Built and sold Traf-O-Data traffic analysis software
At age 17, Bill Gates and Paul Allen built Traf-O-Data, a system that read raw data from roadway traffic counters and produced reports for traffic engineers. The product earned approximately $20,000 and gave Gates his first experience turning a software project into a commercial sale. It also informed the business instincts he would apply at Microsoft three years later.
Free forever · No ads · Solo developer
If this was worth a read, help make the next entry possible.
Every entry in this archive was researched, verified, and written by one person — for free. No corporate funding. No ad revenue. Just a developer who believes verified history should be accessible to everyone. Your donation directly funds new entries.
Crypto accepted · No subscription required
← Previous
Co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen
Next →
Wrote his first software program at age 13 at Lakeside School
Related Accomplishments
January 2026
Gates Foundation Awards $4.98 Million to Heritable Agriculture for AI-Driven Climate-Resilient Crop Genomics
In January 2026, the Gates Foundation awarded $4.98 million to Heritable Agriculture — an AI crop improvement company spun from Google X — for the JASON project, deploying a cloud-based AI genomics engine to identify drought and heat tolerance gene targets in staple crops for LMIC smallholder farmers. JASON aims to compress conventional crop breeding timelines and deliver climate-resilient germplasm faster to the nearly 2 billion people whose incomes depend on smallholder agriculture.
May 2026
Gates Foundation and Anthropic Launch $200 Million AI Partnership for Global Health and Smallholder Agriculture
On May 14, 2026, the Gates Foundation and Anthropic announced a $200 million four-year partnership — the largest between an AI company and a global philanthropy — combining grants, AI credits, and technical support. The partnership deploys AI to screen drug and vaccine candidates, detect patterns in systematic health reviews, and support smallholder farming decisions with locally customised crop knowledge in sub-Saharan Africa and India. Education initiatives include AI-powered tutoring for K-12 students and foundational literacy tools across Africa and India.
[ARCHIVE_FUNDING] · INDEPENDENT · NO ADS
One developer. >300 verified entries. Zero ads. Forever free.
No sponsors, no paywall, no algorithm. If this archive has been useful to you, reader support is what keeps it running.