The story of Bill Gates is a textbook example of the American entrepreneurial dream: a brilliant mathematical genius, Gates was 19 when he dropped out of Harvard and co-founded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen in 1975.
Even before founding one of the world’s most valuable companies, Gates’ life was anything but ordinary. He grew up in a wealthy, well-connected family, surrounded by his parents’ rarefied personal and professional network. Their circle included a Cabinet secretary and a Washington governor, according to “Hard Drive,” the 1992 biography of Gates by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Brock Adams, who became transportation secretary in the Carter administration, reportedly introduced Gates’ parents.)
His father, William Gates Sr., was a prominent business lawyer in Seattle and president of the Washington State Bar Association.
His mother, Mary Gates, came from a line of successful bankers and served on the boards of major financial and social institutions, including the nonprofit United Way. It was there, according to her New York Times obituary, that she met former IBM chairman John Opel — a fateful connection that reportedly led IBM to tap Microsoft to provide an operating system in 1980s.
“My parents were well-off — my father was successful as a lawyer, took us on big trips, we had a really nice house,” Gates said in the 2019 Netflix documentary “Inside Bill’s Brain.”
“And I’ve been so lucky with all these opportunities.”
Despite her very public life, her three children with French Gates – Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe – largely avoided the spotlight for most of their upbringing.
Like their father, all three Gates children attended Seattle’s elite Lakeside School, a private high school known for its excellence in STEM subjects — and which received a $40 million donation from Bill Gates in 2005 to build its fund financial aid. (Bill Gates and Paul Allen met at Lakeside and later built Microsoft together.)
But as they became adults, more and more details emerged about their interests, profession and family life.
Although they chose different career paths, all three children are active in philanthropy – an area in which they will likely have immense influence as they grow up. While their father has reportedly said he plans to leave each of Gates’ three children $10 million — a fraction of his fortune — they could inherit the family foundation, where most of his money will go.
Here’s everything we know about the Gates kids.
Gates and his children did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
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