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The chairman of Microsoft and one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, is stepping down from his job running the world’s largest software company.

Mr Gates, who made his fortune through developing software for the personal computer, plans to devote his time to charity work.

As a teenager Bill Gates had a vision of a personal computer on every desk in every home.

He says he caught sight of the future and based his career on what he saw.

Great responsibility

The son of a successful lawyer from Seattle, Mr Gates programmed his first computer at the age of 13.

During his two years at Harvard University, he spent much of his time finessing his programming skills as well as enjoying the occasional all-night poker session.

He eventually dropped out of college and moved to Albuquerque, in New Mexico, where he set up Microsoft with his childhood friend, Paul Allen.

Most of our competitors were very poorly run

Bill Gates

Timeline: From geek to billionaire
The original Microsoft family

Their big break came in 1980 when Microsoft signed an agreement with IBM to build the operating system that became known as MS-DOS.

Microsoft went public in 1986 and within a year Bill Gates, at 31, had become the youngest self-made billionaire.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Gates explained that Microsoft benefitted because “most of our competitors were very poorly run”.

“They did not understand how to bring in people with business experience and people with engineering experience and put them together. They did not understand how to go around the world.”

New horizons

Now 52, he still has boyish looks, but he is no longer the world’s richest man. He has been overtaken by the investor Warren Buffett and the Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim.

But Mr Gates’ fortune is at the root of his decision to leave his day job and concentrate on his charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He will remain as Microsoft’s chairman and work on special technology projects, but according to Mr Gates, great wealth brings great responsibility and his future work will include finding new vaccines and financing projects in the developing world.

BBC News

Slowing economy, oil prices help send Dow into 358-point tailspin

U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its worst June since the Great Depression, as record oil prices, credit-market write-downs and a slowing economy threatened to extend a yearlong profit slump.

The Dow dropped 358.41 points, more than 3 percent, to close at 11,453.42 - its lowest finish since Sept. 11, 2006.

Investors contended with the barrage of bad news that also included warnings of trouble in the key financial, automotive and high-tech industries:

* General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, plunged the most in three years as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised selling the stock, and crude rose by $5 a barrel.

* Citigroup Inc. led the KBW Bank Index to an almost 10-year low as Goldman said the lender may report an $8.9 billion second-quarter charge and cut its dividend.

* Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry, posted its biggest drop since 2001 on concern competition with Apple Inc.’s iPhone is reducing earnings.

* Oil futures shot past $140 for the first time after the head of OPEC predicted the price of a barrel of crude could rise well over $150 this year, and Libya said it may cut oil production.

That increases the odds that gasoline prices, which crossed a nationwide average of $4 a gallon weeks ago, will extend their advance and that goods and services across the economy will get ever more expensive.

“Most investors are going to sit on the sidelines until they’re more certain the sharks have left the waters and it’s safe to go back in,” said Bruce McCain, the Cleveland-based head of investment strategy at Key Private Bank, which oversees about $30 billion.

All the bad news overshadowed a report by the National Association of Realtors that sales of existing homes edged up in May for only the second time in the past 10 months.

It also wiped out any positive impact from the Federal Reserve’s widely expected decision Wednesday to leave interest rates unchanged.

And it drove home anew how much U.S. companies stand to be hurt by the prolonged housing slump, the credit crisis and the soaring price of oil.

The great fear on Wall Street has been that rising prices and worries about their finances will force Americans to curb spending and reinforce the economic decline.

That fear was backed up by the latest reading on the gross domestic product. The Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 1 percent annual rate in the first quarter - a slight improvement from earlier estimates but still anemic.

The tale of the tape:

* The Nasdaq composite index sank 79.89, or 3.3 percent, to 2,321.37, its worst loss since January.

* The Standard & Poor’s 500 index plunged 38.82, or 2.9 percent, to 1,283.15, its biggest drop in three weeks.

* All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 retreated at least 1 percent as Nike Inc. said U.S. earnings dropped and Oracle Corp. predicted the slowest sales growth since 2006, adding to concern that consumers and businesses are cutting back as the economy expands at the weakest pace in five years.

* The Dow has slumped 9.4 percent this month, its worst June since an 18 percent tumble in 1930 during the Great Depression.

* All 30 companies have posted losses in the month as oil surged, the unemployment rate jumped to the highest since 2004, and concern grew that global financial firms will add to $400 billion of subprime-related write-downs.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil was quoted as telling a French television station that oil could rise to between $150 and $170 per barrel this summer before pulling back later in the year.

That and a falling dollar helped send light, sweet crude as high as $140.39 and to a record settlement of $139.64 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Staff writer James Paton contributed to this report.

Four factors that drove the market

Oil

Oil futures shot above $140 Thursday before settling to a record $139.64 close after OPEC’s president said crude prices could rise well above $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production.

Automotive

General Motors Corp., one of the 30 stocks that compose the Dow industrials, sank to its lowest level in more than 30 years, after a Goldman Sachs analyst cut his rating on the stock to “sell.”

Financial

Citigroup Inc. fell sharply after an analyst placed a “sell” rating on the stock and warned investors to expect less from the brokerage sector in an uneasy economic climate.

Technology

Technology bellwethers Oracle Corp. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. made the tech sector one of the steepest decliners after issuing disappointing forecasts.

What they’re saying

“Investing is a marathon. You should not approach it with a sprinter’s mentality. This is how opportunities are created. A consumer-driven recession is something we haven’t had in a long time. You want to make sure you own companies that will come out of this recession stronger.

Vitaliy Katsenelson director of research Investment Management Associates

“The CBOE volatility index was up 13 percent today, which shows there was some serious fear on Wall Street, but at 23 it is still a long way from the 30s it traded at in January and again in March, which may mean the markets have further to fall in the short term.”

Fred Taylor principal at Northstar Investment Advisors

“Oil may be the single factor that ends up tipping the U.S. into recession. More pressure on the consumer is the last thing the banks need right now. The good news is that all these events have been known for a while, so the market may be close to discounting them.”

Greg Denewiler Denewiler Capital Management

“Most investors are going to sit on the sidelines until they’re more certain the sharks have left the waters.”

Bruce McCain head of investment strategy at Key Private Bank

“We’ve been saying for over a year that the emperor has no clothes, and today the market woke up to that. The weak dollar, skyrocketing oil and food costs, combined with the collapsing credit markets, will crush corporate earnings far worse and far longer than many predicted. Solid companies will be unfairly beaten down. This may present the buying opportunity of a lifetime for savvy investors.”

Jeff Wilson Wilson Advisory Group president

“The greater question for investors is what is the health of the economy? It’s clear it is not good, and the chances the economy simply has a bad cold is losing credibility. Goldman Sachs downgraded General Motors and Citigroup today and did so for good reasons.”

Todd Gervasini Wakefield Asset Management

“It’s another ugly day. Until we get through another round of disclosures and through earnings season, the safest place is on the sidelines.”

James Dunigan PNC Advisors chief investment officer

“It’s the end of the quarter, oil is up and you’ve got a continued bashing of financials. Plenty of fuel for the fire.”

David Heupel portfolio manager at Thrivent Financial

RM News