Bill Gates William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Microsoft had an income of $ 25. 3 billion for the financial year ending June 2001, and employs more than 40, 000 people in 60 countries. Born on October 28, 1955, Gates and his two sisters grew up in Seattle. Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside school. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age of 13. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer—the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had began in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Gates' anticipation and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry: In 1999, Gates write Business at the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. Business at the Speed of Thought has received wide critical applause, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995, held the No. 1 place on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks. In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates is interested in biotechnology. He is an investor in a number of other biotechnology companies. Gates also founded Corbis, which is developing one of the world's largest resources of visual information. In addition, Gates has invested with cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw in Teledesic, which is working on an ambitious plan to employ hundreds of low-orbit satellites to provide a worldwide two-way broadband telecommunications service.