Bill Gates: The Early Years
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A look at the life the Microsoft co-founder before the internet revolution
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LOS ANGELES - With a fatherly demeanor, goofy jokes and brown V-neck sweater, Bill Gates didn&#39;t come across as an entertainment mogul yesterday.
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(InfoWorld) - Bill Gates returned to Harvard University on Thursday to address its graduating class and receive an honorary degree after dropping out of the college 33 years ago to found Microsoft. He spent much of his address on the issues of global poverty and disease, advancing ideas on how to encourage more people to get involved in trying to resolve those huge problems. "I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: 'Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree,'" the Microsoft chairmanÂ said to hearty audience laughter as he began his speech. All commencement speakers are given an honorary Harvard degree, and Gates was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree. He's already received a handful of honorary doctorates from other universities around the world, the most recent being awarded by China's Tsinghua University in April. When Gates arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973, he was uncertain of his course of study but sure of his abiding passion for software. He quit Harvard in his junior year to focus full-time on the software startup, Microsoft, which he cofounded with his childhood pal Paul Allen. Gates described how he encouraged Harvard buddy Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft CEO, to quit business school and join the software company when it was only about 50 employees strong. "I'm a bad influence," Gates said. "That's why I was invited to speak to your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today." He also reminisced about his accommodation at Harvard, saying his particular lodgings were a great place to live. "There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types," Gates said, with a smile. "That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success." However, Gates was all seriousness and a fair amount of fervor during most of his 25-minute address, expressing his one big regret about his time at college. "I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world," adding it took him "decades to find out" about the unbelievable poverty and disease in developing countries. He's currently transitioning out of a day-to-day role at Microsoft to spend more time on his global philanthropy work in the areas of health and education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He began that move in June 2006, and it's expected to be complete by July 2008. "Humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries -- but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity," Gates said. He spoke of trying to find ways to develop "a more creative capitalism" that could help market forces work better for the disadvantaged. "If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not," he added. He described his frustration at being on a global health panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, several years ago and being bored rigid. "It was so boring even I couldn't bear it," Gates quipped. The contrast between that panel and a Microsoft launch event he'd just attended were starkÂ -- people were really excited about version 13 of a new piece of software. "I love getting people excited about software," he said. "But why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?" The issue isn't that people don't care about the world's ills, Gates argued, it's that they don't know what to do to resolve them. "Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problem," he said. Using computers, the Internet, and breakthroughs in biotechnology, Gates believes that people can begin to cut through the complex problems of poverty and disease and start to improve lives. Gates challenged both Harvard University and its graduating students. For Harvard, he encouraged the academics to think about applying more of their resources to dealing with the world's issues and to ensure that their students left the college educated about global poverty, hunger, and the prevalence of curable diseases that continue to kill millions of children. For students, he exhorted each of them to embrace one of the world's complex issues and become a specialist on it, whether that issue becomes the focus of their career or more of a part-time passion. "Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists," Gates said. "Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives."
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By Troy WolvertonSTAFF  CARLSBAD -- In a historic joint public appearance Wednes-   day, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs talked about their shared history and gave their views on what's ahead for the technology industry in an appearance that was low on fireworks and heavy with nostalgia.
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Bill Gates has a Google thing. When I asked him about the search competition last summer, he turned on the sarcasm. &quot;We&#39;ll never be as cool as them.
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As Microsoft Corp.   Chairman Bill Gates prepares to step back from the company he  founded, the task of finding new sources of growth for the  world&#039;s largest software company falls to Chief Executive Steve  Ballmer.
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The rise and fall that came before the rise of the technology industry's biggest star.
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Graduation Day CES on Video What happened on the day Bill Gates finally left Microsoft...â¦
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With Microsoft's entrance into the portable music business, Apple's Steve Jobs must do what he has failed to do in the past: prevail over his old nemesis, Bill Gates.
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Microsoft founder Bill Gates retained the top spot on Forbes magazine&#39;s list of the 400 richest people in America. This year&#39;s list contains a record number of billionaires, 313 to be precise.
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Move over, Robin Hood. Bill Gates has a new plan.
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By Brier Dudley, The Seattle Times  Feb. 12--Watching Steve Jobs is giving me a sense of deja vu.   The Apple boss is reminding me of the way Bill Gates acted in the late  1990s, before the crash. Gates was on top of the world then.
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Think you get spam? Imagine having an Internet profile like Bill Gates. The Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) chairman gets millions of e-mails every day, according to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.
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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs talk about the tech world, what the future holdsâand their rivalry.
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This article is the first in a new, regular series of articles and interviews with top Microsoft program managers. Our goal is to give you a close-up, helpful and informative look at things
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The founder of hard-drive maker Seagate was one of the pioneers, and one of the regular guys, of the tech industry.
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In the fall of 1997, I was interviewing Bill Gates at a conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. Suddenly the door to the room we were using sprung open, and William H. Neukom, then Microsoft's general counsel, rushed up to Gates and pulled him from the room. I later learned what the urgency was about: A...