Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft he has held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and he remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8% of the common stock. Forbes magazine's list of The World's Billionaires has ranked him as the richest person in the world since 1995, and recent estimates put his net worth near $56 billion. When family wealth is considered, his family ranks second behind the Walton family.Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is widely admired, his business tactics have often been criticized as unethical or anti-competitive, and have, in some instances, been ruled as such in court.Since amassing his fortune, 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.
