The world's largest software maker hits a milestone Saturday. Read its co-founder and former CEO's letter to employees asking them to remember the transformative properties of technology.
Forty years ago, the world's largest maker of software was nothing more than a startup, founded by two college dropouts named Bill Gates and Paul Allen.Today, that company, Microsoft, has more than 125,000 employees, a sprawling 8-million-square-foot campus outside Seattle and its principal products running on nearly 90 percent of the world's computers. It's the third-most valuable company in the world, behind only oil giant Exxon Mobil and longtime competitor Apple.
On Saturday, Microsoft celebrates its 40th anniversary and Gates -- who served as chief executive officer for 25 years before stepping down in 2000 -- has advice for its employees to utilize in the years ahead: "Make the power of technology accessible to everyone, connect people to each other and make personal computing available everywhere."
In an email to employees Friday, Gates reiterated his commitment to the vision he laid out four decades ago that software could empower the world, and asked Microsoft never to forget what it can do to change lives. "What matters most is what we do next," he wrote.
Gates, who has since pulled away from Microsoft yet remains an adviser to CEO Satya Nadella, focuses now on philanthropic efforts as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His personal fortune has kept him at the top of the list of the world's wealthiest people 16 out of the last 21 years, but he's pledged to give away 95 percent of it to charity by his death. So far, Gates has poured $28 billion into his foundation.
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