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121-1391: (Redirected from Gates Computer Science Building ) William Gates Building might refer to several structures named after Bill Gates , other members of the Gates family, or his former wife, Melinda French Gates : Gates Computer Science Building, Stanford , California, U.S. William Gates Building, Cambridge , University of Cambridge, England Gates Center for Computer Science, at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. Bill and Melinda Gates Hall, at Cornell University , in Ithaca, New York, U.S. William H. Gates Building, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. Bill and Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex, at University of Texas at Austin , U.S. William H. Gates Hall (Seattle) , at University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Bill and Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering, at University of Washington , in Seattle, Washington, U.S. See also [ edit ] Gates Computer Science Building (disambiguation) Gates Hall (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

242-558: A 501(c)(4) organization supporting Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign . In response to the report, he did not explicitly address the donation or endorse Harris, but said "this election is different." In 1998, Gates rejected the need for regulation of the software industry in testimony before the United States Senate. During the Federal Trade Commission 's (FTC) investigation of Microsoft in

363-907: A congressional page in the House of Representatives. He was a national merit scholar when he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973. He did not stay at Harvard long enough to choose a concentration, but took mathematics (including Math 55 ) and graduate level computer science courses. While at Harvard, he met fellow student and future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer . Gates left Harvard after two years while Ballmer stayed and graduated magna cum laude . Years later, Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft's CEO and maintained that position from 2000 until his resignation in 2014. Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as

484-791: A Microsoft employee, which an external law firm had begun probing in late 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates has widely been looked at by media outlets as an expert on the issue, despite him not being a public official or having any prior medical training . His foundation did, however, establish the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator in 2020 to hasten the development and evaluation of new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients for COVID-19 , and, as of February 2021, Gates expressed that he and Anthony Fauci frequently talk and collaborate on matters including vaccines and other medical innovations to fight

605-530: A November 2020 interview, he said: "What are these, like, nudists? I mean, you know, we ask you to wear pants, and no American says, or very few Americans say, that that's, like, some terrible thing." Melinda Gates suggested that people should emulate the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, who sold their home and gave away half of its value, as detailed in their book, The Power of Half . Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what

726-426: A breakthrough innovation in sustainable energy technology could drive down both greenhouse gas emissions and poverty, and bring economic benefits by stabilizing energy prices. In 2011, he said: "If you gave me the choice between picking the next 10 presidents or ensuring that energy is environmentally friendly and a quarter as costly, I'd pick the energy thing." In 2015, he wrote about the challenge of transitioning

847-500: A career in law. During his childhood, his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches , a Protestant Reformed denomination. Gates was small for his age and was bullied as a child. The family encouraged competition; one visitor reported that "it didn't matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock; there was always a reward for winning and there

968-598: A combination of "microcomputer" and "software", and their first office was in Albuquerque. The first employee Gates and Allen hired was their high school collaborator Ric Weiland . They dropped the hyphen within a year and officially registered the trade name " Microsoft " with the Secretary of the State of New Mexico on November 26, 1976. Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies. Microsoft's Altair BASIC

1089-403: A company that services emissions-intensive private jets. In 2019, he began to divest from fossil fuels . He does not expect divestment itself to have much practical impact, but says that if his efforts to provide alternatives were to fail, he would not want to personally benefit from an increase in fossil fuel stock prices. After he published his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , parts of

1210-429: A danger especially for smaller investors who could not survive the potentially high losses. Gates also does not own any cryptocurrencies himself. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller , and donated some of his Microsoft stock in 1994 to create the "William H. Gates Foundation". In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations and donated stock valued at $ 5 billion to create

1331-641: A demonstration, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration was held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico ; it was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC . MITS hired Allen, and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with him at MITS in November 1975. Allen named their partnership "Micro-Soft",

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1452-406: A few years of joining the company. The company is often referred to as a "Velvet Sweatshop", a term which originated in a 1989 Seattle Times article, and later became used to describe the company by some of Microsoft's own employees. This characterization is derived from the perception that Microsoft provides nearly everything for its employees in a convenient place, but in turn overworks them to

1573-632: A fireside chat moderated by journalist and news anchor Shereen Bhan virtually at the Singapore FinTech Festival on December 8, 2020, on the topic, "Building Infrastructure for Resilience: What the COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About How to Scale Financial Inclusion". Governments are there to think ahead to bad things that might happen. In the case of (the COVID-19) pandemic, not enough

1694-558: A further $ 1 billion to Breakthrough Energy. In December 2020, he called for the U.S. federal government to create institutes for clean energy research, analogous to the National Institutes of Health . Gates has also urged rich nations to shift to 100% synthetic beef industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food production. Gates has been criticized for holding a large stake in Signature Aviation ,

1815-537: A huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead... It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO ( total cost of ownership ), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties [...] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called

