Here's a brief timeline on Bill Gates' achievements as of 2016:

• 1955: Born on October 28th in Seattle, Washington.
• 1967: Gates enrolls in Lakeside School where he meets Paul Allen and instigates his passion for technology.
• 1973: Enters Harvard as a pre-law student to follow his under his father's footsteps. However, Gates shifts to take the most rigorous mathematics and graduate-level computer science courses offered.
• 1975: Gates offers to develop software for MITS Altair and takes an absence from school to start working on Microsoft (initially called Micro-Soft).
• 1976: With Allen, they register the trademark "Microsoft". Also, Gates writes an open letter to computer hobbyists who share software rather than pay for software.
• 1978: Microsoft sales exceed $1 million dollars and Gates' gains a reputation of being tough while focused.
• 1979: Microsoft headquarters relocate to Bellevue, Wa.
• 1981: Microsoft buys the rights to OS "DOS" from Seattle Computer Products and modifys and renames it as "MS-DOS". Microsoft licenses the OS to IBM for the company's new personal computer (IBM 5150).
• 1983: Microsoft announces Windows as an extention of its OS.
• 1986: Microsoft headquarters move again to Redmond, Washington. The company goes public.
• 1987: Gates becomes the youngest billionaire of all time. He meets Melinda French at a Microsoft event in New York.
• 1989: Gates found Corbis, an archive of art and photography from public and private collections. Corbis becomes one of the largest collections of visual information in the world. Microsoft introduces Microsoft Office.
• 1990: The FTC begins an investigation into IBM and Microsoft and concluded that Microsoft and IBM collaborated to divvy up the market for OS in an anticompetitive way. IBM's OS/2 would capture the high-end of the market and Microsoft's Windows would cover the low-end of the market.
• 1994: Melinda and Bill get married and, later, have three children.
• 1995: At age 39, Gates becomes the richest man in the world with a fortune of $12.9 billion. Microsoft introduces Internet Explorer to the world as a part of Windows 95. The Road Ahead, Gates' book about his vision of the digital future holds the No. 1 spot on The New York Times best-seller list for seven weeks. Gates shifts Microsoft's focus toward the Internet.
• 1998: Gates is pied by Noel Godin, a Belgian who threw pies at high-profile individuals. Godin was quoted that it was an act "against hierarchical power." U.S Justice Department charges Microsoft with engaging in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices designed to maintain and extend a monopoly in OS and Internet browsing software.
• 1999: Gates publishes another best-selling book called Business @ the Speed of Thought, about the interconnections between business and technology. Gates appears in pop-culture through TNT with a movie about the emergence of Apple and Microsoft called Pirates of Silicon Valley. Anthony Michael Hall plays Gates in the movie. Gates donates $20 million to MIT for the construction of a computer laboratory.
• 2000: Gates steps down as CEO of Microsoft. Steve Ballmer (Gates' dorm-mate in Harvard and right-hand man) is placed as the CEO while Gates becomes Chief Software Architect. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is formed. Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson concludes Microsoft misused monopoly power and orders the company to split into two parts: one to produce the OS and the other to produce other software components like Word and Excel. Gates vowed to appeal the ruling .
• 2001: Judge Penfield's decision is overturned on appeal. The DOJ announces that it is no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and will lessen the antitrust penalty. MGM releases the movie Antitrust, starring Tim Robbins about a company and character loosely based on Microsoft and Bill Gates.
• 2002: Bill and Melinda Gates received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged.
• 2005: Queen Elizabeth II bestows honorary knighthood on Gates for his contributions in the UK. Time magazine names him a "Person of the Year," along with Melinda Gates for "good Samaritan" work.
• 2006: Gates announces that his role as an executive at Microsoft will be phased out over the following two years. His intention is to spend more time working with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. After his announcement, Warren Buffett donates $31 billion to the foundation.
• 2007: Gates "graduates" from Harvard with an honorary degree. Gates gives a commencement speech encouraging the graduates to strive for social change.
• 2008: Gates loses his spot as the richest man in the world. After 13 years being number one, he is surpassed by his friend Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim Helu. Gates retires from day-to-day duties at Microsoft but stays in the role of chairman and adviser on important developmental projects. He plans to pour the same amount of energy into his foundation as he did into Microsoft.
• 2010: Along with Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, Gates signed the "Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge," committing to donate at least half of their wealth over the course of time to charity.
• 2015: Melinda and Bill jointly received India's third highest civilian honor called the Padma Bhushan for their foundation's philanthropic activities in India.
• 2016: Gates' net worth is $84 billion at the age of 61.

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. "

—Bill Gates

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