Bill Gates Biography, Age, Family, Divorce, Net Worth

Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975, revolutionizing personal computing. In 2008, he shifted focus to philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His memoir Source Code: My Beginnings explores his early life and Microsoft’s rise.

Bill Gates Biography

William Henry Gates III, born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, is an American businessman and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen, helping to revolutionize personal computing. Over the years, he served as the company’s chairman, CEO, president, and chief software architect and was its largest shareholder until 2014.

Gates was a key figure in the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. His father, William H. Gates Sr., was a well-known lawyer, while his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was a business leader. She was a board member of First Interstate BancSystem and United Way of America.. He has two sisters, Kristi and Libby, and his family background includes English, German, and Irish/Scots-Irish heritage.

Bill Gates Educational Background

At 13, Bill Gates attended Lakeside, a private prep school. He later scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and joined Harvard in 1973. Though he took advanced math and computer science courses, he left after two years.

In 1975, when the MITS Altair 8800 was released, Gates and Paul Allen saw a chance to start a software company. That same year, Gates dropped out of Harvard with his parents’ support, believing he could always return if things didn’t work out.

Bill Gates Career

Bill Gates developed an interest in computers in eighth grade at Lakeside School, where he learned programming and created a tic-tac-toe game. Along with Paul Allen, he found ways to access computer systems, eventually securing a deal to test software in exchange for computer time.

In 1975, after seeing the Altair 8800 computer, Gates and Allen convinced MITS they were developing a BASIC interpreter. They quickly built one, leading to a deal with MITS, he then left Harvard to start “Micro-Soft,” later renamed Microsoft in 1976.

Microsoft grew quickly, but Gates was frustrated by software piracy. In 1976, he wrote An Open Letter to Hobbyists, arguing that developers deserved payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in 1979, and in 1981, Gates became president and chairman. That year, he co-wrote DONKEY.BAS, a simple driving game.

Microsoft Windows

On November 20, 1985, Microsoft and Bill Gates launched the first retail version of Windows to compete with Apple’s user-friendly Macintosh. In 1986, Microsoft partnered with IBM to create a new operating system called OS/2, but their collaboration ended due to creative differences.

Windows evolved from DOS over the years, leading to the release of Windows 95, which hid the DOS prompt by default. Windows XP came out a year after Gates stepped down as CEO. The last Windows version released before he left his role as chairman was Windows 8.1 on February 5, 2014.

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Bill Gates Awards and Honors

Here’s a list of Bill Gates’ awards and honors:

• 1992: National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
• 1994: Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.
• 1997: Satellite Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Entertainment New Media.
• 2005: Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for contributions to the British economy.
• 2006: Honored as a Global Humanitarian.
• 2010: Received the Silver Buffalo Award and the Bower Award for Leadership.
• 2016: Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
• 2023: Honored with the Lifetime of Innovation Award by imec.

Bill Gates Age

Bill Gates was born October 28, 1955, he is 70 years old as of 2025.

Bill Gates Personal Life

Bill Gates is a passionate reader, he enjoys playing bridge, golf, and tennis. His daily schedule is planned down to the minute, much like the U.S. president’s. Despite his wealth, Gates flew economy class until 1997, when he bought a private jet.

In 1994, Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci, for $30.8 million. Four years later, he bought the 1885 maritime painting Lost on the Grand Banks for $30 million, setting a record price for an American painting. In 2016, he shared that he is color-blind. In 2025, Gates wrote in Source Code that he believed he was autistic.

Bill Gates Family

In 1987, Bill Gates met Melinda French at a trade fair in New York. She had just graduated from Duke University and started working at Microsoft. After dating for six years, Gates and Melinda got engaged in 1993 and married on January 1, 1994, at the Manele Golf Course on the Hawaiian Island of Lānaʻi.

The couple had three children, two girls and one boy: Jennifer (born April 26, 1996), Rory (born May 23, 1999), and Phoebe (born September 14, 2002). They lived in a large, earth-sheltered house built into a hillside overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. Bill Gates became a grandfather in March 2023 when his eldest daughter, Jennifer, who married Olympic equestrian Nayel Nassar in October 2021, gave birth to a daughter. Jennifer had a second daughter in October 2024.

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Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Divorce

On May 3, 2021, Bill and Melinda Gates announced that they were getting divorced after 27 years of marriage. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melinda had started meeting with divorce lawyers in 2019, with concerns about Gates’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein a known sex offender. However, they waited to finalize the divorce until their youngest daughter, Phoebe, graduated from high school. The divorce was finalized on August 2, 2021, but the financial details were kept private. In February 2023, Gates confirmed he was dating Paula Hurd, the widow of former Oracle and Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd.

Bill Gates Children

Bill Gates has three children with ex-wife Melinda:

Jennifer Gates

Jennifer Gates holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University and a degree in human biology from Stanford. After graduating from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in May 2024, she began her pediatric residency. Jennifer is also a professional show jumper.

She married Nayel Nassar on October 16, 2021, after he proposed during a ski trip in January 2020. Her parents reunited for the wedding, which came a few months after their divorce.

In March 2023, Jennifer and Nayel welcomed their first daughter, Leila. Leila became a big sister when Jennifer gave birth to Mia in October 2024. She is currently 29 years old.

Rory Gates

Bill and Melinda’s son, Rory John Gates, was born on May 23, 1999.

He graduated from the University of Chicago in June 2022, completing a double major and a master’s degree in just four years. He is currently 26 years old.

Phoebe Gates

Bill and Melinda’s youngest child, Phoebe Adele Gates, was born on September 14, 2002.

Phoebe graduated from high school in 2021 and is known for speaking out on social and political issues. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she wrote an article for Vogue about its global impact. Phoebe is also passionate about fashion and completed an internship at British Vogue in September 2022, sharing her gratitude on Instagram. In June 2024, she graduated from Stanford University in just three years, with her mom, Melinda, serving as the commencement speaker. Phoebe also shared a photo with her boyfriend, Arthur Donald, who is Paul McCartney’s grandson, in her graduation diary for Nylon.

Bill Gates Foundation

In 1994, Gates donated some of his Microsoft stock to create the “William H. Gates Foundation.” In 2000, he and his wife merged three family foundations and donated $5 billion worth of stock to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. By 2013, it was recognized as the world’s largest charitable foundation, with assets valued at over $34.6 billion. The foundation is transparent about how its funds are spent, unlike many other major charities.

Through the foundation, Gates also donated $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University for a new building, the Gates Center for Computer Science, which opened in 2009. The foundation focuses on five main areas: Global Development, Global Health, U.S. Programs, Global Policy & Advocacy, and Global Education. It supports a variety of public health projects, including fighting diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and working on vaccine programs to eliminate polio. It also funds learning institutes, libraries, and scholarships. The foundation has a program for water, sanitation, and hygiene to help poor countries, and it supports agricultural efforts like the development of Golden Rice to fight vitamin A deficiency. Additionally, the foundation works to provide women and girls in developing countries with access to family planning and contraception.

Bill Gate Net Worth

As of 2025, Gates worth  $165 billion, he has diversified his wealth from Microsoft into other holdings, including waste disposal firm Republic Services and tractor maker Deere & Co. 

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Bill Gates Social Media Handle

Instagram: @thisisbillgates

Twitter X: @Bill Gates

Facebook: Bill Gates

Bill Gates Books

Here is a list of books written by Bill Gates:

1. The Road Ahead.
2. Business @ the Speed of Thought.
3. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.
4. The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World.