The ENTIRE History of Microsoft in 21 Minutes

The history of Microsoft and the rise of Microsoft in one story: how two Seattle teenagers who could not afford computer time built the software on most of the world's desks, a Microsoft success story built on habits you never chose. This Microsoft history documentary covers Bill Gates, Paul Allen, MS-DOS and IBM, Microsoft Windows, Windows 95, the antitrust trial, Steve Ballmer, Satya Nadella, Azure, and Microsoft's bet on OpenAI. --- 📖 The book behind this video: https://link.amazon/B006ldpQc 📚 More Microsoft books: Source Code https://link.amazon/B0jlWDoIr · Idea Man https://link.amazon/B04PZuEok · Hard Drive https://link.amazon/B0bA0yuSI 🎙️Gears i use Laptop: https://link.amazon/B0cLghAto Mic: https://link.amazon/B0aMwI2CM · Budget mic: https://link.amazon/B0fb3zSOz As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. --- The company two young men started in a small office in New Mexico now brings in more than $900 million a day. Netscape, Lotus, Sun Microsystems, Compaq, and WordPerfect fell along the way, and the company the government nearly broke in half became more powerful afterward. This documentary follows the complete history of Microsoft: the Lakeside School rummage sale and the first computer terminal, Bill Gates and Paul Allen as teenage bug hunters, Traf-O-Data, the Altair 8800 and Altair BASIC, Paul Allen's flight to Albuquerque, the founding of Micro-Soft in 1975, the garage myth, the Open Letter to Hobbyists, the Albuquerque mugshot, the move to Seattle, IBM's phone call, Gary Kildall and Digital Research, Tim Paterson and QDOS, the $75,000 operating system, MS-DOS and the IBM PC clone deal, the 640K myth, platform network effects and switching costs, Paul Allen's departure, Windows 1.0, Excel on the Macintosh, the 1986 IPO, the Redmond campus, the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit and Xerox PARC, the Windows 95 launch and Start Me Up, The Internet Tidal Wave memo, Internet Explorer and the fall of Netscape, United States v. Microsoft, the 1997 Apple investment, Clippy, Steve Ballmer, Xbox and the red ring of death, Linux, Windows Vista, the iPhone, the Gates Foundation, Nokia, Satya Nadella, Minecraft, LinkedIn, GitHub, OpenAI, Microsoft Teams, Activision Blizzard, the $4 trillion milestone, Windows 10 end of support, Azure versus Amazon Web Services, Copilot, and the AI spending race. CHAPTERS 0:00 Microsoft History: A Habit You Cannot Uninstall 2:32 Bill Gates, Paul Allen and the School Computer 4:11 The Altair and the Program for a Computer They Never Saw 5:08 How Microsoft Started in Albuquerque 5:59 The Open Letter to Hobbyists 6:39 IBM Calls: The Deal That Built Microsoft 7:45 The $75,000 Operating System: MS-DOS 9:05 The Microsoft Success Story: Owning the Standard 10:03 Windows, the IPO and the Apple Lawsuit 11:13 Windows 95 and the Midnight Lines 12:11 Internet Explorer and the Antitrust Trial 13:03 Saving Apple and Clippy 13:49 The Ballmer Years: Xbox, iPhone and Nokia 15:26 Satya Nadella's Turnaround and the OpenAI Bet 16:59 Microsoft vs Amazon: The Cloud War 17:18 Microsoft in 2026: Azure, Copilot and the AI Bill 18:49 Why It Matters: AI as the New Floor 19:47 Back to Your Laptop The government could not break it up. A laughing chief executive could not sink it. A phone nobody wanted could not finish it. And in 2026, Microsoft is betting hundreds of billions of dollars that artificial intelligence will become the new standard everyone has to stand on. This Microsoft documentary is built on company filings, court records, founder memoirs, and verified reporting. Every Built On You episode tells the full story of a company, from founder to today, and reveals the one thing it was really built on. SOURCES Allen, P. (2011), Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft, Portfolio Gates, B. (2025), Source Code: My Beginnings, Knopf Manes, S. and Andrews, P. (1993), Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry, Doubleday Wallace, J. and Erickson, J. (1992), Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, Wiley Gates, B. (1976), "An Open Letter to Hobbyists," Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter Gates, B. (1995), "The Internet Tidal Wave," internal Microsoft memo Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) Nadella, S. (2017), Hit Refresh, Harper Business Microsoft Corporation (2026), Fiscal Year 2026 Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Microsoft Corporation (2026), Form 10-K, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2026 #MicrosoftHistory #Microsoft #HistoryOfMicrosoft #BillGates #PaulAllen #SatyaNadella #Windows95 #MicrosoftWindows #TechHistory #BusinessDocumentary #HistoryDocumentary #CompanyHistory #BusinessHistory #BuiltOnYou