William Gates serves as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Gates is a director of Microsoft Corporation and served as chairman of the board from its inception in 1981 until February 2014. Mr. Gates is currently a technology advisor to Microsoft Corporation and was its Chief Executive Officer from 1981 to January 2000. He is the co-founder and Chairman of Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Mr. William H. Gates III, a director since 2004, is stepping down from the Board. He co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen and took it to the world leaders in business and personal computer software and services. More than 20 years later, guided by the belief that every life has equal value, he and his wife Melinda founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2008, he moved from his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft to work with Melinda to focus entirely on their foundation's work to reduce hunger and poverty around the world, use science and technology to save lives, and improve education in the United States. Since 2006, he has also been chairman of TerraPower, a company he helped found in 2006 that seeks to provide the world with a more affordable, safer and cleaner form of nuclear energy. He is the owner of Cascade Investment.