Microsoft’s cofounder says he’ll do charitable work after he retires this month. But we have some other suggestions: driving instructor, expert witness, and circus clown for starters. And Bill has experience in all of them.

For more than 30 years he has roamed among us, a strange hybrid of Napoleon Dynamite and Vlad the Impaler. Nerdy yet ruthless, brilliant yet hobbled by blind spots regarding his company’s failings, Bill Gates leaves an indelible mark on everything digital. Yet on June 27, he’ll step down from his day-to-day duties at Microsoft to devote himself to philanthropic activities.

With snark in our hearts, we humbly offer ten of the most memorable moments of Bill’s career, with suggestions for suitable career moves he might consider if he decides to follow the logical path indicated by each milestone.

1. Windows 95 Starts Up (August 24, 1995)

We’ll probably never see another product launch like the one that propelled Windows 95 onto the world (and that’s surely a good thing). Even the pomp and circumstance surrounding the iPhone’s debut last year paled in comparison. The millions of dollars that Microsoft paid for the rights to the Rolling Stones’ "Start Me Up" was only the beginning of the estimated $300 million marketing juggernaut that accompanied this launch.

Among other excesses, the Empire State Building was bathed in Microsoft corporate colors, and playing fields in Britain were painted with the Windows 95 logo to make it visible from the air. The Redmond, Washington, campus of Microsoft was transformed into a carnival for the day, with food, jugglers, clowns, hot air balloons, a ferris wheel, and circus tents. And at the center of it all was Bill–grinning awkwardly in his blue Microsoft polo shirt and trying to sound casual as he engaged in teleprompter banter with The Tonight Show’s Jay Leno.

Bill’s best line: "Windows 95 is so easy even a talk-show host can figure it out."

Good thing he didn’t quit his day job (until now).

Second Career: Stand-up comic? Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

2. Turn On, Drop Out, Hack Code (January 1975)

It was a photo of the MITS Altair 8800 on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine that started it all. After Harvard classmate Paul Allen showed him the issue, Gates called MITS president Ed Roberts and convinced him that he and Allen had created a BASIC program for the Altair, even though neither had written a single line of code. After Roberts expressed interest, they worked feverishly to create the program in eight weeks.

Later that year, Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved to Albuquerque, where he took a job writing software for Roberts at $10 an hour. Eventually he made enough money from his BASIC royalties to buy himself a Porsche 911–with which he racked up multiple arrests for speeding and driving without a license.

Second Career: Driving instructor? Thanks, but we’ll just walk.

3. Bill Takes the Stand in Antitrust Case (August 27, 1998)

Windows has always had problems with memory management; evidently Gates does too. That’s certainly how it appeared when the CEO’s videotaped deposition in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial hit the Web. Gates’ reputation as a brilliant, detail-oriented control freak took a serious tumble as he peppered his testimony with "I don’t recall" (6 times), "I don’t remember" (14 times), and "I don’t know" (22 times). Gates quibbled about the meaning of words like "concerned" and "compete," engaging U.S. attorney David Boies in a circuitous dance of semantics that rivaled Abbott and Costello’s "Who’s on First?" routine for sheer loopiness. Excerpts from Gates’ video evoked chuckles from Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. But Gates would have the last laugh when a U.S. Court of Appeals overruled Jackson’s judgment against Microsoft three years later (see item #9).

Second Career: Expert witness? We object.

4. Bill Gates: PC World Centerfold Model (July 1987)

Yes, we are talking about that Bill Gates. No, he did not pose in the nude, praise Yahweh. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a lavender shirt, and a striped tie, instead of the usual lumpy sweater. And we are entirely to blame for this one because the Gates gatefold graced the July 1987 issue of PC World magazine, alongside an interview with the then-32-year-old software tycoon. It was the first centerfold the magazine ran, as well as (almost certainly) the last. Hey, we were all young and stupid in those days.

Second Career: Pin-up boy? Sure–the day after we all go blind.

