William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
In terms of being a philanthropist, he has established a charitable association called the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), previously the William H. Gates Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the largest private foundation in the world, holding $50.7 billion in assets. The primary goals of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the U.S., to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.
It had an endowment of $50.7 billion as of December 31, 2017. The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in venture philanthropy, though the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations. In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the US.
As of May 16, 2013, Bill Gates had donated $28 billion to the foundation. Since its founding, the foundation has endowed and supported a broad range of social, health, and education developments including the establishment of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships at Cambridge University.
According to en.wikipedia
