Bill Gates Leaves Microsoft and Takes up Farming

Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and co-founder, will divorce from Microsoft starting with mid 2008, as new farming projects show on the horizon. Back in June 2006, Microsoft announced that Gates was entering a two-year transition period at the end of which he would terminate his day-to-day role with the Redmond company. Gates stated at the time that he believed Microsoft's business and technical leadership to be strong enough to take such a loss. The Microsoft Chairman talked about no longer having to strike a balance between his passion for the software company he helped create and his philanthropic work. After July 2008, Gates will be free to dedicate himself almost completely to the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The past week, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates announced that he was pledging no less than $306 million in grants to the development of agriculture in poor markets. The initiative is a part of the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but also an illustration of Gates' vision of creative capitalism. "If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," Gates said, as cited by CNN Europe. "The challenge here is to design a system including profit and recognition to do more for the poor." Namely creative capitalism.

During his address at Davos, Gates emphasized the fact that the new "approach to creative capitalism is simply to help the businesses in the poor world reach markets in the rich world. Tomorrow morning I'll announce a partnership that gives African farmers access to the premium coffee market, with the goal of doubling their income from coffee crops. This project will help African farmers produce high-quality coffee and connect them to companies that want to buy it. That will help lift them and their families out of poverty."