Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry--and Made Himself The Richest Man In America

How Microsoft's mogul reinvented an industry and made himself the richest man in America. Bill Gates is the founder of the biggest and most successful company in the software business. Gates traces this quirky young man's dramatic life--from a nerdy adolescence to dropping out of Harvard to wheeling and dealing with the likes of IBM and Ross Perot. Photos.

Gates reveals the guiding genius behind the unparalleled success of the Microsoft Corporation-- the biggest and most profitable personal computer software company in history-- and exposes the intensely competitive tactics that help it dominate the desktops of America.

Chairman and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is the most powerful person in the computer industry and the youngest self-made billionaire in history. His company's DOS and Windows programs are such universal standards that more than nine out of ten personal computers depend on Microsoft software. Under the "Microsoft Everywhere" rallying cry, Gates intends to expand his company's worldwide dominance to office equipment, communications, and home entertainment.

Vivid and definitive, Gates details the behind the scenes history of the personal computer industry and its movers and shakers, from Apple to IBM, from Steve Jobs to Ross Perot. Uncovering the inside stories of the bitter battle for control of the expanding personal computing market, Gates is a bracing, comprehensive portrait of the industry, the company, and the man-- and what they mean for a future where software is everything.