1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a partnership called Micro-soft... Gates and Allen had been buddies and fellow Basic programmers at Lakeside School in Seattle. Allen graduated before Gates and enrolled at Washington State University. They built a computer based on an Intel 8008 chip and used it to analyze traffic data for the Washington state highway department, doing business as Traf-O-Data. Microsoft stock went public in March 1986. the rest, as they say, is history.

1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a partnership called Micro-soft... Gates and Allen had been buddies and fellow Basic programmers at Lakeside School in Seattle. Allen graduated before Gates and enrolled at Washington State University. They built a computer based on an Intel 8008 chip and used it to analyze traffic data for the Washington state highway department, doing business as Traf-O-Data. Microsoft stock went public in March 1986. the rest, as they say, is history.