Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955 to Mary and William Gates, II. His father was an attorney in Seattle, WA and his mother was a teacher. He attended the elite Lakeside private school, where he first got to a computer. His first program was a tic-tac-toe game, which he made on a mainframe that the school bought after a fund-raiser. He and his friend, Paul Allen, were always busy clanking away at the machine whenever they could get a chance. When they were older, they paid up to $40 an hour to use a terminal at computer companies, much like today's "cyber cafes."

Bill was accepted into Harvard University in Fall, 1973. He slacked off a bit, always trying to get the highest grades by putting in the least amount of time. In his second year, he dropped out of college and started Microsoft with Paul.

In 1979, Microsoft moved to Redmond, WA where it is today. By this time, Microsoft had grown in popularity. It got too many demands for products. So, Bill turned to his college buddy and roommate Steve Ballmer for help. Back then, Microsoft had about 30 employees. Steve wanted to add 50 more people to the company. Bill was against the idea because other companies have gone under that way, but Steve convinced him. He was to add people until Bill told him to stop, but until this day, he hasn't gotten the stop signal.

In order for Microsoft to get to the top, they had to have a very good business strategy. Their strategy is to sell software at low prices, until people are hooked. Then, slowly, raise them up. If a competitor comes along, they just drop their prices and bring them back up when the competitor is gone. That strategy is what made Microsoft the biggest software company in the world.

In the early 1980's, IBM was having trouble finding an operating system to go on their new computer, which used the new 8088 microprocessor. Bill, of course, said he would be happy to make them one. However, he didn't quite make an operating system, he bought Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Products for $75,000, hired their leading engineer on the project (Tim Patterson), improved it a little, and licensed it to IBM for tons of money. So, on the contrary to public opinion, he did not write MS-DOS, he bought it, changed it slightly, and put his name on it.

As for the future, Bill will make most of his money on the Internet. MSN is the second largest ISP (America Online is the largest.), and Internet Explorer or some other Microsoft web browser will be used by most. He will work to make everything computerized: televisions, telephones, lights, even the way you cook dinner... and supply the software to run on these computerized appliances. This will be a good thing for everyone, especially Bill. Everything will be interconnected on an information superhighway, which, in majority, he will build. This will all come to reality within a decade.

The Department of Justice is suing him over this. They are saying he is smothering his competition and not giving users a choice in which browser they use. Windows 98 will incorporate Internet Explorer as well. The DOJ wants them to include Netscape Navigator (his competition). However, it has been shipped to stores as is. The DOJ will probably not be able to stop them. The DOJ doesn't have a case; just because he makes good software and sells it in bundles does not mean he is doing something illegal (maybe unethical... not illegal). He has always been smarter than other companies

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Approximate Word count = 1771
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)