Bill Gates is an American business magnate and philanthropist best known as the co-founder of Microsoft, the software company he started in the 1970s. He led Microsoft for decades as it became the dominant maker of personal computer software, including Windows and Office, and for many years he was ranked as the world's richest person.
His father, Bill Gates Sr., born in 1925 in Bremerton, Washington, was a prominent attorney. Gates married Melinda French Gates in 1994; the couple had three children and divorced in 2021. Together they founded the Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, one of the world's largest private charitable foundations, with a focus on global health, poverty reduction, and education.
