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Gates was born William Henry Gates III on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. Gates grew up in an upper-middle-class family with his older sister, Kristianne, and younger sister, Libby. Their father, William H. Gates Sr., was a promising, if somewhat shy, law student when he met his future wife, Mary Maxwell. She was an athletic, outgoing stu...

Gates was a voracious reader as a child, spending many hours poring over reference books such as the encyclopedia. Around the age of 11 or 12, Gates's parents began to have concerns about his behavior. He was doing well in school, but he seemed bored and withdrawn at times, and his parents worried he might become a loner. Though they were strong be...

Gates enrolled at Harvard University in the fall of 1973, originally thinking of a career in law. Much to his parents' dismay, Gates dropped out of college in 1975 to pursue his business, Microsoft, with partner Allen. Gates spent more of his time in the computer lab than in class. He did not really have a study regimen; he got by on a few hours of...

Gates met Allen, who was two years his senior, in high school at Lakeside School. The pair became fast friends, bonding over their common enthusiasm for computers, even though they were very different people. Allen was more reserved and shy. Gates was feisty and at times combative. Regardless of their differences, Allen and Gates spent much of thei...

In 1975, Gates and Allen formed Micro-Soft, a blend of "micro-computer" and "software" (they dropped the hyphen within a year). The company's first product was BASIC software that ran on the Altair computer. At first, all was not smooth sailing. Although Microsoft’s BASIC software program for the Altair computer netted the company a fee and royalti...

As the computer industry grew, with companies like Apple, Intel and IBM developing hardware and components, Gates was continuously on the road touting the merits of Microsoft software applications. He often took his mother with him. Mary was highly respected and well connected with her membership on several corporate boards, including IBM's. It was...

Though their rivalry is legend, Microsoft and Apple shared many of their early innovations. In 1981, Apple, at the time led by Steve Jobs, invited Microsoft to help develop software for Macintosh computers. Some developers were involved in both Microsoft development and the development of Microsoft applications for Macintosh. The collaboration coul...

Despite the success of Microsoft, Gates never felt totally secure. Always checking on the competition over his shoulder, Gates developed a white-hot drive and competitive spirit. Gates' assistant reported coming to work early to find someone sleeping under a desk. She considered calling security or the police until she discovered it was Gates. Gate...

Outside the company, Gates was gaining a reputation as a ruthless competitor. Several tech companies, led by IBM, began to develop their own operating system, called OS/2, to replace MS-DOS. Rather than give in to the pressure, Gates pushed ahead with the Windows software, improving its operation and expanding its uses. In 1989, Microsoft introduce...