Gates Leaves Microsoft to Focus on Philanthropy
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SEATTLE (Reuters)
- Sensing the start of a personal computer revolution, Bill Gates
dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to start Microsoft Corp and
pursue a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home.
Three decades later, Gates is set to step down on Friday from what
is now the world's largest software company to work full-time at the
charitable organization -- the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation --
built by his vast fortune.
No longer the world's richest man -- he has been topped by investor
Warren Buffett and Mexico's telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim -- Gates says
great wealth brings with it great responsibility.
The 52-year-old, whose boyish looks seem at odds with his graying
hair, will leave behind a life's work developing software to devote
energy to finding new vaccines or to micro-finance projects in the
developing world.
As Microsoft's biggest shareholder, Gates will remain chairman and
work on special technology projects. His 8.7 percent stake in Microsoft
is worth about $23 billion.
Gates first programmed a computer at 13, creating a class scheduling
system for his Seattle high school. As he gained more experience, he
realized the potential that software held to change how humans worked,
played and communicated.
"When I was 19, I caught sight of the future and based my career on
what I saw. I turned out to have been right," Gates wrote in his 1995
book "The Road Ahead."
Gates realized at an early stage of the PC revolution that software
would be more important than hardware. Working with boyhood friend Paul
Allen, Gates founded Microsoft, naming the company for its mission of
providing microcomputer software.