1936-546: A legal conclusion that is pat enough for us to make the decision to take mono out". In November 2011 at an Ubuntu Developer Summit , developers voted to have the Mono-based Banshee media player removed from Ubuntu's default installation beginning on Ubuntu 12.04 ; although reported reasonings included performance issues on ARM architecture , blocking issues on its GTK+ 3 version, and it being, in their opinion, "not well maintained", speculation also surfaced that

2057-548: A major player in the industry. The press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the IBM PC. PC Magazine asked if Gates was "the man behind the machine?". Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates the president and chairman of the board, with Paul Allen as vice president and vice chairman. In early 1983, Allen left

2178-526: A million people that you didn't expect to die from a pandemic , or nuclear or bioterrorism ." Gates also identified innovation as the "real driver of progress" and pronounced that "America's way better today than it's ever been." Gates has often expressed concern about the potential harms of superintelligence ; in a Reddit "ask me anything", he stated that: First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though

2299-576: A partnership between Machinima.com and Microsoft came to light regarding a marketing campaign for Xbox One . Machinima would offer some of its users $ 3 per thousand views if the user showed 30 seconds of an Xbox One game and mentioned the system by name. Controversy arose when it was reported that, under the terms of the promotion, participants were not allowed to disclose that they were being paid for said endorsements, which Ars Technica said conflicted with FTC regulations requiring recipients to fully disclose when such actions occur. Machinima stated that

2420-634: A platform company and understood the importance of attracting third-party programmers. It did so by providing development tools, training, access to proprietary APIs in early versions, and partner programs. Although the resulting ubiquity of Microsoft software allows a user to benefit from network effects , critics and even Microsoft itself decry what they consider to be an " embrace, extend and extinguish " strategy of adding proprietary features to open standards or their software implementations, thereby using its market dominance to gain unofficial ownership of standards "extended" in this way. Microsoft software

2541-558: A point where it would be bad for their (possibly long-term) health. For example, the kitchenettes have free beverages and many buildings include exercise rooms and showers. However, the company has been accused of attempting to keep employees at the company for exceptionally long hours. This is detailed in several books about Microsoft, including Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire . A US state lawsuit

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2662-427: A refund for Windows: By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine their return policy for a refund or credit. Based on the updated language, vendors refused to issue partial refunds for Windows licenses, requiring that the computer be returned altogether. In some countries, this practice has been ruled

2783-477: A result of the 2020 United States presidential election which led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack , Gates said a permanent ban of Trump "would be a shame" and would be an "extreme measure". He warned that it would cause "polarization" if users with different political views divide up among various social networks, and said: "I don't think banning somebody who actually did get a fair number of votes (in

2904-430: A solution to one of a series of unsolved problems presented in a combinatorics class by professor Harry Lewis . His solution held the record as the fastest version for over 30 years, and its successor is faster by only 2%. His solution was formalized and published in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou . Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at Honeywell during

3025-543: A variation of Windows 8 for ARM architecture , have locked firmware where this cannot be disabled). No mandate is made regarding the installation of third-party certificates that would enable running alternative programs. When Microsoft discovered that its first product, Altair BASIC , was subject to widespread unauthorized copying , Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists that openly accused many hobbyists of stealing software. Gates' letter provoked many responses, with some hobbyists objecting to

3146-457: A violation of consumer protection law. Additionally, the EULA for Windows Vista was criticized for being too restrictive. Microsoft's market dominance and business practices have attracted widespread resentment, which is not necessarily restricted to the company's competitors. In a 2003 publication, Dan Geer argued the prevalence of Microsoft products has resulted in a monoculture which

3267-580: A water, sanitation and hygiene program to provide sustainable sanitation services in poor countries. Its agriculture division supports the International Rice Research Institute in developing Golden Rice , a genetically modified rice variant used to combat vitamin A deficiency . The foundation aims to provide women and girls in the developing world with information and support regarding contraception and, ultimately, universal access to consensual family planning . In 2007,

3388-401: Is also presented as a "safe" choice for IT managers purchasing software systems. In an internal memo for senior management Microsoft's head of C++ development, Aaron Contorer, stated: The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most independent software vendors would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is

3509-1011: Is dangerously easy for viruses to exploit. On June 25, 2024, the European Commission accused Microsoft of violating the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union by bundling Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office . Microsoft has been criticized for the use of permatemp employees (employees employed for years as "temporary," and therefore without medical benefits), use of forced retention tactics, where departing employees would be sued to prevent departure, as well as more traditional cost-saving measures, ranging from cutting medical benefits to not providing towels in company locker rooms. Historically, Microsoft has also been accused of overworking employees, in many cases, leading to burnout within just

3630-464: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist best known for his roles at Microsoft Corporation . He co-founded the software company with his childhood friend Paul Allen and later held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect . He

