Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and later became a multitrillion-dollar public company.
The pair created Microsoft after developing a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800. Microsoft’s early software licensing model helped establish it as a major personal-computer company, especially after its operating-system agreement with IBM.
Microsoft went public in 1986. Windows and Office became central products, while Azure cloud computing, Xbox, LinkedIn, and enterprise software later broadened its business. Its market capitalization has moved through trillion-dollar milestones as investors valued its software subscriptions, cloud infrastructure, and artificial-intelligence investments. Microsoft’s founding year is sometimes confused with the 1981 introduction of the IBM PC, which helped accelerate its growth but did not mark the company’s creation.