William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American software magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts (see Criticism of Microsoft). 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 & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. 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, chief software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates' last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Microsoft

IBM partnership

In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to write the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system. IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000. Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.

Windows

Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board. Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences undermined the partnership. Gates distributed an internal memo on May 16, 1991, announcing that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would shift its efforts to the Windows NT kernel development.

Management style

From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it.As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.[33][34] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?" The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100 line, but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products. On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy

Investments

Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, WA. bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates. Corbis, a digital image licensing and rights services company.

William (Bill) H. Gates 是微软公司主席和首席软件设计师。微软公司是为个人计算和商业计算提供软件、服务和Internet技术的世界范围内的。在截止于2000年6月的上个财年，微软公司收入达229.6亿美元，在60个国家的雇员总数超过了44,000人。 盖茨出生于1955年10月28日，和两个姐姐一块在西雅图长大。他的父亲，William H. Gates II，是西雅图的律师。他过世的母亲，Mary Gates，是学校教师，华盛顿大学的董事以及United Way International的主席。 盖茨曾就读于在西雅图的公立小学和私立的湖滨中学。在那里，他发现了他在软件方面的兴趣并且在13岁时开始了计算机编程。 1973年, 盖茨考进了哈佛大学. 在那里他和现在微软的首席执行官史蒂夫·鲍尔默住在一起。 在哈佛的时候，盖茨为台微型计算机 – MITS Altair 开发了BASIC编程语言的一个版本。 在大三的时候，盖茨离开了哈佛并把全部精力投入到他与孩提时代的好友Paul Allen在1975年创建的微软公司中。在计算机将成为每个家庭、每个办公室中最重要的工具这样信念的引导下，他们开始为个人计算机开发软件。盖茨的远见卓识以及他对个人计算的先见之明成为微软和软件产业成功的关键。

在盖茨的领导下，微软持续地发展改进软件技术，使软件更加易用，更省钱和更富于乐趣。公司致力于长期的发展，从目前每财年超过40亿美元的研究开发经费就可看出这一点。 1999 年, 盖茨纂写了《未来时速》一书，向人们展示了计算机技术是如何以崭新的方式来解决商业问题的。这本书在超过60个国家以25种语言出版。 《未来时速》 赢得了广泛的赞誉，并被纽约时报、今日美国、华尔街日报和Amazon.com列为畅销书。盖茨的上一本书，于1995年出版的《 The Road Ahead》（未来之路）， 曾经连续七周名列纽约时报畅销书排行榜的榜首。 盖茨把两本书的全部收入捐献给了非赢利组织以支持利用科技进行教育和技能培训。 除了对计算机和软件的热爱之外，盖茨对生物技术也很有兴趣。他是ICOS公司的董事长，这是一家专注于蛋白质基体及小分子疗法的公司。他也是很多其它生物技术公司的投资人。盖茨还成立了Corbis公司, 它正在研究开发世界的可视信息资源之一 – 来自于全球公共收藏和私人收藏的艺术及摄影作品综合数字档案。此外，盖茨还和移动电话先锋Craig McCaw 一起投资于Teledesic。这是一个雄心勃勃的计划，计划使用几百个低轨道卫星来提供覆盖全世界的双向宽带电讯服务。

对于盖茨来说，慈善事业也是非常重要的。他和他的妻子Melinda已经捐赠了超过210亿美元建立了一个基金，支持在全球医疗健康和知识学习领域的慈善事业，希望随着人类进入21世纪，这些关键领域的科技进步能使全人类受益。到今天为止，盖茨和他的妻子Melinda Gates 建立的基金已经将20多亿美元用于了全球的健康事业，将5亿多美元用于改善人们的学习条件，其中包括为盖茨图书馆购置计算机设备、为美国和加拿大的低收入社区的公共图书馆提供Internet培训和Internet访问服务。此外将超过2亿元用于西北太平洋地区的社区项目建设，将超过2900万美元用在了一些特殊项目和每年的礼物发放活动上。 盖茨和Melinda French Gates 于1994年1月1日结婚。他们有两个孩子：女儿Jennifer Katharine Gates，生于1996年; 儿子 Rory John Gates, 生于1999年。

盖茨是一个热心读者，喜欢打高尔夫球和桥牌。