3751-561: Is the largest American corporate user of H-1B guest worker visas and has joined other large technology companies like Google in recently lobbying for looser H-1B visa restrictions. Jesse Jackson believes Microsoft should hire more minorities and women. Jackson has urged other companies to diversify their workforce. He believes that Microsoft made some progress when it appointed two women to its board of directors in 2015. Critics have alleged that Microsoft has used funding to drum up support from think tanks and trade organizations such as

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3872-553: The Los Angeles Times criticized the foundation for investing its assets in companies that have been accused of worsening poverty, pollution and pharmaceutical firms that do not sell to developing countries . Although the foundation announced a review of its investments to assess social responsibility, it was subsequently canceled and upheld its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices. Gates delivered his thoughts in

3993-523: The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. One was Mission Innovation , in which 20 national governments pledged to double their spending on research and development for carbon-free energy in over five years' time. Another initiative was Breakthrough Energy , a group of investors who agreed to fund high-risk startups in clean energy technologies. Gates, who had already invested $ 1 billion of his own money in innovative energy startups, committed

4114-764: The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), the Independent Institute , and Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL). During the antitrust case United States v. Microsoft , ATL sent a poll to 19 state attorneys general purporting to show that "the public believes state AGs should devote their energy to causes other than Microsoft". Also during the case the Independent Institute ran full-page advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Post defending Microsoft, which

4235-615: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013, as the world's largest charitable foundation, with assets reportedly valued at more than $ 34.6 billion. The foundation allows benefactors to access information that shows how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust . Gates, through his foundation, also donated $ 20 million to

4356-553: The Carnegie Mellon University for a new building to be named Gates Center for Computer Science which opened in 2009. Gates has credited the generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller as a major influence. He and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and their charity work is partly modeled on the Rockefeller family 's philanthropic focus, whereby they are interested in tackling

4477-529: The MSDN Academic Alliance program. Microsoft encourages original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to supply computers with Windows pre-installed by presenting their dominance in computer sales and arguing that consumers benefit by not having to install an operating system. Because the price of the license varies depending on discounts given to the OEM and because there is no similar computer that

4598-598: The Microsoft Community Promise . The concerns primarily relate to technologies developed by Microsoft on top of the .NET Framework, such as ASP.NET , ADO.NET and Windows Forms (see non-standardized namespaces ), i.e. parts composing Mono's Windows compatibility stack. These technologies are today not fully implemented in Mono and not required for developing Mono-applications, they are simply there for developers and users who need full compatibility with

4719-474: The Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents. On July 6, 2009, Microsoft announced that it was placing their ECMA 334 and ECMA 335 specifications under their Community Promise pledging that they would not assert their patents against anyone implementing, distributing, or using alternative implementations of .NET. Mono's implementation of those components of

4840-661: The Republic of Ireland declared £220 bn in profits but paid no corporation tax for the year 2020. This is due to the company being tax resident in Bermuda as mentioned in the accounts for 'Microsoft Round Island One', a subsidiary that collects licence fees from the use of Microsoft software worldwide. Dame Margaret Hodge , a Labour MP in the UK said, "It is unsurprising – yet still shocking – that massively wealthy global corporations openly, unashamedly and blatantly refuse to pay tax on

4961-936: The TRS-80 Model 100 , but he wrote code that shipped with the company's products as late as 1989. Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1985 when Gates announced Microsoft Excel : "Bill Gates likes the program, not because it's going to make him a lot of money (although I'm sure it will do that), but because it's a neat hack ." During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics , which were considered anti-competitive . This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his role at Microsoft to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He gradually divided his responsibilities between two successors when he placed Ray Ozzie in charge of management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy. The process took two years to fully transfer his duties to Ozzie and Mundie, and

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5082-707: The University of Essex stated, "Gates speaks as if all the lives being lost in India are inevitable but eventually the West will help when in reality the US & UK are holding their feet on the neck of developing states by refusing to break [intellectual property rights] protections. It's disgusting." Gates is opposed to the TRIPS waiver . Bloomberg News reported him as saying he argued that Oxford University should not give away

5203-856: The mobile operating system race to Android was his biggest mistake. He stated that it was within their skill set of being the dominant player, but partially blames the antitrust litigation during the time. That same year, Gates became an advisory board member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum . In March 2020, Microsoft announced Gates would be leaving his board positions at Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft to dedicate himself to philanthropic endeavors such as climate change, global health and development, and education. The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2021 that Gates stepped down before Microsoft's board finished its investigation into Gates's alleged inappropriate sexual relationship with

5324-492: The "federal, state, and local contracts." Gates has also provided personal donations to educational institutions. In 1999, Gates donated $ 20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the construction of a computer laboratory named the "William H. Gates Building" that was designed by architect Frank Gehry . While Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution, this

