The 2019 letter from a Microsoft Corp. engineer reporting an affair with Bill Gates that preceded his exit from the board wasn’t the first time some Microsoft directors encountered the billionaire’s inappropriate behavior with female employees.
More than a decade earlier, Microsoft executives discovered emails between Mr. Gates and a midlevel female employee at the company while Mr. Gates was still an employee at Microsoft and chairman of the board, according to people familiar with the matter. In the messages, the then-married Mr. Gates was flirtatious and propositioned the female employee, the people said.
