Bill Gates and Microsoft: From BASIC to Billionaire
From dropping out of Harvard to building Microsoft and pivoting to philanthropy, test what you know about Bill Gates and Microsoft's history.
10 questions~5 minen
Q1 / 10
Score: 0
Who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975?
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Q1. Who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975?
- Steve Ballmer
- Paul Allen
- Charles Simonyi
- Nathan Myhrvold
Bill Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their first product was a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 computer.Q2. Which university did Bill Gates famously drop out of to start Microsoft?
- Stanford
- MIT
- Harvard
- Yale
Gates enrolled at Harvard in 1973 but dropped out in 1975 to focus on Microsoft. Harvard awarded him an honorary degree decades later, in 2007.Q3. What operating system did Microsoft license to IBM in 1981 for the original IBM PC?
- MS-DOS
- Windows 1.0
- OS/2
- CP/M
Microsoft licensed MS-DOS (an adaptation of QDOS, which Gates bought for $50,000 from Seattle Computer Products) to IBM in 1981. Crucially, Microsoft kept the right to license it to other PC manufacturers, which built the clone-PC empire.Q4. In what year was the first version of Microsoft Windows released?
- 1983
- 1985
- 1987
- 1990
Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985. It was a graphical shell running on top of MS-DOS and was widely seen as inferior to the Mac, but laid the groundwork for the dominant Windows 3.x and 95 releases.Q5. In what year did Microsoft go public via IPO?
- 1981
- 1984
- 1986
- 1990
Microsoft IPO'd on March 13, 1986, at $21 per share. The IPO created an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees, including Gates who was 30 years old.Q6. What was the breakthrough Windows release of August 1995?
- Windows 3.1
- Windows 95
- Windows NT
- Windows 98
Windows 95 launched on August 24, 1995, with a massive marketing push including a Rolling Stones 'Start Me Up' campaign. It introduced the Start menu, taskbar, and 32-bit support, and sold 7 million copies in five weeks.Q7. What landmark antitrust ruling did Microsoft face in 2000?
- Forced breakup ordered
- $10 billion fine
- Acquittal
- Forced sale of Office
On June 7, 2000, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft broken into two companies for antitrust violations related to bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The breakup order was overturned on appeal in 2001 and Microsoft settled with the DOJ in 2002.Q8. When did Bill Gates step down as CEO of Microsoft?
- 1998
- 2000
- 2006
- 2014
Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO in January 2000, handing the role to his longtime college friend Steve Ballmer. Gates remained chairman and took the new role of Chief Software Architect.Q9. What is the name of the foundation Bill Gates founded with his then-wife in 2000?
- Gates Family Trust
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Gates Global Health
- Microsoft Giving
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 and is one of the largest private charitable foundations in the world. It focuses on global health, poverty, and education, and has spent over $75 billion in grants.Q10. What language interpreter did Gates and Allen first sell as Microsoft's debut product?
- FORTRAN
- COBOL
- BASIC
- Pascal
Their first product was Altair BASIC, an interpreter for the Altair 8800 microcomputer made by MITS. Gates and Allen reportedly developed it in eight weeks without ever physically touching an Altair beforehand.
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