Bill gates and paul allen

Bill Gates and Paul Allen posing in 2013 at Seattle's Living Computer Museum to recreate the iconic 1981 Microsoft photo.

Microsoft employees — past and present — look back over the years. Photo: Bill Gates and Paul Allen relocated Microsoft to Bellevue in 1979. (Barry Wong/The Seattle Times)

A look at the life of the Microsoft co-founder before the internet revolution

Americans were still using typewriters and writing out letters long hand when Bill Gates and Paul Allen formed Microsoft, a computer software company, in 1975. They started up their business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after Gates dropped out of Harvard and Allen left his job as a programmer to pursue their dream, but they relocated to Washington State in 1979.

Gates describes the moment Allen showed him a new computer called the Altair 8800, which marked the end of Gates’s college career and the beginning of Microsoft

41 years ago today, 19-year-old Bill Gates and 22-year-old Paul Allen one of the biggest and most succesful companies of all-time #Microsoft #TodayInHistory #Monday #Computers

Bill Gates holds the newly announced Windows XP. #FlashbackFriday

Founder of Microsoft with Paul Allen in April 4, 1975. Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, One Microsoft Way, United States, and has 201 office locations.

Mr. Allen and Bill Gates started the company in 1975, helping to usher in the personal computing revolution. He died after a recurrence of cancer.

Many of the giants that dictate the way tech-at-large rolls today had modest starts during their early days. Some attributed the success of the companies