In an industry with no shortage of overnight millionaires and oversize egos, the compulsive and persistent chairman of Microsoft Corp. has managed always to be at center stage.
William H. Gates III was there in 1975, a Harvard University sophomore crafting a version of the programming language Basic as a chaotic band of technoids kicked off the personal computer revolution in Albuquerque, N.M. Gates was at the right place again in 1980, eager to oblige when International Business Machines Corp. went on a hunt for a partner to develop the underlying software--an operating system--for its first PC. And Gates was in the spotlight in Cupertino, Calif., in 1984, lined up before a throng of giddy enthusiasts to endorse Apple Computer Inc.'s new Macintosh computer.
Whenever trends are to be set, Gates is there, arguing arcane technical points or cutting shrewd business deals, always prodding, shoving and even whining--all to the end of added power and fatter fortunes for Microsoft.
Admired and feared, the 35-year-old Gates, perhaps more than any other single player, has put his stamp on an industry that in a decade's time has transformed the way the world works and plays.
"I look at people who have had impact on the whole technology industry and his name is right at the top," said Fred Gibbons, president of Software Publishing Corp. of Mountain View, Calif. "Microsoft is \o7 it\f7 in the '90s."
Gates's story is made for TV-almost. Were he not born into a family of ample financial means and prominent social standing, his ascendancy to industry power-broker would be a classic American success story.
As a teen, Gates earned the respect of fellow hackers for busting into corporate computer systems, and landed the job as a head page in the Senate. At 15, he founded a company with buddy Paul Allen to harness computers to track the Seattle area's traffic patterns.
While at Harvard, 19-year-old Gates again teamed up with Allen, this time to pursue Allen's fascination with the newly minted Altair computer, one of the first PCs. The pair pulled all-nighters to code Basic for the Altair without even seeing the machine. Miraculously, the software worked the first time Allen delivered it to Albuquerque, and it was an instant hit. Gates dropped out of college, and in 1975, the two launched Microsoft.
