William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the leading provider, worldwide, of software for the personal computer. Microsoft had revenues of $14.4 billion for the fiscal year ending June 1998, and employs more than 27,000 people in 60 countries. Born on October 28, 1955, Gates and his two sisters grew up in Seattle. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent and chairwoman of United Way Internationa ....