Bill Gates

American Computer Programmer and Entrepreneur

Bill Gates is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest personal-computer software company.

Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school’s payroll system. In 1975 Gates, then a sophomore at Harvard University, joined his hometown friend Paul G. Allen to develop software for the first microcomputers. Gates left Harvard during his junior year and, with Allen, formed Microsoft.