Microsoft turns 50 today (April 4). The tech giant founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen half a century ago is the world’s second largest company by market cap (behind Apple) today. Over the decades, Microsoft weathered major industry upheavals—from the bursting of the dot-com bubble to the 2008-2009 financial crisis to the decline of PC dominance in the mobile era. Each time, it rebounded, reinventing itself through cloud computing, enterprise software and A.I. leadership.
Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Gates and Allen after spotting the world’s first personal computer on a magazine cover and deciding to write software for it. Allen simulated the Intel processor it used, while Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter, leading to a successful demo and licensing deal with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). They named their venture “Micro-soft,” a blend of “microprocessor” and “software,” and soon moved operations from Boston to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where MITS was based.
By 1978, Microsoft’s sales topped $1 million, driven by licensing deals. The company quickly expanded internationally and relocated its U.S. headquarters to Bellevue, Wash. (Fun fact: In the 1980s, the Canadian Department of Agriculture quarantined a Microsoft Mouse for four weeks, mistaking it for a live animal. Another fun fact: the “MS” in “MSNBC” stands for Microsoft, which co-launched the 24-hour news network with NBC in 1996.)
For a half-century-old company, Microsoft (MSFT) has seen remarkably steady leadership—just three CEOs and four chairmen at the helm since its founding. Gates served as CEO for 25 years and remained chairman for another 14. His successor, Steve Ballmer, who began as the company’s first business manager, led Microsoft for 14 years under Gates’s continued oversight. Current CEO Satya Nadella, who joined Microsoft in 1992, was appointed in 2014 under then-chairman John W. Thompson and assumed the chairmanship himself in 2021.
Here are the four leaders and their key milestones at Microsoft:
Bill Gates, 69: CEO (1975–2000) and chairman (1975–2014)
During his tenure as CEO, Bill Gates led Microsoft through several defining milestones, including a 1984 partnership with Apple to bring Microsoft software like Word to the Macintosh.
He oversaw the launch of Microsoft Office—the first productivity software suite—and Windows 95, while also establishing a research division to keep the company at the forefront of computer science.
In 2000, Gates stepped down as CEO to become chief software architect but remained chairman of the board. By 2008, he shifted to a part-time role to focus more fully on global health and education initiatives through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His leadership laid the foundation for Microsoft’s dominance in both personal and enterprise computing.
Steve Ballmer, 69: CEO (2000–2014)
Steve Ballmer met Gates at Harvard in 1973. He graduated in 1977 with degrees in mathematics and economics and then briefly pursued an MBA at Stanford. He dropped out in 1980 to become Microsoft’s first business manager, playing a key role in securing the company’s landmark deal with IBM, which led to the creation of the world’s first PC with a Microsoft operating system and solidified Microsoft’s position as a leading software company.
Rising through the ranks as executive vice president of sales and later president, Ballmer helped steer Microsoft into the gaming world by launching the original Xbox, the first network-connected console designed to rival Sony’s Playstation.
As CEO, he championed cloud computing, expanded enterprise software with Microsoft 365, and pushed into internet services by releasing Bing and acquiring Skype. During his 14-year tenure at the helm, Ballmer guided the company through the dot-com boom, doubling profits and tripling revenue.
John W. Thompson, 75: chairman (2014–2021)
John W. Thompson joined Microsoft’s board in 2012 and became chairman in 2014, bringing decades of executive experience from roles at IBM, Symantec and Virtual Instruments. His tenure as chair coincided with a period of major transformation, as the PC market declined and Microsoft faced setbacks in mobile—ultimately shuttering its Windows Phone business in 2016.
While the company leaned further into cloud computing with its Azure products, Thompson played a central role in shaping its leadership, guiding the board through the search that led to Satya Nadella’s appointment as CEO in 2014. He also helped oversee two major acquisitions: Nokia for $7.2 billion in 2014 and LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016.
Satya Nadella, 57: CEO (2014–present) and chairman (2021–present)
Satya Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 as part of its Corporate Account Technical Marketing team and steadily rose through the ranks, eventually leading R&D for the Online Services Division and serving as vice president of the Microsoft Business Division.
Before becoming CEO, he was executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise group, where he began transforming Microsoft into a leader in cloud computing.
Since taking over from Ballmer in 2014, Nadella has aggressively pushed the company into A.I. and cloud services, growing Azure into a backbone for 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
Under his leadership, Microsoft has made a string of major acquisitions, including LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, GitHub for $7.5 billion, Mojang for $2.5 billion and Nuance for $19.7 billion. In 2023 it announced a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, reportedly taking a 49 percent stake. When Nadella took the reins, Microsoft’s market cap was around $300 billion—today it’s close to $3 trillion. In 2021, he succeeded John Thompson as chairman.
