American entrepreneur who co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen — building it into the world's most valuable company through Windows and Office — and who became one of the world's most influential philanthropists through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, focusing on global health, education, and climate.
Put a computer on every desk by winning the operating system and productivity software wars — Microsoft's decisions to license DOS to IBM (1981) while retaining the license, then build Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer created the software stack that ran the PC era; Gates's 'software first' philosophy defined the modern software business model.
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