With its wide-ranging family of hardware, Microsoft has reimagined how we compute—again and again. As the company turns 50, ...

The model built by Bill Gates and Paul Allen remains decades later. What’s changed is how Microsoft responds to a flop.

Microsoft has become a global behemoth, through chapters that have included Windows, phones, gaming, the cloud and a few tussles with the federal government.

Microsoft’s 50-year rise was steered by just four leaders whose distinct visions transformed it from a startup into a $3 ...