7 Bill Gates 7Allen, formed Microsoft. Gates’s sway over the infant
microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft
licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to Inter-
national Business Machines Corporation—then the world’s
biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter—for
use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC (personal
computer). After the machine’s release in 1981, IBM
quickly set the technical standard for the PC industry,
and MS-DOS likewise pushed out competing operating
systems. While Microsoft’s independence strained rela-
tions with IBM, Gates deftly manipulated the larger
company so that it became permanently dependent on
him for crucial software. Makers of IBM-compatible
PCs, or clones, also turned to Microsoft for their basic
software. By the start of the 1990s he had become the
PC industry’s ultimate kingmaker.
Largely on the strength of Microsoft’s success, Gates
amassed a huge paper fortune as the company’s largest indi-
vidual shareholder. He became a paper billionaire in 1986,
and within a decade his net worth had reached into the tens
of billions of dollars—making him by some estimates the
world’s richest private individual. With few interests beyond
software and the potential of information technology,
Gates at first preferred to stay out of the public eye, handling
civic and philanthropic affairs indirectly through one of
his foundations. Nevertheless, as Micro soft’s power and
reputation grew, and especially as it attracted the attention
of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division, Gates,
with some reluctance, became a more public figure. Rivals
(particularly in competing companies in Silicon Valley)
portrayed him as driven, duplicitous, and determined to
profit from virtually every electronic transaction in the
world. His supporters, on the other hand, celebrated his
uncanny business acumen, his flexibility, and his boundless