$104B Net Worth · 1.36B Windows Users · 1 Dropped-Out Degree
Born October 28, 1955 · Seattle, Washington
He saw the personal computer revolution coming when the machine was the size of a refrigerator. He built Microsoft into the most valuable company on earth, became the richest man alive, then decided saving millions of lives was a better use of his time.
Six acts. Five decades. One mission: a computer on every desk, then a vaccine in every arm.
A kid in Seattle who found a teletype terminal and never looked back.
Born to a prominent Seattle family — his father was a lawyer, his mother served on the boards of First Interstate Bank and United Way. At thirteen, Gates enrolled at Lakeside School, which had a rare ASR-33 teletype terminal. He was obsessed immediately. He and Paul Allen would sneak into the University of Washington computer lab at night to use machines. By sixteen, Gates had started Traf-O-Data, a company that analyzed traffic data using the Intel 8008 processor. When the Altair 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975, Gates called MITS and bluffed that he had a BASIC interpreter ready. He didn't. He and Allen wrote it in eight weeks.
IBM needed an operating system. Gates didn't have one. He bought one for $50,000 and licensed it back. The most consequential deal in business history.
In 1980, IBM came to Microsoft looking for an operating system for their new personal computer. Gates didn't have one. He bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Seattle Computer Products for $50,000, rebranded it MS-DOS, and — crucially — licensed it to IBM non-exclusively. IBM got their OS. Gates kept the right to sell it to every other PC manufacturer on earth. It was the most important contract in the history of technology. By 1985, Microsoft had launched Windows, gone public, and Gates was a billionaire at 31.
Windows 95 launched with a Rolling Stones soundtrack and a $300 million marketing campaign. People lined up at midnight to buy an operating system.
The 1990s were Microsoft's decade of total domination. Windows 3.1 sold a million copies in two months. Office became the standard for every business on earth. Windows 95 was a cultural event — Jay Leno hosted the launch, the Empire State Building was lit in Microsoft colors. Gates became the richest person in the world in 1995 and held the title for eighteen of the next twenty years. But the monopoly attracted enemies. Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and eventually the U.S. Department of Justice.
The richest man in the world decided to become the most effective philanthropist in history.
In 2000, Bill and Melinda Gates launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a $16 billion endowment. Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. The foundation attacked global health with the same intensity Gates had brought to crushing competitors — targeting malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, and childhood mortality in the developing world. The foundation's vaccine programs have saved an estimated 122 million lives. Warren Buffett pledged $37 billion to the foundation in 2006, making it the largest private charitable foundation in history with a $75 billion endowment.
Pandemic prophet. Conspiracy target. Divorced billionaire. The story got messier.
COVID-19 made Gates the most cited figure in pandemic response — and the biggest target of conspiracy theories. His foundation funded vaccine development and distribution. But revelations about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, his contentious divorce from Melinda in 2021, and reports of workplace misconduct complicated the narrative. The Gates Foundation announced in 2022 that it would spend down its entire endowment within 25 years of his death. The man who built the world's most dominant software monopoly is now racing to give away every dollar before the clock runs out.
Partners, rivals, mentors, and the people who shaped the man behind the machine.
He crushed competitors. Then he tried to save the world. Both versions are true.
First-person accounts, technical analyses, fact-checks, and scene pitches from 289 contributors.
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