Bill Gates

Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen, built it into the personal-computer era's defining company, and served as its CEO and Chairman for decades. Since stepping back from full-time Microsoft in 2008, he has focused on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now the Gates Foundation) — the world's largest private philanthropic organisation, with an endowment of $70+ billion committed to global health, education, and poverty reduction. The foundation is the largest external funder of India's public-health efforts, backing polio eradication, immunisation, tuberculosis control, and sanitation programmes. Gates writes the influential "Gatesnotes" blog and books including "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster" and "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic", and has committed to give away virtually all of his wealth. In May 2025 he announced the foundation will double annual giving and wind down by 2045.