Bill Gates Childhood and Early Education
Bill Gates grew up in Seattle, Washington, in a well-off family with a lawyer father and a mother who served on corporate boards. He attended public schools before enrolling at Lakeside School, a private preparatory academy where he first encountered computers. At Lakeside, Gates was part of a small group of students who gained access to a Teletype terminal connected to a GE mainframe, marking the start of his serious programming work Forbes.
By his mid-teens, Gates had written his first software program, a tic-tac-toe game, and spent hours refining his code on the school terminal. He formed a close friendship with Paul Allen, another Lakeside student who shared his passion for computing and hardware. Together they spent time studying source code for various systems, which helped them build practical skills that later shaped Microsoft Britannica.
Bill Gates Teenage Programming and First Business Ventures
As a teenager, Gates and Allen started a small company called Traf-O-Data, which sold a computer system that processed traffic-flow data from loop detectors. The venture earned modest revenue and gave them early experience in software development, hardware integration, and client contracts. It also taught them how to translate technical work into a commercial product Britannica.
During this period, Gates wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for the MITS Altair 8800, one of the first widely available personal computers. His version was licensed to MITS, giving Gates and Allen their first major software deal and a foundation for future work. The project demonstrated that he could build practical tools for real machines and real customers Forbes.
Bill Gates College Years and the Founding of Microsoft
Gates entered Harvard University in 1973, where he studied mathematics and took graduate-level computer science courses, though he did not complete a standard four-year degree. While at Harvard, he continued coding intensely and kept in close contact with Paul Allen about the emerging personal-computer market Britannica.
In 1975, Gates and Allen founded Microsoft after Gates left Harvard to focus full-time on software for the Altair and other early PCs. The company later moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then to Bellevue, Washington, as it expanded its product line and customer base. Early deals with IBM and other hardware makers set the stage for Microsoft to become one of the dominant software companies of the following decades SEC EDGAR.