The company now has 94,000 employees in the whole world

Sep 18, 2012 18:11 GMT  ·  By

You may have seen this photo before, but given the recent announcement that Microsoft will gift all employees brand new Windows 8 devices, it's definitely worth looking at.

This was Microsoft's core in 1978, a team that slowly but surely pushed the company towards a remarkable evolution. The kind of evolution that can be seen on most desktop computers nowadays.

You probably spotted the young Bill Gates in the left bottom corner, while Andrea Lewis and Maria Wood are sitting right next to him. The one in the opposite corner is Paul Allen, the other Microsoft cofounder who's now one of the richest people in the world.

Bob O'Read is the one in a red shirt (with a mustache), while the man in the red sweater (and no mustache) is Bob Greenberg who left Microsoft three years later. Marc McDonald and Gordon Letwin, both with glasses, are right in the middle, while the ones at the top are Steve Wood, the founder of Wireless Services, Bob Wallace and Jim Lane.