Bill Gates and Paul Allen

Bill a hacker…, Paul, his partner.

Year:  1975

Company: Microsoft

Partnership: Bill Gates and Paul Allen were childhood friends from Lakeside private school. They  loved computers and were hacker partners-in-crime during their high school days.

How it worked: Although it is dangerous to mix friendship and business, the two pulled it off thanks to a shared obsession with computers and programming with a passion for entrepreneurship. Once Gates left for Harvard, Allen followed him to the Boston-area and they began planning business ideas to establish a company.  With Allen's encouragement, Gates took the plunge, dropped out of college, and created Microsoft.  Their billion dollar company spun out of a lovely passion and they remained to be  'life long friends'