5445-657: The .NET stack not submitted to the ECMA for standardization has been the source of patent violation concerns for much of the life of the project. In particular, discussion has taken place about whether Microsoft could destroy the Mono project through patent suits. The base technologies submitted to the ECMA, and therefore also the Unix/GNOME-specific parts, are claimed to be safe due to Microsoft's explicitly placing both ECMA 334 ( C# ) and ECMA 335 ( CLI ) standards under

5566-584: The 1990s, Gates was reportedly upset at then Commissioner Dennis Yao for "float[ing] a line of hypothetical questions suggesting possible curbs on Microsoft's growing monopoly power". According to one source: Gates was vexed. "He started by calling Yao's ideas socialistic," recalls a source familiar with the July 15 meeting, "and as he got angrier and angrier and louder and louder, he got into calling them Communistic." After Facebook and Twitter had banned Donald Trump from their platforms on February 18, 2021, as

5687-838: The 1990s, Microsoft was accused of maintaining "hidden" or "secret" APIs: interfaces to its operating system software that it deliberately keeps undocumented to gain a competitive advantage in its application software products. Microsoft employees have consistently denied this; they claim that application developers inside and outside Microsoft routinely reverse-engineered DOS and 16-bit versions of Windows without any inside help, creating legacy support problems that far exceeded any alleged benefit to Microsoft. In response to court orders, Microsoft has published interfaces between components of its operating system software, including components like Internet Explorer , Active Directory , and Windows Media that sell as part of Windows but compete with application software. On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined

5808-432: The 2010s, Microsoft has faced criticism for using adware -like tactics to market recent software and services. Microsoft faced criticism over its marketing and distribution of no-cost Windows 10 upgrades for Windows 7 and 8 users, which included a "Get Windows 10" application automatically downloaded via Windows Update that displayed popups advertising the offer, use of dark patterns to coax users into installing

5929-617: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity . Through the foundation, he led an early 21st century vaccination campaign that significantly contributed to the eradication of the wild poliovirus in Africa. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge , whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth towards philanthropy. William Henry Gates III

6050-637: The Chinese market and only then taking measures against unauthorized copies. In 2008, by means of the Windows update mechanism, a verification program called " Windows Genuine Advantage " (WGA) was downloaded and installed. When WGA detects that the copy of Windows is not genuine, it periodically turns the user's screen black. This behavior angered users and generated complaints in China with a lawyer stating that "Microsoft uses its monopoly to bundle its updates with

6171-605: The Microsoft board in February 2014 and assumed the role of technology adviser to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella . In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change , global health and development, and education. Since 1987, Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's top billionaires . From 1995 to 2017, he held

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6292-444: The OEM offers without Windows, there is no immediate way to find the size of the refund. In 2009, Microsoft stated that it has always charged OEMs about $ 50 for a Windows license on a $ 1,000 computer. While it is possible to obtain a computer with no or free operating systems, virtually all large computer vendors continue to bundle Microsoft Windows with the majority of the personal computers in their ranges. The claimed increase in

6413-465: The PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to be the exclusive licensing agent of 86-DOS, and later the full owner. Microsoft employed Paterson to adapt the operating system for the PC and delivered it to IBM as PC DOS for a one-time fee of $ 50,000. The contract itself only earned Microsoft a relatively small fee. It was the prestige brought to Microsoft by IBM's adoption of their operating system that would be

6534-627: The Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago. More recently, Microsoft had their OOXML specification approved by the ISO standards body in a manner consistent with previous attempts to control standards. With the release of Windows 8 , Microsoft began requiring OEM devices to ship with UEFI system firmware, configured by default to only allow the execution of operating system binaries digitally signed by Microsoft ( UEFI secure boot ). Concerns were raised that this requirement would hinder

6655-521: The Windows system. In June 2009 the Ubuntu Technical Board stated that it saw "no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set." The Free Software Foundation 's Richard Stallman has stated on June 2, 2009, that "[...] we should discourage people from writing programs in C#. Therefore, we should not include C# implementations in

6776-515: The adoption of the bill. The bill should cut the global greenhouse gas emissions in a level similar to "eliminating the annual planet-warming pollution of France and Germany combined" and may help to limit the warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees – the target of the Paris Agreement . He thanked both Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer for their efforts in a guest essay in The New York Times , where he said "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 may be

6897-527: The belief that the article had been "heavily written" by IBM employees who supported the rival OpenDocument format, though she provided no specific evidence. Internet entrepreneur and Wikimedia Foundation founder Jimmy Wales described Microsoft's offer as unethical. In 2009, it was found that a photo on the Polish version of Microsoft's business productivity website—which depicted three people of various races during an office meeting—had been edited to replace

7018-429: The board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics , which were considered anti-competitive . In June 2008, Gates transitioned into a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife Melinda had established in 2000. He stepped down as chairman of

