Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Bill Gates Leaves Microsoft to Concentrate on Philanthropic Activities


Sat 14 Mar 2020 | 12:59 PM
Ahmed Moamar

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, the giant producer of software in the world, has announced stepping down of the board of directors of the company.

He affirmed that he seeks to concentrate on philanthropic activities such as health, development, education and tackling the dilemma of climate change.

Gates came in an advanced place among the elite of the richest men in the world.

He also left his seat in the Board of Directors of Berkshire Hathaway Holding Company chaired by the world-known billionaire Warren Buffet.

Bill Gates stepped down in 2008 when he was the chairman of Microsoft.

He declared then that he will occupy a post as the non-executive head of the Board of Directors of Microsoft.

He pointed out over the declaration of retirement that the company will still an important part of his business life.

He vowed to continue to contact the senior officials of Microsoft over the period to come.

Gates went to say that he will work to friendship and partnerships with others because they mean very to him.

He stressed that he tries to tackle a number of the most complicated challenges in the world.

Gates is listed by Forbes Magazine as the world's second-richest man after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and is worth $103.6bn.

He made his fortune by developing software for the personal computer.

As a young man, he dropped out of college and moved to Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where he set up Microsoft with his childhood friend, Paul Allen, who died in 2018.

Their big break came in 1980 when Microsoft signed an agreement with IBM to build the operating system that became known as MS-DOS.

Microsoft went public in 1986 and within a year Gates, at 31, had become the youngest self-made billionaire.

Gates has served on Berkshire's board since 2004 but devotes much of his time to the charitable organization he set up with his wife, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The couple was named the most generous philanthropists in the US in 2018 by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, after giving $4.8bn to their foundation the previous year.