William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born 28 October 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. Gates is the former chief executive and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen.
He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of world's Wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009—excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the world's second wealthiest person. According to the Bloomberg
Billionaires List, Gates became the world's richest person again in May
2013, a position that he last held on the list in 2007. He held the
position until Carlos Slim reclaimed it in July 2014. As of October 2014, he is the richest person in the world again.
During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, he was also the largest individual shareholder up until May 2014. He has also authored and co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by judicial courts.
In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of
philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various
charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January
2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief
software architect for himself. In June 2006, Gates announced that he
would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time
work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He
gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie (which has since left Microsoft), chief software architect, and Craig Mundie,
chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at
Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in
February 2014, taking on a new post as technology advisor to support
newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella.
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