Bill Gates photos

A 30-year-old Bill Gates poses in front of boxes of Microsoft products in 1986, in the packaging facility of the company's then-new 40-acre corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. In March of 1986, Microsoft held an initial public offering of 2.5 million shares. By the end of the year, Gates had become a billionaire at the age of 31. Microsoft was the first company to dominate the personal computer market with its MS-DOS system and, subsequently, the Windows platform. (Photo by Joe McNally/Joe McNally.)

Microsoft Corporation chair and chief software architect Bill Gates introduces Windows on May 22, 1990 in New York City. By that time, Microsoft had become the worldwide leader in software, services and internet technologies for personal and business computing, with more than 39,000 employees in 60 countries. (Photo by Carol Halebian.)

Melinda French, an executive with Microsoft and wife of Bill Gates, shows a copy of "Bob" at a trade show demo in Indian Wells, California on February 6, 1995. ''Bob" was to replace Windows in late 1995, but the program failed to meet with much success, and ended up being discontinued. (Photo by Paul Harris.)

Bill Gates speaks at the launch of "Libraries Online!"—a $10.5 million initiative aimed at helping struggling libraries nationwide provide online access and multimedia personal computers—at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City, on October 10, 1996. (Photo by Evan Agostini.)

Bill Gates meets Professor Stephen Hawking on a visit to the University of Cambridge on October 7, 1997, in the United Kingdom. Around that same time, Microsoft had announced the funding of 50 million pounds (approximately $80 million) for a research center to be based in Cambridge, and Bill Gates followed this up with a personal gift of 12 million pounds (approximately $19.2 million) to the university. A few years later, in 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated 132 million pounds to Cambridge University—the single largest donation ever made to a U.K. university (as of 2012). (Photo by FINDLAY KEMBER.)

Bill and Melinda Gates's "smart home" in Medina, Washington—shown here in a photo taken on October 1, 1997, when the home was still under construction—cost an estimated $113 million to build. (Photo by Julian Wasser.)

Bill Gates was hit in the face by four fresh cream tarts, thrown by writer, actor and infamous pie thrower Noel Godin, as he arrived at a reception in Brussels, Belgium, on April 2, 1998. (Photo by Getty Images.)

Photographers focus on Bill Gates (right) as he testifies during hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3, 1998, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Gates went to Congress to testify that the computer industry needs to develop and sell new products without governmental intervention, but he was accused by competitors of stifling competition. (Photo by JESSICA PERSSON.)

Gates and wife Melinda hold a press conference in New York in December 1998 to announce a $100 million gift to establish a program aimed at assisting vaccination efforts for children in developing countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY.)

President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates attend a White House conference about the nation's economy on April 5, 2000, in Washington, D.C. Clinton gathered high-tech moguls and financial wizards to herald the "new economy," and debate the warning flags raised by wild rides in the markets at that time. (Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS.)

Gates unveils the Xbox video game console during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, on January 6, 2001. "Xbox is the future of video gaming," Gates said during his address. Xbox was launched in the fall of 2001. (Photo by JEFF CHRISTENSEN.)

Gates holds up a copy of the new Windows XP operating system while posing for photos in New York's Times Square on October 25, 2001, at a Windows XP launch event in New York. Around that same time, Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department had agreed on the framework for a settlement in the government's marathon antitrust case against the software giant (a federal ruling in 2000 designated Microsoft an unlawful monopolist due to its rein of the PC market, with its Windows operating system crushing competitors like Netscape). In 2002, a court settlement was approved, with a consent decree curbing some of Microsoft's practices. (Photo by HENNY RAY ABRAMS.)

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II presents Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates with his honorary knighthood, as wife Melinda Gates looks on, at London's Buckingham Palace on March 2, 2005. Not a British citizen, Gates was not able to use the "Sir" title. He received the KBE insignia, in recognition of his charitable donations in Commonwealth countries. (Photo by Getty Images/2005 Getty Images.)

Bill Gates appears on stage during an MTV News presentation, The Notorious BG: A Forum With Bill Gates, at MTV Studios in New York City, on October 13, 2005. (Photo by Scott Gries/2005 Getty Images.)

Gates receives applause during commencement ceremonies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 7, 2007. Gates, who enrolled at Harvard in a pre-law program in 1973 and left during his junior year, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the school. (Photo by Darren McCollester/2007 Getty Images.)

Gates watches as musician Slash plays a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, on January 6, 2008. (Photo by David Paul Morris/2008 Getty Images.)

Gates and Bono attend a press conference on the third day of the 2008 World Economic Forum, on January 25, 2008, in Davos, Switzerland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/2008 Getty Images.)

Bill Gates and father Bill Gates Sr. speak together at an event, "Bill Gates: A Conversation with My Father," held at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, on June 2, 2010. (Photo by Bobby Bank/2010 Bobby Bank.)

Charles Thomas Munger (from left), vice chair of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.; Warren E. Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.; and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Inc., flip over their Dairy Queen drinks during an opening ceremony of a new Dairy Queen branch in Beijing, China, on September 30, 2010. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were in China to meet the wealthiest of the country, and encourage philanthropy. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/2010 ChinaFotoPress.)

Bill Gates arrives at the G20 Summit in Cannes, France, on November 3, 2011. The world's top economic leaders attended the Cannes G20 Summit that year, debating issues surrounding the global financial system, in hopes of fending off a global recession and finding an answer to the Eurozone crisis. (Photo by David Ramos/2011 Getty Images.)