On January 13, 2000 Bill Gates announced he stepped down as Microsoft CEO, the company he cofounded in 1975, “to concentrate on software strategy”. Gates’ personal wealth at the time was estimated at nearly $85 billion.
In 1999, during Microsoft’s monopolistic anti-trust legal proceedings, Bill Gates began to reposition his brand from computer geek to “philanthropist” by forming the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) [ARCHIVE] as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that “gives back to global communities through increasing access to innovations in education, technology, and world health”, with a strong focus on reproductive health. [5, 6]