5. A Gazillionaire Is Born (March 13, 1986)

The day Microsoft went public, Gates became an instant megamillionaire (actually a $234-millionaire, based on the IPO price). But it wasn’t until July 17, 1995, that Forbes magazine named him the richest featherless biped on the planet, with a net worth just shy of $13 billion. His wealth snowballed from there. During the height of dot-com madness, Gates’s paper fortune exceeded $100 billion, inspiring several Web sites devoted to measuring just how much money that was in real terms. No wonder people found it easy to believe the rumor that he’d give you $1000 just for responding to an e-mail (a classic Net hoax).

But instead of hoarding all the cash, Gates put his money where other people’s mouths are, establishing the William H. Gates III Foundation (later changed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). After the bubble burst, Microsoft’s share price plummeted (as did every other tech stock), further deflating his bank balance. Now with a personal net worth of just $58 billion, Gates ranks third in the world behind Mexican telecom entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helu and Bill’s bridge-playing buddy, Warren Buffet.

Second Career: Quasi-retired philanthropist? This one he’s got down cold.

6. If It’s Cream Pie, This Must Be Belgium (February 4, 1998)

Gates was notorious for making pie-in-the-sky predictions for Microsoft products. So it probably shouldn’t have surprised him to receive a pie in the eye when he visited Brussels in February 1998. Gates got creamed as he was entering the Concert Noble Hall for an education conference sponsored by the Flemish government. Belgian anarchist Noël "the Pieman" Godin took credit for the aerial pastry, one in a series of tart-fueled attacks Godin has inflicted on notable people. Gates reportedly said later that the pie "wasn’t that tasty."

Second Career: Circus clown? Hey, Gates takes a pie in the face as well as Soupy Sales ever did. We think he has potential.

(Thanks to Belgian TV station een for the photo.)

7. Mr. Gates Builds His Dream House (1988 to 1995)

What do you do when you have more money than God? Build a house fit for a deity, of course. Gates’s mansion on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle took seven years to complete and cost somewhere between $40 million and $100 million, depending on which source you accept. According to Fortune Magazine, "It was a bachelor’s dream and a bride’s nightmare: 40,000 square feet with several garages, a trampoline room, an indoor pool, a theater with a popcorn machine, and enough software and high-tech displays to make a newlywed feel as though she were living inside a video game."

After their wedding, Melinda apparently toned down some of the house’s boy-toyishness. Still, as PBS’s Robert X. Cringely reported, visitors to the home were asked to wear electronic badges that allowed the house "to adjust climate, music, lighting–even the electronic artwork on the walls–to match their preferences as they move from room to room. And what happens when more than one person is in a room? The reality of active badges is that Bill Gates is still king. When Bill is in the room, his taste rules."

Second Career: Home builder? I think we’d rather just rent.

8. Bill Gets Hitched (January 1, 1994)

When you’re the world’s richest man you have to work double-time to hide from the public eye. So when Gates decided to marry former Microsoft product manager Melinda French, he organized the wedding on the tiny Hawaiian island of Lanai, booked every hotel room on the island, and rented every helicopter in the state to frustrate potential paparazzi.

The $1 million ceremony took place on the 12th tee of the Manele Bay Hotel golf course. On the guest list: best man Steve Ballmer, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, Warren Buffet, and Washington Post doyenne Katherine Graham. The band? Singer Willie Nelson.

Second Career: Wedding planner? We like Bill’s style, but it’s too rich for our blood. We’ll stick with J-Lo.

9. Microsoft Remains Intact (June 28, 2001)

Bill & Co. dodged a major bullet when a federal appeals court overruled U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s decision in United States v. Microsoft, rescinding his order to split the company in two. The appellate court found that Microsoft had indeed acted as a monopoly in bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, but it ruled Jackson’s remedy too harsh. By then, Gates had already stepped down as Microsoft CEO, having handed the reins to Steve Ballmer in January 2000. Who knows? If Microsoft had been split, Gates might have found himself competing with his old college buddy Ballmer–and Yahoo might be trying to buy them instead.

Second Career: Yahoo employee? That’s something we’d like to see.

