Microsoft Investors: Time for Bill Gates to Go Stefan Postles / Getty Images Bill Gates gave up his day-to-day work at Microsoft in 2008 to focus on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation but still wields influence as the company's chairman. Major stakeholders in Microsoft are pushing for Bill Gates to resign as chairman, claimed Reuters on Tuesday. Three investors, who collectively hold more than 5% of the software company's stock, are allegedly lobbying on the basis that Gates - who founded the company 38 years ago - holds too much sway over the strategic direction of the business. The billionaire, consistently the richest man in the U.S., still owns about 4.5% of the $227 billion company and is its largest individual shareholder. But before Microsoft went public in 1986, he owned 49% of the business and under a pre-set agreement, now sells about 80 million shares each year. At that rate, he would be left with no financial stake by 2018. Reuters