Gates was born and raised in Seattle Washington. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the world's largest personal computer software company. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anticompetitive.
Since 1987, Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every except from 2010 to 2013. In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff, who had an estimated net worth of billions compared to Gates net worth of billions at the time.
Later in his career and since leaving day to day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued many businesses. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN, Cascade Investment. He has given sizeable amount of money to various charitable organizations. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Given Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.