Melinda Gates, philanthropist and the former wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is rumoured to be dating Jon Du Pre, a former correspondent with Fox News Channel, according to TMZ. The 58-year-old divorced Bill Gates in August 2022, ending their marriage of 27 years.

TMZ says that Melinda Gates and Jon Du Pre have been dating “for a few months and may be longer”. They were also spotted together at an NBA game between Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics in April. It is not clear yet clear how the two met.

Also read: Melinda Gates, Bill Gates’ ex-wife, dating former reporter Jon Du Pre: Reports

Who is Bill Gates? 

Bill Gates, named William Henry Gates III at birth, was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. He is the son of William H.Gates Sr., an American attorney, and philanthropist, and Mary Maxwell Gates, a philanthropist, and civic leader.

After graduating high school, Gates went to Harvard to pursue a law degree and took Mathematics and Computer Science courses on the side. He dropped out of Harvard after two years, but his friendship with Steve Ballmer, who was his classmate at Harvard, proved to be instrumental while founding Microsoft. 

Gates had a knack for computers and coding from his preschool days. He started programming on BASIC in a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal computer which Lakeside prep school bought from the proceeds of a rummage sale. Because of his keen interest in programming, the school let him skip maths classes.

Gates is said to have written his first program on this computer – it was an implementation of tic-tac-toe, which allowed users to play games against the computer.

He met Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, Ric Weiland the second employee at Microsoft, and Kent Evans, his first business partner, during his prep school days. All four of them shared a love for computers and were banned from Computer Center Corporation (CCC) after they were caught exploiting the machines to get free user time. 

When Paul Allen saw a demonstration of Altair 8800, the first microcomputer, he and Grates proposed to Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) that they can create an Emulator for the system using BASIC. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed, and the duo gave a successful demonstration which landed them a deal with MITS to distribute the emulator. Gates and Harvard named their partnership Micro-Soft – combining microcomputer and software, and opened their first office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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After making the Altair 8800 emulator and a few games and software on it, Microsoft’s first break came in July 1980 when it struck a deal with IBM to develop software for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.

Gates restructured the company after the success that came with the Microsoft deal and moved it from New Mexico to Washington. His relationship with Allen soured and he left the company after a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis. Allen was also having a dispute related to the company’s equity with Gates and it contributed to the two parting ways.

In 1985, in the face of steep competition from Apple’s Macintosh GUI, Microsoft launched the first retail version of Microsoft Windows. The company also went public at this time, and as soon as it did, Gates became the youngest billionaire at the age of 31.

10 years later, when Windows 95 was released, Gates became the richest man on earth with a fortune of $12.9 billion. He was only 39 years old then.