Microsoft, a multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company moved to Bellevue, Washington in 1979 and incorporated in 1981. The company has grown to become the world's largest software maker and a leader in cloud enterprise technology.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (William H. Gates III, b. 1955) was born in Seattle to William H. Gates II (1925-2020) and Mary Maxwell Gates (1929-1994). Bill Gates Sr. was an attorney and philanthropist, and Mary Gates was an educator and philanthropist. In 2008, Bill Gates stepped out of a full-time role at Microsoft so he could pursue work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (now Gates Foundation) with his then-wife Melinda French Gates. As of 2025, the foundation is committed to creating a world where everyone can lead a "healthy and productive life," focusing on global health and education.
This photograph of Bill Gates at Microsoft's Redmond campus was taken to accompany a week-long special report on Gates in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in May 1991. At the time, Microsoft was about to release the latest version of its operating system, Windows 3.1. A new feature for Windows 3.1 was the ability to read handwriting from a special stylus and translate it into typing.
Caption information source: "Microsoft's Windows learns to read," by Elizabeth J. Mann, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 30, 1991, page B5.