7139-626: The broad accusation, and others supporting the principle of compensation. This disagreement over whether software should be proprietary continues into the present day under the banner of the free software movement, with Microsoft characterizing free software released under the terms of the GPL as being "potentially viral" and the GNU General Public License itself as a " viral license " which "infects" proprietary software and forces its developer to have to release proprietary source to

7260-461: The climate activist community criticized Gates's approach as technological solutionism . In 2022, educational streamer Wondrium produced the series "Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation" inspired by the book. In June 2021, Gates's company TerraPower and Warren Buffett 's PacifiCorp announced the first sodium nuclear reactor in Wyoming . Wyoming Governor Mike Gordon hailed

7381-740: The company after receiving a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, effectively ending the formal business partnership between Gates and Allen, which had been strained months prior due to a contentious dispute over Microsoft equity. Later in the decade, Gates repaired his relationship with Allen and together the two donated millions to their childhood school Lakeside. They remained friends until Allen's death in October 2018. Microsoft and Gates launched their first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, in an attempt to fend off competition from Apple 's Macintosh GUI , which had captivated consumers with its simplicity and ease of use. In August 1986,

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7502-516: The company is "proud to support" the work of ICE. Microsoft has stated it "is not working with the U.S. government on any projects related to separating children from their families at the border." In February 2019, some of Microsoft’s employees protested the company's war profiteering from a $ 480 million contract to develop augmented reality headsets for the United States Army . From its inception, Microsoft defined itself as

7623-465: The company produced in its first five years. As the company grew, he transitioned into a manager role, then an executive. DONKEY.BAS , is a computer game written in 1981 and included with early versions of the PC DOS operating system distributed with the original IBM PC. It is a driving game in which the player must avoid hitting donkeys . The game was written by Gates and Neil Konzen . IBM ,

7744-518: The company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2 . Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, the partnership deteriorated due to mounting creative differences. The operating system grew out of DOS in an organic fashion over a decade until Windows 95 , which hid the DOS prompt by default. Windows XP was released one year after Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO. Windows 8.1

7865-511: The conference, Gates warned that the world was not prepared for the next pandemic, a situation that would come to pass in late 2019 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. In March 2018, Gates met at his home in Seattle with Mohammed bin Salman , the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia to discuss investment opportunities for Saudi Vision 2030 . In June 2019, Gates admitted that losing

7986-539: The confidentiality clause only applied to the terms of the agreement, and not to the existence of the agreement, and Microsoft ended the promotion and directed Machinima to add disclosures to the videos involved. In September 2015, Machinima settled with the FTC over charges that the ad campaign failed to comply with FTC endorsement guidelines; the FTC decided not to take action against Microsoft since it already has "policies and procedures designed to prevent such lapses". Since

8107-475: The decision was also influenced by a desire to remove Mono from the base distribution, as the remaining programs dependent on Mono, gbrainy and Tomboy , were also to be removed. Mono developer Joseph Michael Shields defended the performance of Banshee on ARM, and also the claims that Banshee was not well-maintained as being a "directed personal insult" to one of its major contributors. Microsoft ignored unauthorized copying of its own software for their benefit on

8228-736: The default installation of GNU/Linux distributions or in their principal ways of installing GNOME". On July 1, 2009, Brett Smith (also from the FSF) stated that "Microsoft's patents are much more dangerous: it's the only major software company that has declared itself the enemy of GNU/Linux and stated its intention to attack our community with patents.", "C# represents a unique threat to us" and "The Community Promise does nothing to change any of this". Fedora Project Leader Paul Frields has stated, "We do have some serious concerns about Mono and we'll continue to look at it with our legal counsel to see what if any steps are needed on our part", yet "We haven't come to

8349-581: The distribution of shared source software to harvest names of developers who have been exposed to Microsoft code, as some believe that these developers could someday be the target of lawsuits if they were ever to participate in the development of competing products. This issue is addressed in published papers from several organizations including the American Bar Association and the Open Source Initiative . Starting in

8470-413: The entire system on which the software is installed. Acer Inc. has a policy of requiring the customer to return items at their own expense, and the balance received by the customer can be as low as €30. In other cases, vendors have asked that customers requesting refunds sign non-disclosure agreements . Older versions of Microsoft Windows had different license terms with respect to the availability of

8591-490: The family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and investor Warren Buffett each signed a commitment they called the " Giving Pledge ", which is a commitment by all three to donate at least half of their wealth, over the course of time, to charity. The Foundation has received criticism, particularly over its role in Common Core , with critics stating the support is " cronyist " in that it profits from

8712-590: The global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations. The foundation is organized into five program areas: Global Development Division, Global Health Division, United States Division, and Global Policy & Advocacy Division. Among others, it supports a wide range of public health projects, granting aid to fight transmissible diseases such AIDS , tuberculosis and malaria , as well as widespread vaccine programs to eradicate polio . It grants funds to learning institutes and libraries and supports scholarships at universities. The foundation established

