• March 15, 1999

Bill Gates

By J.D. Reed

The Mouse That Roared Gave Us Windows on a New World—and Made It Hip to Be Square

I could tell this guy was different and that he was going places," recalls Miriam Lubow, Bill Gates's first secretary. Now retired and living in Del Mar, Calif., Microsoft Employee No. 6 will never forget her then-19-year-old boss. "For him, his work was always a quest for knowledge, something he was doing because he loved it," she says. "He never attached any importance to money. He'd take the change from his pockets and put it in his bottom desk drawer. I thought that was kind of strange."

Despite all that has been written—and surmised—about him, Bill Gates remains the enigmatic ringmaster of the digital circus. He's a gigabyte of contrasts, concealed behind a bland public facade that keeps everyone guessing. He is, on the one hand, the world's richest man, with a personal fortune estimated at $70 billion and a $355 billion business empire with 29,000 employees. Yet at age 43 he looks more like a precocious teenager whose voice might crack when he says hello. He is revered for churning out products we can't seem to live without, but also feared—loathed, by some—for blind-siding the competition and sucking up small firms like a gargantuan vacuum cleaner. When he talks about his career, though, he is the picture of humility. "After 25 years, what I dreamed about back then has come to fruition," he says. "Half the homes and the majority of businesspeople's desks now have PCs, and they are being used in ways that are changing the world. The biggest thing for me is having a chance to be a part of it." Part of it? Says former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gasse, who now heads a small software firm that markets a rival operating system: "He is the John D. Rockefeller of the computer."

Raised in a wealthy Seattle suburb, Gates was fascinated by the new possibilities of computers. In 1975 he and pal Paul Allen left Harvard to start Microsoft. They took an existing computer operating system—the mother program that allows computers to run the applications that process words, crunch numbers and play games—gave it some twists and turns, licensed it to IBM for its burgeoning home-computer business, and the money came pouring in.

At the Microsoft "campus" in Redmond, Wash., Gates put in 90-hour weeks and demanded the best from his employees. Says former staffer Tina Podlodowski, now a Seattle city councilwoman: "You'd hate him some days and love him some days, but he'd always push you to be better than you were the day before." In the mid-'80s, Gates improved existing operating systems, and, voilà, Windows was born, eventually changing the face—and interface—of home computing. "He set the standards for making computers accessible," says Seattle journalist Paul Andrews, who wrote the 1993 biography Gates. "Just about anything that happens in computers has his stamp on it." The Department of Justice is not always pleased about that stamp. Accused of monopolistic practices, Microsoft is currently defending its operating procedures in federal court.

Often criticized for holding his immense fortune close to his chest, Gates has recently become America's leading philanthropist. He has put some $5 billion into his two foundations, one of which has pledged $200 million to getting public libraries in low-income areas wired to the Internet. Earlier this year he donated $100 million in cash toward vaccinating children in developing countries.

There are also some signs that the renowned workaholic is learning to relax, at least a little. On a recent vacation—a private train tour of Yellowstone Park, the Mohave Desert and the Grand Canyon—he didn't even take along a laptop. He married former Microsoft executive Melinda French, 34, in 1994. Their daughter Jennifer is now nearly 3 (and already uses Barney software on the PC), and Melinda is due to deliver their second child in June. At their 40,000-square-foot mansion on Lake Washington, which includes a dining room for 150 and a wall of video screens, says Gates, "everything revolves around Melinda and Jennifer. I'm home virtually every night by 7 p.m. Just those hours with Jennifer are some of my favorite times. She's a blast. If she wakes up in the night, half of the time I go and talk to her. It's not a duty for me to be there." Says Patty Stonesifer, who heads up the Gates Library Foundation: "They live a life that's less unusual than most people think."

That may be. Other than family, Microsoft, and federal government probes, one of the more curious minds of our time is focused on that most retro of games. "I've got some bridge software," Gates says, "because my friend [billionaire investor] Warren Buffet is very good at bridge. I'm trying to sharpen up on it right now."

J.D. Reed
Todd Gold in Las Vegas and Tom Cunneff and Tina Kelley in Los Angeles

• Contributors:
• Todd Gold,
• Tom Cunneff,
• Tina Kelley.