The document provides biographies for several influential figures in technology: - Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 and led the company to become one of the largest in the world, helping establish the software industry. He has also donated billions to charity through his foundation. - Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack founded Cisco in 1984 after recognizing the commercial potential of routers, growing the company from 4 employees to a publicly traded industry leader with a $224 million market cap by 1990. - Michael Dell revolutionized the PC industry by founding Dell Computer and pioneering the direct sales model via mail-order.

2. Bio: Bill Gates
 Founder of Microsoft
 Co-founded Microsoft in 1975
with boyhood friend Paul Allen
 Wrote Microsoft's first program,
BASIC for the MITS Altair, in
1975
 Led Microsoft to become one of
the world's largest corporations,
helping the software industry
rival established industries in
economic influence and power
 Donated billions of dollars to
charities through the work of
the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation.

3.  Bio: Sandy Lerner & Len
Bosack
 They might not have
invented the router, as is
often believed, but the two
Stanford University
employees built one heck of
a company to exploit it.
 The two recognized the
multiprotocol router's
commercial potential and
founded Cisco in late 1984;
when they left in 1990
(Lerner was forced out,
and Bosack left of his own
volition immediately
thereafter), the company
had grown from an
unknown, four-employee
start-up to a 250-person,
publicly traded industry
trend-setter with a market
cap of $224 million.
 Today Cisco remains the
router leader, as well as a
dominant player in the
access, switch, security,
storage, VoIP and wireless
markets.
Sandy Lerner

4. Bio: Michael Dell
 Founder of DELL
COMPUTER
 Developed the concept of
selling personal computers
via mail-order,
revolutionized the way
computers are sold while
also helping to drive the
price of PCs down. His idea
has flourished into one of the
top suppliers of quality
computer equipment in the
world.

5.  Larry Ellison is far from a run-of-the-
mill businessman. Oracle is the world's
leading supplier of software for
information management and the
world's second largest independent
software company, boasting revenues
of more than $9.7 billion. The huge
success of the company makes Ellison
one of the richest people in America.
His drive, character and success
motivated author Mike Wilson to write
Ellison's biography entitled The
Difference Between God and Larry
Ellison. If you would like to uncover
the details of Ellison's life, nasty to nice,
the book is brutally straightforward
regarding the man commonly referred
to as the Other Software Billionaire.

6. Bio: Linus Torvalds
 Creator of LINUX
 After programming games on his
first computer, a Commodore VIC
20, Torvalds turned his interests to
creating an alternative to the
standard operating systems
available commercially. Using an
open-source model (allowing a
loose-knit group of other interested
programmers to contribute source
code and changes to the software)
and attaching his favorite animal,
the penguin, as the products icon, he
created LINUX.

7. Bio: Steve Jobs
 Co-founder and CEO
of Apple Computer
Company
 CEO of Pixar, the
Academy-Award-
winning animation
studios which he co-
founded in 1986.