Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates To Step Aside

Thirty-one years after Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, the software giant’s chairman announced he’s stepping aside from his daily duties to focus on charity work.

Microsoft, which has dominated the industry over the past quarter century and made 50-year-old Gates the richest man in the world, will move into the hands of other high-ranking employees including Steve Ballmer, who will stay on as chief executive.

But the absence of Gates, who’ll remain the company’s chairman and largest shareholder, will be felt, especially since he was Microsoft’s public face since its inception in 1975.

“I’m not leaving Microsoft,” he insisted.

Still, the company has been experiencing tough times – delaying its latest version of the Windows operating system and trying to compete with Internet behemoths Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Gates co-founded the company with childhood friend Paul Allen after dropping out of Harvard, and is now estimated to be worth $50 billion US.

He maintains wealth brings with it responsibility, and has devoted an increasing amount of time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he started in 2000. Gates has always said he plans to give away the bulk of his fortune to charity.

“Just as Microsoft has taken off in ways I never expected, so has the work of the foundation,” he said.

Gates was CEO of Microsoft until 2000, when he decided to focus on software development.

 

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