Bill Gates Profile, Height, Age, Family, Networth, Wiki, Biography & More

William Henry Gates III, known as Bill Gates, was born on October 28, 1955, is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is co-founder of Microsoft, with his childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a major entrepreneur of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.

Gates was born and raised in Seattle. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the largest personal computer software company in the world. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until his resignation as CEO in January 2000, replaced by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board and became chief software architect. In the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics, which were seen as anti-competitive. This opinion has been confirmed by numerous court decisions.

In June 2008, Gates transitioned to a part-time position at Microsoft and a full-time job at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife Melinda started in 2000. He has resigned as Chairman of the Board. from Microsoft in February 2014 and took on a new position as technology advisor to support new CEO Satya Nadella. In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change, global health and development, and education.

Since 1987, Gates has been on the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every year except 2010 to 2013. In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of $90.6 billion. compared to Gates’ net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time. As of November 2022, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$107 billion, making him the fifth richest person in the world.

Later in his career and since leaving Microsoft day-to-day operations in 2008, Gates has pursued numerous business and philanthropic activities. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN, Cascade Investment, bgC3 and TerraPower. He has given large sums to various charities and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, considered the largest private charity in the world. Through the foundation, he led a vaccination campaign at the start of the 21st century that contributed significantly to the eradication of wild poliovirus in Africa. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, through which they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

Gates married Melinda French on the Hawaiian island of Lanai on January 1, 1994. They met in 1987 after Melinda started working at Microsoft. At the time of their marriage, Gates was allowed by Melinda to spend limited time with his ex-girlfriend, businesswoman Ann Winblad. Bill and Melinda have three children: Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. The family’s residence is an earth-sheltered mansion on the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington.

On May 3, 2021, the Gates announced that they had decided to divorce after 27 years of marriage and 34 years as a couple. They said they would continue to work together on charity work. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melinda had been meeting with divorce attorneys since 2019, citing interviews that suggested Bill’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein were at least one of her concerns. The divorce was finalized on August 2, 2021.

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