8833-401: The head of an African-American man with that of a Caucasian , whilst also failing to edit the person's hand to match the different skin color. Microsoft apologized and quickly removed the image. In 2011, Moneylife.in alleged that two "anonymous comments boosting their product"—one by a Nokia employee and another by a Microsoft employee—were posted on their review of Nokia Lumia 800 , which

8954-550: The intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned. In an interview that was held at the TED conference in March 2015, with Baidu co-founder and CEO, Robin Li , Gates said he would "highly recommend" Nick Bostrom 's recent work, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies . During

9075-399: The interview, he provided his perspective on climate change, his charitable activities, various tech companies and people involved in them, and the state of America. In response to a question about his greatest fear when he looks 50 years into the future, Gates stated: "there'll be some really bad things that'll happen in the next 50 or 100 years, but hopefully none of them on the scale of, say,

9196-515: The leading supplier of computer equipment to commercial enterprises at the time, approached Microsoft in July 1980 concerning software for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC , after Gates's mother mentioned Microsoft to John Opel , IBM's then CEO . IBM first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. IBM's representatives also mentioned that they needed an operating system, and Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of

9317-464: The long term. While talking about users in China who do not pay for the software they use in 2006, to an audience at the University of Washington, Bill Gates said "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." The practice allowed Microsoft to gain some dominance over

9438-477: The number of computers an OEM sold, regardless of whether a Windows license was included; Microsoft was forced to end this practice due to a consent decree. In 2010, Microsoft stated that its agreements with OEMs to distribute Windows are nonexclusive, and OEMs are free to distribute computers with a different operating system or without any operating system. Microsoft does not provide refunds for Windows licenses sold through an OEM, including licenses that come with

9559-883: The operating system, downloading installation files without user consent, and making it difficult for users to suppress the advertising and notifications if they did not wish to upgrade to Windows 10. Microsoft has used advertising embedded in the Microsoft Bing search engine and Microsoft Edge web browser to discourage the use of competing web browser Google Chrome (which shares the same engine as Bing), including displaying prominent ads on specific search terms, and programming Edge to inject on-screen notifications and banner advertising when browsing Chrome's web site. In 2023 and 2024, Microsoft began using notifications to encourage Chrome users to switch to Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Copilot . As reported by several news outlets, an Irish subsidiary of Microsoft based in

9680-508: The origin of Microsoft's transformation from a small business to the leading software company in the world. Gates had not offered to transfer the copyright on the operating system to IBM because he believed that other personal computer makers would clone IBM's PC hardware. They did, making the IBM-compatible PC, running DOS, a de facto standard. The sales of MS-DOS (the version of DOS sold to customers other than IBM) made Microsoft

9801-450: The pandemic. Gates has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio with stakes in companies in multiple sectors and has participated in several entrepreneurial ventures beyond Microsoft, including: Gates considers climate change and global access to energy to be critical, interrelated issues. He has urged governments and the private sector to invest in research and development to make clean, reliable energy cheaper. Gates envisions that

9922-409: The presidential election) – well less than a majority – but I don't think having him off forever would be that good." In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic , Gates was criticized for suggesting that pharmaceutical companies should hold onto patents for COVID-19 vaccines . The criticism came due to the possibility of this preventing poorer nations from obtaining adequate vaccines. Tara Van Ho of

10043-651: The price of a computer resulting from the inclusion of a Windows license has been called the "Windows tax" or "Microsoft tax" by opposing computer users. The Findings of Fact in the United States Microsoft antitrust case of 1998 established that "One of the ways Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating system pre-installed. In 1998, all major OEMs agreed to this restriction." Microsoft also once assessed license fees based on

10164-603: The profits they make in the countries where they undertake business". In 2020, ProPublica reported that the company had diverted more than $ 39 billion in U.S. profits to Puerto Rico using a mechanism structured to make it seem as if the company was unprofitable on paper. As a result, the company paid a tax rate on those profits of "nearly 0%." When the Internal Revenue Service audited these transactions, ProPublica reported that Microsoft aggressively fought back, including successfully lobbying Congress to change

10285-462: The program ready for their senior year. Towards the end of their junior year, Evans was killed in a mountain climbing accident, which Gates described as one of the saddest days of his life. He then turned to Allen who helped him finish the system for Lakeside. At 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. In 1972, he served as

10406-478: The project as a step toward carbon-negative nuclear power. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso also said that it could boost the state's once-active uranium mining industry. Gates spent many efforts to make pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 because of his importance to climate. He tried to convince Joe Manchin to support a climate bill from the year 2019 and especially in the months before

10527-432: The public. The Halloween documents , internal Microsoft memos which were leaked to the open source community beginning in 1998, indicate that some Microsoft employees perceive "open source" software — in particular, Linux — as a growing long-term threat to Microsoft's position in the software industry. The Halloween documents acknowledged that parts of Linux are superior to the versions of Microsoft Windows available at

