Beginning with BASIC

It started with strings of code being written by hand on yellow legal pads in a dorm room at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stopping only to eat pizza and take sporadic naps, and with the help of a few classmates, Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their first programming language in just eight weeks.

Almost 40 years later, the same frenzied pace still powers the company that Gates and Allen started: Microsoft. But now, the programmers have the highest tech computers at their fingertips. They have espresso machines to help keep them awake and a full-service cafeteria available to satisfy their hunger.

The goal of changing the world with technology, however, is still the same.