Microsoft is born - Stories (2024)

FAQs

How did Bill Gates think of the idea of Microsoft? ›

Inspired by the January cover of Popular Electronics magazine, friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft – sometimes Micro-Soft, for microprocessors and software – to develop software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer.

Post-Microsoft. Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft, Gates has continued his philanthropy and works on other projects. He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 to become technology advisor at the firm to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella.

Gates, alongside his childhood friend Paul Allen, founded Microsoft in 1975 when they were just 19 and 22 years old, respectively. The trigger for Microsoft's inception was the release of the MITS Altair 8800 by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I believe Gates started Microsoft with a $5000 loan from his parents. Not that "immense". Gates did not start Microsoft with a loan from his parents, it was entirely bootstrapped financially. Paul Allen and Gates had saved up a small amount of money from contract work.

Bill Gates – 102,992,934 Shares – 1.38%

Since stepping down in 2020, he has stopped publicly reporting his ownership of Microsoft.

Microsoft Windows, computer operating system (OS) developed by Microsoft Corporation to run personal computers (PCs). Featuring the first graphical user interface (GUI) for IBM-compatible PCs, the Windows OS soon dominated the PC market. Approximately 90 percent of PCs run some version of Windows.

Briefly, the Department of Justice alleges that Microsoft has monopoly power in the market for personal computer operating systems and that it has engaged in anticompetitive practices to eliminate competitors' browsers as competing platforms for running software applications, thereby unlawfully maintaining its monopoly ...

On April 3, 2000, Jackson issued his conclusions of law, holding that Microsoft had engaged in monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. On June 7, 2000, the District Court ordered a breakup of Microsoft as its remedy.

Microsoft is able to, and does, exercise its monopoly power over OEMs and PC consumers in a variety of ways. Microsoft's monopoly power is protected, and has been protected for years, by high barriers to entry into the operating systems market, the most important of which is the applications barrier.

Microsoft is a publicly traded company, so it's owned by the shareholders who own its stock. The largest shareholders are asset management companies and individuals, including: Vanguard Group, which owns 8.6% of the company. BlackRock, which owns 7.1%

What did Bill Gates study at Harvard? ›

Gates enrolled at Harvard in the fall of 1973 as a pre-law student, though he loaded up on mathematics and graduate-level computer science courses.

But hindsight is always 20/20, and back in 1987, when Microsoft's star was still on the rise, Gates became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 32 — which was not too shabby, either. Gates has been ranked atop the list of world's richest people a whopping 25 times since.

Rory John Gates

Bill Gates / Son

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is known for developing two programming languages: BASIC and Altair 8800. BASIC, an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, is a high-level programming language designed for ease of use, especially for beginners.

This leads to some very key factors that point to Microsoft's continued success. These include innovation, strong leadership, a vision, trust in every employee, and resiliency.

Did Bill Gates start Microsoft in a garage? Indeed he did. Back in 1975, Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft from a small garage space in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He though Paul Allen had a great idea at buying an operating system from Seattle PC maker called Quick and dirty OS, or QDos. He had initially asked IBM to talk to Gary Kildall but Bill did not know how much Gary disliked large corporations and their deal fell through.

The successful Altair deal back in January 1975 inspired Bill Gates and Paul Allen to form Microsoft. Their revenues for 1975 totalled $16,000. Microsoft's big break was in 1980 when a partnership was formed with IBM which resulted in Microsoft providing a crucial operating system, DOS, for IBM PCs.

Bill Gates uses a Surface Pro.