After being told to come back in a month, Bill Gates worked day and night on a software project that he said ended his college education and began his journey with Microsoft.

TRUE: biographical records show that after Gates (with Paul Allen) contacted MITS in Albuquerque around January 1975 about writing a BASIC for the Altair 8800, he worked intensively on that software, the project led to the founding of Microsoft (Micro-Soft, 1975), and he later left Harvard without graduating. MOSTLY TRUE: the account is accurate except for a minor detail, such as the exact month or who made the call, or that he formally left Harvard somewhat later (he took leaves and dropped out in 1975–1976). MIXED: the project and Microsoft link are accurate, but the claim that it ended his college education is substantially off. MOSTLY FALSE: the work happened, but it did not lead to Microsoft or to his leaving college in the way described. FALSE: no such contact and project took place.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 What Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was doing at 20 years old CNBC · 29 March 2018

   “At the time, Gates was still technically a student at Harvard University, having taken a leave of absence after two years in school to form a computer software company with his high school friend, Paul Allen.”

2. E2 What Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was doing at 20 years old CNBC · 29 March 2018

   “The Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems' (MITS) Altair 8800 inspired Gates and Allen, and they started working on software for the computer.”

3. E3 What Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was doing at 20 years old CNBC · 29 March 2018

   “In fact, Gates and Allen both admitted later that they had lied and told MITS that they already had a version of BASIC for the Altair when they hadn't yet written the software.”

E3 shows that the MITS Altair 8800 led Gates and Allen to start writing software for it. E4 also shows that they contacted MITS about a BASIC for the Altair before they had written it. E1 shows that Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to form a software company with Allen. Together these support the main account: the MITS contact, the BASIC work, the founding of the company and his leaving college. However, the quoted evidence does not confirm the January 1975 date or the Albuquerque location, and it describes a leave of absence rather than a formal withdrawal, so the verdict is mostly true.