Born William Henry Gates III in Seattle, Washington, in 1955, Bill Gates is an American business magnate, software developer, and philanthropist, best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. Gates was born into a prominent, wealthy family; his father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors of United Way of America. The family lived in the affluent Sand Point area of Seattle, and his parents initially wanted him to pursue a career in law.

Gates was sent to the exclusive Lakeside School, where he first encountered a computer terminal at age 13. He and his childhood friend Paul Allen immediately became obsessed, spending countless hours writing software and operating code. This period cemented his destiny. His parents enrolled him at Harvard University in 1973, but his true focus remained on the burgeoning world of personal computing, leading to his monumental decision to drop out and found his own company.

Bill Gates’s career is the defining story of the personal computer age. In 1975, he famously dropped out of Harvard University and, with Paul Allen, co-founded Microsoft Corporation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their breakthrough came with the development of software for the Altair 8800. Gates’s strategic genius was recognizing that the true long-term value lay not in hardware, but in software and operating systems.

The pivotal moment was securing the contract to provide the operating system for IBM’s first personal computer (PC) in 1980, which led to the creation of MS-DOS. Gates relentlessly drove Microsoft's growth, securing a dominant market share with the launch of the Windows operating system in 1985. As CEO, his competitive, aggressive business tactics ensured Microsoft’s near-monopoly in the PC software market for decades, making him the world’s richest person for much of the late 20th and early 21st century. In 2008, he transitioned away from day-to-day operations to focus entirely on his philanthropic mission.

Bill Gates is arguably the world’s most influential living philanthropist, having transitioned his primary focus from technology to humanitarian work in 2008. He and his former wife, Melinda French Gates, co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, one of the world's largest private charitable foundations.

• Global Health: The Foundation’s primary mission is to eradicate diseases like polio, malaria, and HIV, focusing heavily on vaccine development and delivery in developing countries.
• Global Development: Focuses on poverty alleviation, agriculture, and sanitation improvements in Africa and South Asia.
• U.S. Education: Supports initiatives aimed at improving public education and college readiness in the United States. His commitment to solving these problems with data and rigorous scientific methods has set a new global standard for philanthropy.

Bill Gates projects a notoriously understated, intellectual, and utilitarian style. His attire is consistently simple and conservative, often consisting of V-neck sweaters, button-down shirts, and slacks. His aesthetic is anti-luxury, reflecting a primary focus on intellectual pursuits and problem-solving over personal display.

Residing in his massive, technologically advanced home in Medina, Washington ('Xanadu 2.0'), his luxury is the command of technology and the autonomy to direct billions of dollars in global capital. His personal life is defined by his commitment to his foundation, reading (he takes a famous 'Think Week'), and his investment in next-generation clean energy, making his wealth a tool for global technological and social betterment.