Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway boards to focus on philanthropy

Gates, 64, has been scaling back his involvement in the Redmond, Washington-based company for more than a decade. Most recently he had been serving as an adviser to current chief executive officer Satya Nadella on technology areas including productivity, health software and artificial intelligence, and he will continue to do so.

“Microsoft will always be an important part of my life’s work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company’s ambitious goals,” Gates wrote in a blog post. “I feel more optimistic than ever about the progress the company is making and how it can continue to benefit the world.”

Gates has not been active in a day-to-day role since 2008, Microsoft said in a statement. That was when he switched to devoting most his time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates now wants to spend more time working on global health, education and tackling climate change, according to the statement. He served as CEO of Microsoft until 2000, the same year his foundation was started, and was chairman of the company until February 2014.

Under his leadership, Microsoft grew from a provider of the basic software code used to run business and home machines in the early years of personal computers into the dominant provider of software in computing from workplace productivity to internet and gaming.