsoft Corp. had broken the nation's antitrust laws by placing "an oppressive thumb on the scale of competitive fortune" to target rival firms that threatened its soft-ware monopoly. Although a negotiated settlement is still possible, Microsoft pledged to appeal the ruling, potentially prolonging the legal struggle for years to come. Since last November, Gates and his mega-company has been branded a predatory monopolist that ran run roughshod over competition for years, harming consumers and throttling innovation. A new stage of the trial could possible breakup the world's most valuable software company. Forbes magazine published its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans in September 2001, and topping the list (again) is Gates, though he lost $9 billion last year. Bill and Melinda welcomed their third child, Phoebe Adelle Gates, born 9/14/2002 at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in suburban Bellevue, WA. The baby weighed 9 lbs., 13 oz., said family spokeswoman Annemarie Hou. The other Gates children are Jennifer, 6, and Rory, 3. Gates announced on June 15, 2006 that he is gradually letting go of some of his day-to-day responsibility at Microsoft to spend more time on his charitable foundation which attends to issues of world health and education. By July 2008 he will act as part-time Chairman and technical advisor to the company. Gates said "I've decided that two years from today, I will reorganize my personal priorities....I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility - the responsibility to give back to society and make sure those resources are given back in the best possible way, to those in need....It's not a retirement, it's a reordering of my priorities." Microsoft First Trade; March 13, 1983, 9:30 am est. The latest Incorporation date is Sept. 23, 1993 Olympia Wash. (we use 12:00 PM until research determines an exact time) Kaye Shinker in ISAR on-line newsletter 2/2001 Link to Wikipedia biography Link to Astrodienst discussion forum