Bill Gates was born in Seattle in 1955 and co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 before turning, in the early 2000s, the bulk of his attention and personal wealth toward global health, education and development through what is now the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The foundation has become the largest private philanthropic institution in history, with multi-billion-dollar annual commitments across vaccination programmes, malaria and polio eradication, agricultural development, education and pandemic preparedness. Gates has been a personal driver of programs targeting infectious disease and has been one of the most consistent public voices on the importance of investing in low-cost, high-impact health interventions.
His most recent personal commitments include accelerated deployment of the bulk of his wealth through the foundation over a defined time horizon, and continued work through Breakthrough Energy on climate-aligned investment in deep technologies.