10. Bill Gets His Sheepskin (June 7, 2007)

More than 30 years after dropping out of Harvard, Bill finally got to flip his tassels. As a student, Gates was known to prefer poker and programming over attending classes, but in June 2007 he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree after delivering the commencement address at his alma mater. Also receiving an honorary law degree that day: former Celtics star Bill Russell. So it was a good day for Bills all around.

Remember kids, stay in school. And if you can’t manage that, starting your own software empire and dominating the world for 30 years isn’t a bad fallback plan.

Second Career: Career counselor? One thing is certain: Nobody knows more about second careers than Bill. He’s a natural.

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Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen were all smiles in 1983 just after delivering MS Dos for the Tandy laptop and signing a contract to write MS-DOS for IBM.

1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a partnership called Micro-soft. It will grow into one of the largest U.S. corporations and place them among the world’s richest people.

Gates and Allen had been buddies and fellow Basic programmers at Lakeside School in Seattle. Allen graduated before Gates and enrolled at Washington State University.¹ They built a computer based on an Intel 8008 chip and used it to analyze traffic data for the Washington state highway department, doing business as Traf-O-Data.

Allen went to work for Honeywell in Boston, and Gates enrolled at Harvard University in nearby Cambridge. News in late 1974 of the first personal computer kit, the Altair 8800, excited them, but they knew they could improve its performance with Basic.

Allen spoke to Ed Roberts, president of Altair manufacturer MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), and sold him on the idea. Gates and Allen worked night and day to complete the first microcomputer Basic. Allen moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in January 1975 to become director of software for MITS. Gates dropped out of his sophomore year at Harvard and joined Allen in Albuquerque.

Allen was 22; Gates was 19. Altair Basic was functioning by March. The "Micro-soft" partnership was sealed in April, but wouldn’t get its name for a few more months.

The fledgling company also created versions of Basic for the hot-selling Apple II and Radio Shack’s TRS-80.

Microsoft moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue, Washington, in 1979. It incorporated in 1981, a few weeks before IBM introduced its personal computer with Microsoft’s 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0.

The thriving young company moved again in 1986, this time to a new corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft stock went public in March 1986. Adjusting for splits, a share of that stock is worth almost 280 times its original value today (or more than 140 times, even accounting for inflation).

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The Microsoft cofounder and global philanthropist will answer selected questions from NEWSWEEK readers in this exclusive Web forum. Submit your query now.

Bill Gates is one of the most recognized people around the globe—as cofounder of Microsoft, one of the world’s richest people and now as perhaps the globe’s most influential philanthropist. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the choices he and his wife, Melinda, make with their foundation affect the lives of millions of people. He’s impressive, he’s inspirational—and for most people, he’s unreachable. But Gates has agreed to take questions from NEWSWEEK readers in this exclusive Web forum. Please submit your questions by Sept. 28; we’ll publish the answers to selected questions on Oct. 10.
Click here to send your question to Gates

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Okay, I’m a total sucker for looking back into anything.  I love VHI’s “I love the eighties”.  I could spend hours in the Microsoft Visitors Center checking out old photos and Key Events from the 70′s.  It just goes to show you how much and how quickly the world changes.  I found these key events from the seventies and if anybody finds this stuff as interesting as I do let me know and I’ll bring you the following decade.

A look at Microsoft History – The Seventies

1975
January 1. The MITS Altair 8800 appears on the cover of Popular Electronics, inspiring Paul Allen and Bill Gates to develop a BASIC language for the Altair.
February 1. Bill Gates and Paul Allen sell BASIC, the first computer language program for a personal computer, to Microsoft’s first customer, MITS of Albuquerque, NM.
March 1. Paul Allen joins MITS as director of software.
April 7. “Altair BASIC?Up and Running,” declares the headline of the first edition of MITS Computer Notes.
July 1. BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.

1976
February 3. Bill Gates is one of the first programmers to raise the issue of software piracy. In “An Open Letter to Hobbyists,” first published in MITS Computer Notes, Gates accuses hobbyists of stealing software and thus preventing “…good software from being written.” He prophetically concludes with the line, “…Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.”
March 27. Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention, held in Albuquerque.
November 1. Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full time.
November 26. The trade name Microsoft is registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.

