MICROSOFT CHAIRMAN Bill Gates
AP	Gates - considered America's wealthiest person with a worth estimated in late 2002 at $43 billion - started using computers at age 13 at Lakeside prep school in Seattle. He co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen after dropping out of Harvard University. Hyper-competitive, short-tempered, a hands-on boss and known to have little tolerance for people who do not think as fast as he does, Gates is considered a forceful competitor and businessman. By 1991, the vast majority of world's personal computers relied on Microsoft's operating system software. He has a quirky personal habit of rocking in his chair while excited or deep in thought. During remedy hearings, he testified for three days on behalf of his company to argue that states' penalties would damage the PC industry and put Microsoft innovations in a 10-year period of hibernation. Despite battling with government lawyers in a deposition earlier in the case, he largely kept his cool on the witness stand. In 1998, he promoted Steve Ballmer, a hard-charging friend from his poker-playing days at Harvard, to president of Microsoft and took over as "Chief Software Architect" for the company. Gates married in 1994 to a former Microsoft employee and has two children.