# Microsoft completes its initial public offering

Date: 1986

## The fact

On 13 March 1986 Microsoft completed its IPO, a completed capital-markets instrument that funded later Windows scale and created a liquid [Gates](/people/bill-gates) stake.

## Context

NASDAQ listed the shares. Neighbouring DOS 1981 is the product prior. Neighbouring 1998 DOJ is later antitrust. He did not write the Securities Act.

DOS 1981 is neighbouring. Windows 95 is later product.

Bill Gates was Microsoft CEO until January 2000, chairman until February 2014, then a technical adviser until 2020, and a Gates Foundation co-chair. That is not authorship of every Windows copy, every GAVI dose, or every IRS schedule. Melinda French Gates is a different person. Bill Clinton is PER-000772, a different person. A pledge is not a coverage rate. A docket is not a personality.

## Evidence and sources

United States Securities and Exchange Commission carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [industrial-policy activism](/drivers/industrial-policy-activism) and [income-inequality](/drivers/income-inequality) mixed: a completed IPO funds scale and concentrates founder wealth.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 13 March 1986 Microsoft IPO, independently reported.

Not established: a unique later Gini from the opening bell, or that every employee was thereby rich.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Underwriters priced. Investors bought. The SEC registered.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Microsoft completes its initial public offering, not a later speech about Microsoft completes its initial public offering.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Microsoft completes its initial public offering on 1986-03-13 is not a licence to treat every later United States Securities and Exchange Commission communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Microsoft completes its initial public offering into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He was CEO-founder selling and retaining stock. Underwriters priced. Investors bought. The SEC registered. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Bill Gates: https://factrail.ai/people/bill-gates

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism
- Income Inequality: https://factrail.ai/drivers/income-inequality

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/markets/microsoft-ipo-1986/
- https://www.sec.gov/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ms-ipo-1986