Bill Gates

William Henry Gates (born October 28, 1955), is an American business magnate, philanthropist, the world's third richest man (as of 2008),[1] and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington and excelled in school early on. He enrolled at Harvard College in 1973, where he met Steve Ballmer, who would later become CEO 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.

Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations.

Laura Valencia