Willian Henry Gates III

William Henry Gates III KBE, GCIH, (Seattle, October 28, 1955) better known as Bill Gates, is a mogul, philanthropist and American author, best known for along with Paul Allen founded Microsoft, the largest and most known software company in the world in terms of market value.

Gates was born into a middle class family in Seattle. His father, William H. Gates was an advocate of big business, and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was a professor at Washington University and director of banks.

While studying at Harvard, young people have developed a BASIC language interpreter for one of the first personal computers to be released in the U.S. - the Altair 8800. After modest success in marketing this product, Gates and Allen founded Microsoft, one of the first companies in the world focused exclusively on the software market for personal computers or PCs

Gates has acquired over the years a reputation as a visionary (bet the software market at the time the hardware was considered much more valuable) and aggressive negotiator, coming often to be accused by competitors of Microsoft of using unfair business practices.

Gates led the ranking of the richest in the world since 1995, according to Forbes magazine. His fortune was estimated at $ 130 billion.
In 1999, Gates has surpassed the $ 100 billion, but since 2000 the nominal value of Microsoft is falling after the bursting of the Internet, and also after several multibillion-dollar donations made ​​by the Gates philanthropy.
In May 2006, Gates said in an interview that would not be the richest man in the world, and who does not like the attention it brought

In 2000, along with his wife Melinda Gates Foundation created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization whose main objectives are to promote research on AIDS and other diseases that affect on most of the developing countries.
In 2006, Warren Buffett, then the second richest man in the world, joined the project by announcing its plan to contribute 10 million shares of Class B Berkshire Hathaway company (approximately $ 30 billion), making the foundation doubled in size. According to a 2004 article in Forbes magazine, Gates has donated about 30 billion dollars to charity since 2000.

Time magazine described Bill Gates as one of the 100 Most Important People of the Century and also made the Time 100 list three times in a row in 2004, 2005 and 2006.