10648-507: The purchase of a computer or are pre-installed on a computer. According to Microsoft's End-user license agreement for Windows 7 the ability to receive a refund for the operating system is determined by the hardware manufacturer: By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine its return policy. You must comply with that policy, which might limit your rights or require you to return

10769-440: The report stated that it would contain arguments suggesting that governments could be threatened by hackers and terrorists (who could study potential vulnerabilities due to source availability) if it used open source software . However, the draft contained no references to these topics. Open Source Initiative (OSI) founder Bruce Perens felt that the report had "Microsoft's paws all over [it]". Microsoft argued that its funding

10890-413: The rights to its COVID-19 information, as it had announced, but instead sell it to a single industry partner, as it did. His views on the value of legal monopolies in medicine have been linked to his views on legal monopolies in software. Gates has been critical of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin . According to him, cryptocurrencies provide no "valuable output", contribute nothing to society, and pose

11011-441: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title William Gates Building . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Gates_Building&oldid=1099181932 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

11132-497: The same work, and worked for long terms. After a series of court setbacks including three reversals on appeal, Microsoft settled the suit for US$ 97 million. A side effect of the "permatemp" lawsuit is that now contract employees are prevented from participating in team morale events and other activities that could be construed as making them "employees". They are also limited to 18-month contracts and must leave after that time for 6 months before returning under contract. Microsoft

11253-480: The single most important piece of climate legislation in American history" given its potential to spur development of new technologies. Gates gave further insights on climate change in his commencement address at Northern Arizona University on May 6, 2023, where he was bestowed an honorary doctorate. In October 2024, The New York Times reported Gates had recently donated $ 50 million to Future Forward USA Action,

11374-491: The summer of 1974. In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 was released based on the Intel 8080 CPU , and Gates and Allen saw the opportunity to start their own computer software company. Gates dropped out of Harvard that same year. His parents were supportive of him after seeing how much he wanted to start his own company. He explained his decision to leave Harvard: "if things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I

11495-483: The system remotely via Teletype , Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including Fortran , Lisp , and machine language . The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970 when the company went out of business. The following year, a Lakeside teacher enlisted Gates and Evans to automate the school's class-scheduling system, providing them computer time and royalties in return. The duo worked diligently in order to have

11616-629: The tagline "Life is short, play more." The advert was banned from television by the ITC, who considered it to be "offensive, shocking and in bad taste", noting complaints citing the advert's themes of death and the "traumatic experience" the person was facing in the ad. In August 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered Microsoft to pull ads in Britain that claimed that the total cost of ownership of Linux servers

11737-422: The time, and outlined a strategy of "de-commoditize[ing] protocols & applications." Microsoft stated in its 2006 Annual Report that it was a defendant in at least 35 patent infringement lawsuits. The company's litigation expenses for April 2004 through March 2007 exceed $ 4.3 billion: over $ 4 billion in payouts, plus $ 300 million in legal fees. Another concern of critics is that Microsoft may be using

11858-565: The title of the wealthiest person in the world every year except in 2008 and from 2010 to 2013. In 1999, he became the first ever centibillionaire when his net worth briefly surpassed US$ 100 billion. Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued other business and philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN , Cascade Investment , TerraPower , Gates Ventures , and Breakthrough Energy . He has donated to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through

11979-634: The use of alternate operating systems such as Linux . In a post discussing secure boot on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft developer Tony Mangefeste indicated that vendors would provide means to customize secure boot, stating that "At the end of the day, the customer is in control of their PC. Microsoft's philosophy is to provide customers with the best experience first, and allow them to make decisions themselves." As such, vendors were required to provide means for users to re-configure or disable secure boot (although devices running Windows RT ,

12100-411: The validation programs and forces its users to verify the genuineness of their software". A common complaint comes from those who want to purchase a computer that usually comes preinstalled with Windows without a copy of Windows pre-installed and without paying extra for the license either so that another operating system can be used or because a license was already acquired elsewhere, such as through

12221-489: The widely used CP/M operating system. IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and asked if Microsoft could provide an operating system. A few weeks later, Gates and Allen proposed using 86-DOS , an operating system similar to CP/M, that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to

12342-752: The world's energy system from one based primarily on fossil fuels to one based on sustainable energy sources. Global energy transitions have historically taken decades. He wrote, "I believe we can make this transition faster, both because the pace of innovation is accelerating, and because we have never had such an urgent reason to move from one source of energy to another." This rapid transition, according to Gates, would depend on increased government funding for basic research and financially risky private-sector investment, to enable innovation in diverse areas such as nuclear energy , grid energy storage to facilitate greater use of solar and wind energy, and solar fuels . Gates spearheaded two initiatives that he announced at