1977
February 3. Paul Allen and Bill Gates execute an official partnership agreement.
July 1. FORTRAN-80, Microsoft’s second language product, is available.

1978
November 1. Microsoft establishes its first international sales office in Japan, ASCII Microsoft.
December 31. Microsoft’s year-end sales exceed $1 million.

1979
January 1. Microsoft moves its offices to Bellevue, WA, from Albuquerque.

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History is always facinating, especially in technology. How quickly things, lifestyle and priorities change.  It makes you wonder what if you had been born just 10 or 15 years early or late, what would it be like.

A look at Microsoft History – The Eighties

While some of us were wearing tube socks and listening to “Wham” others were running multi-billionaire companies like Microsoft.  Here’s a look back at the 1980′s – Microsoft style.

1980  
June 11. Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft.

1981 
June 25. Microsoft reorganizes into a privately held corporation with Bill Gates as president and chairman of the board and Paul Allen as executive vice president. Microsoft becomes Microsoft, Inc., an incorporated business in the State of Washington.
August 12. IBM introduces its Personal Computer, which uses Microsoft’s 16-bit operating system, Microsoft® MS-DOS® version 1.0, plus Microsoft BASIC, Microsoft COBOL, Microsoft Pascal, and other Microsoft products.

1982
March 24. Microsoft U.K. Ltd. (United Kingdom) is incorporated.
June 28. Microsoft announces a new corporate logo, new packaging, and a comprehensive set of retail dealer support materials.

1983
February 18. Paul Allen resigns as Microsoft’s executive vice president, but remains on the Board of Directors.
May 2. Microsoft introduces the Microsoft Mouse.
September 29. Microsoft introduces Word for MS-DOS 1.00.
November 10. Microsoft unveils Microsoft Windows®, an extension of the MS-DOS operating system that provides a graphical operating environment. The first retail version of Windows would not ship until November 1985.

1984
January 24. Microsoft ships BASIC and Multiplan simultaneously with the introduction of the Macintosh, becoming a leader in developing software for Apple computers.
July 11. Microsoft Press introduces its first two titles: Cary Lu’s The Apple Macintosh Book and Peter Norton’s Exploring the IBM PC the Home Computer.

1985
August 12. Microsoft celebrates its 10th anniversary with Fiscal Year 1985 sales figures of $140 million.
September 3. Microsoft selects the Republic of Ireland as the site of its first production facility outside of the United States to produce software products to be sold in the European market. November 20. Microsoft ships the retail version of Microsoft Windows.

1986
February 26. Microsoft moves to a new corporate campus in Redmond, WA.
March 13. Microsoft stock goes public at $21 per share, rising to $28 per share by the end of the first trading day and raising $61 million.

1987
April 2. Microsoft and IBM announce OS/2. This is the first product to be announced as a result of the Joint Development Agreement between Microsoft and IBM in August 1985.
September 8. Microsoft ships its first CD-ROM application, Microsoft Bookshelf, a collection of 10 of the most popular and useful reference works on a single compact disc.

1988
January 13. Microsoft and Ashton-Tate announce Microsoft SQL Server™, relational database server software for Local Area Networks (LANs) based on a relational database management system licensed from Sybase.

1989
August 1. Microsoft announces Office, the first general business software for Macintosh systems available on CD-ROM.
November 13. Microsoft and IBM broaden the scope of their development agreement by agreeing to jointly develop a consistent, full range of systems software offerings for the 1990s. These software offerings will include enhancements to MS-DOS, Microsoft OS/2, and Microsoft LAN software and are compatible with the Intel 386 and 486 microprocessors.
December 27. Microsoft announces that Jon Shirley will retire as president and chief operating officer on June 30, 1990. Shirley, who has been president since August 1983, will continue to play a role in the management of the company as a member of the Board of Directors and as a consultant for strategic projects. 

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