“If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.”

American businessman and philanthropist

Bill Gates is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is known as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution and as the co-founder of Microsoft, which he started in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. After Microsoft went public in 1986 and its share price rose, Gates became the world’s youngest billionaire in 1987. He later topped Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people for many years, and in 1999 he became the first centibillionaire when his net worth briefly passed US$100 billion.