Bill Gates has a net worth of $108 billion, making him one of the five wealthiest individuals on Earth. The co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, Gates transformed personal computing, spent two decades as the world’s richest person, and has since redirected billions into global health and poverty initiatives through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Updated March 2026: According to the Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2026, Bill Gates holds a net worth of approximately $108 billion, placing him among the top five wealthiest people globally. The majority of his fortune is managed through Cascade Investment LLC, his personal investment vehicle, with a residual stake in Microsoft and diversified holdings across railways, agriculture, clean energy, and global equities.
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates Sr., a prominent attorney, and Mary Maxwell Gates, a schoolteacher who later served on the University of Washington Board of Regents and the First Interstate BancSystem board. Gates has recalled a competitive, achievement-oriented household that emphasized reading and education.
At age 13, Gates enrolled at Lakeside School, an elite private preparatory school in Seattle. There he encountered the school’s computer terminal — a rare piece of equipment for the era — and began writing software programs. He quickly formed a bond with fellow student Paul Allen, and by age 17 the two had co-founded Traf-O-Data, a venture that processed traffic-count data using a primitive Intel 8008 processor. Gates scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and was recognized as a National Merit Scholar.
In 1973, Gates enrolled at Harvard University with the intention of pursuing law. He spent more time in the computer lab than in class, and in January 1975, after reading about the Altair 8800 microcomputer in Popular Electronics, he and Allen contacted manufacturer MITS to offer a BASIC interpreter they had not yet written. They delivered. Gates dropped out of Harvard later that year to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and run Microsoft full-time.
Microsoft was incorporated in 1981 after an early pivot to Seattle. The company’s trajectory changed permanently that same year when IBM contracted Microsoft to provide an operating system for its new personal computer — a deal that produced MS-DOS and established the licensing model that would define Microsoft’s dominance for decades. Gates had acquired the underlying software (QDOS) from Seattle Computer Products for $50,000.
Microsoft went public on March 13, 1986, at $21 per share. Within a year, the stock had tripled, and Gates, at age 31, became the youngest self-made billionaire in U.S. history. Over the following decade, Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer cemented Microsoft’s grip on the PC market. By 1995 Gates had become the world’s richest person, a title he held for the majority of the period through 2007.
Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO in January 2000, handing the role to Steve Ballmer, and transitioned into the role of chief software architect. He relinquished that title in 2008 and stepped down from the company’s board entirely in March 2020 to focus full-time on philanthropic work. Under CEO Satya Nadella’s leadership since 2014, Microsoft’s market capitalization grew from roughly $300 billion to over $3 trillion — appreciating Gates’s retained shareholding substantially.
Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994, on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. The couple have three children: Jennifer Katharine Gates (born 1996), Rory John Gates (born 1999), and Phoebe Adele Gates (born 2002). In May 2021, the couple announced their divorce after 27 years of marriage, with the separation finalized later that year.
Since approximately 2022, Gates has been in a relationship with Paula Hurd, widow of late Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. The relationship became publicly confirmed in 2023, and Gates has referenced Paula Hurd in multiple public appearances and interviews. According to People, the couple have been seen together at major sporting and cultural events.
Gates lives in Xanadu 2.0, a 66,000-square-foot technologically integrated mansion on the eastern shore of Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. The home, built over seven years at a reported cost of $63 million, features an underground garage for 23 cars, a private library modeled on a reading room from the Library of Congress, and a trampoline room. Gates is an avid reader — he publicly shares annual book lists via his Gates Notes blog — and enjoys bridge, tennis, and golf. He has stated publicly that he believes he is on the autism spectrum.
According to the Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2026, Bill Gates has a net worth of approximately $108 billion, placing him among the five wealthiest individuals in the world. His fortune is concentrated in Cascade Investment LLC and a residual Microsoft stake.
Gates built his fortune primarily through co-founding Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen. The company’s 1986 IPO and subsequent decades of dominance in PC operating systems, productivity software, and enterprise technology generated tens of billions in equity gains. Gates has since diversified extensively through Cascade Investment into railways, agriculture, clean energy, and real estate.
Following his 2021 divorce from Melinda French Gates after 27 years of marriage, Gates has been in a relationship with Paula Hurd, the widow of former Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. The couple have been publicly photographed together since 2023 and Gates has acknowledged the relationship in interviews.