Bill Gates leaves Microsoft’s board

Microsoft announced that co-founder Bill Gates stepped down from its board of directors to devote more time to philanthropy.

Bill Gates stopped being involved in day-to-day operations at the firm more than a decade ago.

He turned his attention to the foundation he launched with his wife, Melinda.

Mr Gates served as chairman of Microsoft’s board of directors until early in 2014 and has now stepped away entirely.

“It’s been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years,” Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said.

“Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society’s most pressing challenges; and Microsoft and the world are better for it.”

Mr Nadella said Microsoft would continue to benefit from Mr Gates’ “technical passion and advice.”

“I am grateful for Bill’s friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him,” Mr Nadella said.

Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft’s board of directors

Bill Gates left his CEO position in 2000, handing the company reins to Steve Ballmer.

He did that to devote more time to his charitable foundation.

He gave up the role of chairman at the same time Mr Nadella became Microsoft’s third CEO in 2014.

Regularly listed among the world’s richest people, William H Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975.

Gates began programming computers as a 13-year-old student, and fell in love with the machines.

Among the tales told about Mr Gates that while working on school computers, he tinkered with programming to put himself in classes made up mostly of girls.

With his parents’ blessing, Mr Gates dropped out of Harvard to start “Micro-soft” with his late childhood friend Paul Allen.

A key move was to focus on licensing software to computer makers in numerous “partnerships.”

It resulted in affordable machines being available to the masses.

However, as the personal computer market grew, Microsoft became the world’s top software company.

Its virtual monopoly led to a much-publicized antitrust trial, in which the company managed to avert a break-up but had to endure years of government monitoring.

Mr Gates went on to turn his attention from software to fighting disease and other humanitarian challenges with his wife, under the auspices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.