Bill+Gates+(zach+roberts)



1955- William Henry (Bill) Gates III is born to attorney William Henry Gates II and Mary Gates, a schoolteacher, University of Washington. He is raised in Seattle.

1973- Gates enters Harvard as a pre-law major, He quickly runs through the university’s hardest math classes and graduate level computer science classes

1975- From his dorm room, Gates calls MITS, the maker of the world’s first personal computer. He offers to develop software for the MITS Altair. MITS eventually accepts and buys his language for $3,000 plus. Gates takes his first leave of absence from school to start working on the software to start Micro-Soft

1981- Microsoft incorporates and buys the rights to the operating system DOS from Seattle Computer Products. The system is changed and renamed MS-DOS, and the company licenses it to IBM for the company’s new personal computer

1987- At age 31, Gates becomes the youngest billionaire ever. He meets his future wife, Melinda French, at a Microsoft event in New York

1995- At age 39 and with a fortune of $12.9 billion, Gates becomes the world’s richest man. Later that summer, Microsoft introduces Internet Explorer to the world, as part of Windows 95. Gates begins to shift Microsoft’s focus toward the emerging Internet



2000- Gates steps down as CEO of Microsoft. Gates’ former Harvard dorm-mate and right-hand man Steve Ballmer takes over the helm, while Gates becomes chief software architect. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is formed, merging the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation.

2006- Gates announces that his role as an executive at Microsoft will be phased out over the following two years. His intention, he says, is to spend more time working with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Shortly after his announcement, Warren Buffet donates $31 billion, most of his fortune, to the foundation

2007- Gates graduates from Harvard, the university awards him with an honorary degree. .