12463-607: Was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC) which banned Gates, Paul Allen , Ric Weiland , and Gates's best friend and first business partner Kent Evans for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time. The four students formed the Lakeside Programmers Club to make money. At the end of the ban, they offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for extra computer time. Rather than using

12584-485: Was a national bank president. Gates also has an older sister Kristi (Kristianne) and a younger sister Libby. He is the fourth of his name in his family but is known as William Gates III or "Trey" (i.e., three) because his father had the "II" suffix. The family lived in the Sand Point area of Seattle in a home that was damaged by a rare tornado when Gates was 7. When Gates was young his parents wanted him to pursue

12705-544: Was also being its largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington . In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico . Gates led the company as its chairman and chief executive officer until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer , but he remained chairman of

12826-566: Was always a penalty for losing". At age 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school . When he was in eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC , and he

12947-477: Was based only on the "technical specifications" and the reviewer "hadn't laid a finger on the phone". In conclusion, Charles Arthur argued "Nobody has come out of the episode looking good. Sapkale was accused of breaking his own site's privacy policy by posting the IP and email addresses of the commenters, while the commenting duo's failure to declare any interest looked, at best, like astroturfing ." In 2014 details on

13068-424: Was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington as the only son of William H. Gates Sr. (1925–2020) and his first wife, Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994). His ancestry includes English , German , and Irish / Scots-Irish . His father was a prominent lawyer , and his mother served on the board of directors of First Interstate BancSystem and United Way of America . Gates's maternal grandfather J. W. Maxwell

13189-644: Was brought against Microsoft in 1992 representing 8,558 current and former employees that had been classified as "temporary" and "freelance", and became known as Vizcaino v. Microsoft . In 1993, the suit became a US Federal Class Action in the United States District Court Western District Of Washington at Seattle as No. C93-178C. The Final Settlement came in 2005. The case was decided on the (IRS-defined) basis that such "permatemps" had their jobs defined by Microsoft, worked alongside regular employees doing

13310-446: Was completed on June 27, 2008. Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft, Gates has continued his philanthropy and works on other projects. He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 to become technology advisor at the firm to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella . Gates provided his perspective on a range of issues in an interview that was published in the March 2014 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. In

13431-402: Was done. We can't forget that another pandemic will come and we'll need to invest in being ready in that, ... while not forgetting that we were not prepared and we're going to have to invest – just like having a fire department – some money in an intelligent way and actually simulate what might happen and make sure that we're ready for it. Gates favors the normalization of COVID-19 masks. In

13552-504: Was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine, an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, Gates and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems

13673-557: Was for AdTI's operations as a whole, and not relevant to any specific research by the organization. " Champagne ", a 2002 British television advert for the Xbox , received 136 complaints from viewers to the Independent Television Commission (ITC) over its content. The advert featured a newborn baby being launched out of its mother—aging as it flies through the air, and crashing into a gravestone. It contained

13794-516: Was later revealed to have funded the ad campaign. The institute published Winners, Losers, and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology shortly thereafter. In June 2002, the AdTI published a report, quickly pulled under the argument that it was a draft version, which contained criticism of the copyleft model and the GNU General Public License . A May 2002 press release for

13915-518: Was officially on leave." Gates read the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics which demonstrated the Altair 8800 , and contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for

14036-611: Was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked out and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, he wrote An Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90% of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software. This letter

14157-521: Was shut down by protestors as part of a direct action organized by Close the Camps NYC. The action was in response to Microsoft's $ 19.4 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Microsoft's relationship with the immigration enforcement agency was revealed by executive Tom Keane, through a company blog post that describes ICE's use of the company's high-security cloud storage product Azure Government. He went on to say

14278-535: Was ten times that of Windows Server 2003 . The comparison included the cost of hardware, and put Linux at a disadvantage by installing it on more expensive but poorer-performing hardware compared to that used for Windows. On January 22, 2007, Rick Jelliffe made a claim on his blog that a Microsoft employee offered to pay him to make corrections in English Misplaced Pages articles concerning Office Open XML . Microsoft spokesperson Catherine Brooker expressed

14399-556: Was the first personal donation received from Gates. Criticism of Microsoft The company has been the subject of numerous lawsuits , brought by several governments and by other companies, for unlawful monopolistic practices. In 2004, the European Union found Microsoft guilty in the Microsoft Corp. v. Commission case, and it received an 899 million euro fine. On September 14, 2019, Microsoft's flagship store

14520-458: Was the last version of the OS released before Gates left the chair of the firm to John W. Thompson on February 5, 2014. During Microsoft's early years, Gates was an active software developer, particularly in the company's programming language products, but his primary role in most of the company's history was as a manager and executive. He has not officially been on a development team since working on

14641-427: Was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems. The company moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979. Gates said he personally reviewed and often rewrote every line of code that

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