Bill Gates was Microsoft's first chief executive officer.
Gates co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and led the company during its transformation from a small software venture into a major personal-computing business. He served as chief executive until 2000, when Steve Ballmer succeeded him in the role.
Microsoft's early growth accelerated after it licensed MS-DOS to IBM for the IBM PC introduced in 1981. The company later built its position around Windows and business applications such as Microsoft Office. Gates was deeply involved in product strategy and corporate decisions during these formative decades.
Paul Allen was Microsoft's co-founder and an important early technical and business partner, but he was not the company's first CEO. Steve Ballmer became CEO after Gates, and Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014. Gates stepped down as chairman in 2014 and later focused much of his work on philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.