These days, there are few people--the president, movie star or otherwise--more famous than Gates. It wasn't all that long ago that you could find the Microsoft Corp.

chairman and chief executive hobnobbing with programmers, strolling alone around trade show floors and personally sitting in on every product design review at Microsoft.

No longer. Trade reporters view those days with nostalgia. Now they have to fight for Gates' time, competing not only with mainstream business publications, but also the likes of Tom Brokaw.

Now you're more likely to find Gates rubbing shoulders with other industry captains--like Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alex Trotman, as he did this past summer at the exclusive Microsoft-sponsored CEO summit in Seattle, or playing golf with President Bill Clinton, or bridge with Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffet--than with pedestrian hacks or hackers.

He has been dubbed the wealthiest man in the world and has learned to speak in sound bites rather than in the rambling monologues he typically uses to address his Visual Basic brethren. His rumpled button-down shirts have given way to designer suits.

Always an intense interview, Gates still rocks back and forth when he talks, but his public appearances are much more polished. He clearly has been coached in the way he stands, gestures and speaks.

Gates, like the industry he helped create, has come of age. The company he founded 22 years ago is the dominant force among ISVs, OEMs, channel players and the general public--not to mention legal circles and the highest reaches of government.

His history, like that of his company, has become the stuff legends are made of. He began programming at age 13 and developed the Basic language for the MITS Altair. The Seattle native and son of prominent Seattle lawyer William Gates II attended Harvard University until 1975, when he dropped out to form Microsoft with Paul Allen.

And in his spare time, Gates has invested in a number of high-technology and biotechnology firms, including Darwin Molecular, a subsidiary of British-based Chiroscience.

Now 42, Gates already has been the subject of several unauthorized biographies and has published his own, although ghostwritten, tome "The Road Ahead," an outline of Gates' vision for the future that topped best-seller lists for 18 weeks.

In the process, Gates has tread on a lot of toes, leaving countless competitors in his wake. Software Publishing Corp., Micrografx Inc. and Borland International Inc. in the early days garnered almost as much attention as Microsoft, until their core businesses were coveted by, and won by, the Redmond, Wash., developer.

Lotus Development Corp., which pioneered the spreadsheet, the PC's original "killer app," remains a force, but Lotus 1-2-3 now is a distant second to Microsoft Excel. And Lotus got a big-time boost when it was acquired by IBM Corp., a company with pockets almost as deep as Microsoft's own.

Gates has forged countless alliances and acquisitions: WebTV, SoftImage, Comcast, NBC, Vanstar Corp., Entex Information Services Inc., Wang Laboratories Inc. and Uunet Technologies Inc. are all partners in one way or another.

"Bill's a driven man," says Mark Eppley, chief executive of Traveling Software Inc., a Bothell, Wash., ISV that recently refocused its business by accounts to avoid being squashed by Microsoft. Traveling Software built a strong business out of remote-access software, a market Microsoft entered in the mid-1990s when it decided to build remote connectivity capabilities right into Windows. The market for stand-alone products, predictably, went south.

Heads of some of the most powerful companies in the business admit they are in awe of the man who can outdebate just about anyone--inside and outside the industry.

And his closest partners, even when critical of Microsoft's business practices, remain unflinchingly loyal to Microsoft and especially Gates. At least on the record.

Eckhard Pfeiffer, chief executive and president of longtime Microsoft partner Compaq Computer Corp., maintains that the person he admires most in the entire industry is "my dear friend Bill Gates. . . . And through those years, I have seen a very high level of integrity, good business ethics and an outstanding customer relationship. But really more than that, we have had a partnering relationship that has truly contributed to bringing the entire industry forward," Pfeiffer says.

While some, including most recently U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, might quibble over Gates' and Microsoft's "ethics," there are other traits that make Gates the high-tech icon he is.

Among these are his adaptability, says Jonathan Seybold, co-founder and chairman of security software vendor Pretty Good Privacy.

Often, that means respinning history when Microsoft changes direction.

The key example was Gates' famed Internet about-face. In 1995, after getting caught flat-footed by Netscape Communications Corp.'s Web success, he was able to refocus the company on the Web. Two years later, Microsoft is seriously threatening Netscape's browser lead.

The striking thing about Gates, says Seybold, is "he's never a prisoner of his past: Most people are in some way prisoners to their previous position or previous thoughts. Bill is never a prisoner to them. He'll absorb new information and change his mind."