On January 1, 1979, Bill Gates moved Microsoft and its sixteen employees from Albuquerque to Seattle, Washington. Gates thought that recruiting programmers would be easier from this site. Microsoft developed a standard for hiring new employees. Only the most gifted and intelligent new college graduates would be hired. Little job experience was considered positive from Microsoft's point of view. An employee with little experience would have no bias'.
The expansion of personnel lead to the development of a Microsoft spreadsheet program and Microsoft Word. Interests in graphical interfaces were realized. In 1981, Gates purchased the SCP-DOS operating system from Seattle Computer Products, later modifying the operating system to MS-DOS. Gates made a deal with IBM to write an operating system for its new line of personal computers, and in 1981, MS-DOS was shipped on all new IBM PC's. Microsoft made additional technological breakthroughs in the 1980's. In April, 1983, Microsoft introduced the "mouse" and in November 1983, a graphical user interface known as "Windows" was introduced.
On March 13, 1986, Microsoft went public on the Stock Exchange. The initial offering for a share of Microsoft stock was $21.00 per share. Bill Gates became an instant millionaire. At thirty-one, Gates joined the Gatesionaires club and became the richest man in the United States.
