Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates leaves board
Microsoft on Friday announced that co-founder Bill Gates has left its board of directors to devote additional time to philanthropy.
The 64-year-old stopped being involved in day-to-day businesses at the firm more than a decade ago, turning his focus on the foundation he launched along with his wife, Melinda.
Gates served as chairman of Microsoft's board of directors until early in 2014 and has stepped away entirely, based on the Redmond-based technology giant.
"It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years," Microsoft leader and company veteran Satya Nadella said in a release.
"Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to fix society's most pressing challenges; and Microsoft and the world are better for this."
Nadella said Microsoft would continue steadily to reap the benefits of Gates' "technical passion and advice" in his continuing role as a technical advisor.
"I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him," Nadella said.
- Computing and compassion -
Gates left his CEO position in 2000, handing the business reins to Steve Ballmer to devote additional time to his charitable foundation.
He quit the role of chairman as well Nadella became Microsoft's third CEO in 2014.
Regularly listed among the world's richest people, William H. Gates was a geeky-looking son when he and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975.
Gates grew up in Seattle with two sisters. His father William was an attorney and his late mother Mary was a schoolteacher and chairwoman of United Way International.
He commenced programming computers as a 13-year-old student, and fell in love with the machines.
Among the tales told about Gates is that while focusing on school computers, he tinkered with programming to place himself in classes made up mostly of girls.
Along with his parents' blessing, Gates dropped out of Harvard to start out "Micro-soft" along with his late childhood friend Allen.
A key move was to give attention to licensing software to computer makers in numerous "partnerships" that led to affordable machines being open to the masses.
As the non-public computer market grew, Microsoft became the world's top software company. Its virtual monopoly resulted in a much-publicized antitrust trial, in which the company managed to avert a break-up but had to endure years of government monitoring.
Gates went on to carefully turn his attention from software to fighting disease and other humanitarian challenges along with his wife, beneath the auspices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"This move isn't surprising to the road as Gates has continued to target more on his many philanthropies around the world over the past decade," Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said in a note to investors.
"Gates is a historic figure in the technology world and his legacy at Microsoft will be felt in Redmond for many years to come."
