Gates 2.0: Full-time philanthropist, part-time Microsoft boss

World’s richest man will move out of day-to-day functioning and direct his competitive focus to improving health globally

Three decades after starting the most influential American technology company, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates has said that he plans to step down from day-to-day work at the software giant to focus his energy full-time on the $ 29 billion foundation he started with his wife 12 years ago.

Although the transition will not take place until July 2008, the move signals a new era for the software company that has been closely associated with Gates’s geeky persona and provides an opportunity, according to many in the public health community, for Gates to become one of the most important philanthropists in US history.

Gates intends to remain chairman of Microsoft “for the rest of my life” but plans to relinquish all daily duties at the company and instead focus his legendary competitive drive on improving global health and access to technology.

On Thursday, he and Microsoft chief executive Steven A. Ballmer laid out a two-year transition plan to begin grooming the next crop of executives to run the Redmond, Washington, firm.

Gates’s sometimes relentless management style has bulled the company through many roadblocks, overcoming the government’s attempt to break it up as a monopoly and overwhelming competitors such as Apple Computer Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and AOL.

While Gates’s founding vision of a personal computer on every desk has essentially come true, the basis on which he built the company — software— is being overtaken by the spread of high-speed Internet.

New rivals such as Google Inc. promise a future where tools such as spreadsheets and e-mail reside online instead of in software on someone’s hard drive. Gates’s departure comes at a time when Microsoft is scrambling to adjust to that sudden shift.

Story continues below this ad

“With success, I have been given great wealth. And with great wealth comes great responsibility to give back to society, to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those in need,” Gates told a group of reporters at the company’s headquarters. “Obviously, this decision was a hard one for me to make. I’m very lucky to have two passions.”

Six years ago, Gates stepped down as chief executive to serve as “chief software architect,” but he continued to be a towering daily presence at the company even as it saw the rise of Google and a new breed of competitors.

Now 50, he made clear that he intends to step away from corporate life to focus on a foundation that already surpasses many governments across the globe in terms of spending and impact in the areas of vaccines, immunization and AIDS research.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $ 29 billion endowment is 10 times the size of the Rockefeller Foundation and three times the size of the Ford Foundation.

Story continues below this ad

The foundation has contributed $ 159 million, or half of worldwide funding, for research and treatment that could result in nine or 10 new drugs that would help the world’s poorest people fight diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Public health experts said the effort has invigorated areas of research that had fallen by the wayside and introduced innovative approaches by partnering with other nonprofit groups, governments and drug companies.

Sara Kehaulani Goo

—(Staff writer Yuki Noguchi contributed to this report)