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He meets Paul Allen. The two students share an interest in computers and programming. The school notices his new found love for technology and asks him to create a computerized schedule of classes.
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Gates goes to Harvard as a pre-law major, but soon shifts focus. He quickly runs through the university’s most rigorous mathematics and graduate level computer science courses.
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Gates takes his first leave of absence from school to start working on the software venture he refers to as Micro-Soft. He offers to develop software for the MITS Altair. MITS eventually accepts and buys his language for $3,000 plus royalties.
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Gates writes an open letter to computer hobbyists, condemning the early adopters for sharing, rather than paying for, software.
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Gates takes a second leave of absence from Harvard and sets up Microsoft in Albuquerque, N.M., where MITS is headquartered.
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IBM approached Microsoft to write the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.
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Microsoft buys the rights to the operating system “DOS” from Seattle Computer Products. The system is modified and renamed MS-DOS, and the company licenses it to IBM for the company’s new personal computer.
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At age 31, Gates becomes the youngest billionaire ever. He meets his future wife, Melinda French, at a Microsoft event in New York.
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Corbis Corporation is an American company, based in Seattle, Washington, that sells and otherwise distributes photography and film footage and related rights.
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Microsoft introduces Internet Explorer to the world, as part of Windows 95. The Road Ahead, Gates’ book about his vision for the digital future, holds the No. 1 spot on The New York Times best-seller list for seven weeks. Gates begins to shift Microsoft’s focus toward the emerging Internet.
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In May, the U.S. Justice Department charges Microsoft with engaging in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices designed to maintain its monopoly in personal computer operating systems and to extend that monopoly to Internet browsing software. Twenty state attorneys general and the District of Columbia filed a similar action.
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Gates steps down as CEO of Microsoft. Gates’ former Harvard dorm-mate and right-hand man Steve Ballmer takes over the helm, while Gates becomes chief software architect.
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-The Gates received Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged.
-Gates received James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award from Tech Awards.
-The Gates, received the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award for their social work.
-Barack Obama honored The Gates with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their philanthropic efforts.
-President François Hollande awarded The Gates the France's highest national award for their charity efforts. -
Gates “graduates” from Harvard; the university awards him with an honorary degree. Gates gives the commencement speech, encouraging the graduates to strive for social change. “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries,” Gates says to the class, “but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.”
