Brief biography of Bill Gates. Bill Gates - biography, photo, founding of Microsoft, personal life
If you are reading this article, then the name Bill Gates is familiar to you.
Because it is inextricably linked with the very concept of a “personal computer”, and, scrolling through these lines on your PC, you are a living illustration of the Microsoft motto - “a computer for every table and in every home.”
Bill Gates, like any extraordinary person, is ambiguous. But today we will not argue with those who criticize him, or, conversely, admire him.
In this article we will apply to you golden rule business, which reads: "You need to learn from successful people " We will talk about what events from Gates' biography and the qualities of his character helped him become who he is.
So, meet Gates, Bill Gates.
He is the legendary founder of the corporation, he is also the richest man on the planet for more than a decade, he is also a charismatic business leader, innovator, knight of Great Britain and the father of three children.
As of 01/31/19, Forbes estimates his fortune at $96.4 billion; in the Forbes 400 and Billionaires lists in 2018, Mr. Gates took an honorable 2nd place (losing 1st place). The 63-year-old billionaire is not only one of the most influential people on the planet (No. 7 on the list of Powerful People 2018), but also a distinguished philanthropist - his philanthropy index is 5 out of 5 points.
The future computer tycoon was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, largest city in the northwestern USA. The family of William Henry Gates III, as our hero was named at birth, was quite prosperous. His father was a famous lawyer, and his mother taught at school, was involved in charity work and was a member of the board of the local university.
Since the correct approach to family values is laid down in childhood, we can say that Bill was very lucky in this sense. He had two more sisters, and his parents, according to Gates, paid attention to all their children:
Isn't this the key to successful life Gates?
After all, sometimes, in the merry-go-round of everyday life, parents forget that individuals are growing up next to them. And, sometimes, it’s worth setting aside time to talk with children not only about everyday topics, such as checking lessons, but also to communicate as equals...
Bill happily talked about “non-childish” topics, and rejoiced at the opportunity to show his abilities in action. At age 11, he won a competition held by a local pastor by memorizing the Sermon on the Mount. Reverend Father was delighted with Gates's ability to reason: "careful discussion of the paragraph revealed a deep understanding of the text."
However, not everything went smoothly for Bill; he began to “fight” with his mother, played the role of a clown in the school group and failed in some subjects.
They say that a US resident who has money and problems goes to a psychologist. Gates' parents took the troubled child to a specialist, who advised them "not to force Bill into traditional behavior or obedience."
The parents heeded his advice and decided to act not “as it should and is customary,” but “what is best for the development of the child.” The Gateses transferred their 12-year-old son to a more suitable school, Lakeside.
In this elite private institution, Bill received excellent knowledge in mathematics, the teacher of which noted the student’s originality: “Bill saw shortcut" It was here that Gates’s landmark meeting with the computer took place.
“Getting to work with a computer in the late sixties was something for Seattle!”– Bill recalls this time with youthful excitement, saying “thank you” to the School Mothers’ Club, which raised money to buy a computer for schoolchildren.
In those days, computer technology took up entire rooms and was very slow. Bill and him school friend Paul Allen, the future co-founder of Microsoft, spent the whole weekend at the “iron monster” and stayed at school until 4 in the morning. Gates wrote his first tic-tac-toe program at age 13.
At this point, Bill's parents took another sensible parenting approach. Gates recalls:
Here is another component in the formula for success! After all, the principle of education – not to give something “ready-made”, but to encourage the ability to independently achieve goals – needs to be learned. Before giving your child everything at once, you need to think: will this stimulate his development?
The correct approach, adopted by Gates from his parents, will serve as the basis for raising his own children. According to his will, his capital will go to charitable foundations, and his children will receive 10 million each. dollars and a good education. Bill sees nothing wrong with the fact that the children of a billionaire will achieve success on their own.
Gates is distinguished by respect for any work, and he encourages all teenagers to do this:
“Frying burgers at McDonald's is not beneath your dignity. Your great-grandfathers would have called any job, even this kind of job, a good chance.”
Earthly blessings do not fall in the form of heavenly manna; they must still be earned.
The hard work instilled in Gates since childhood has always helped him a lot. Bill aptly spoke about this:
“A dollar can’t fly between an ass and a sofa.”
What else can I add?
At the age of 15, he and Allen wrote a program for regulating traffic, and received earnings of $20,000.
At age 17, Bill developed a program to distribute power from the Bonneville Dam and earned $30,000.
In 1973, Bill entered Harvard, which was not particularly interesting to him. He played a lot of poker and didn’t really know that “ what to do with your life."
Everything changed one day in 1975. Paul Allen brought his friend the magazine Popular Mechanics, the cover of which was decorated with the first computer for the mass market, the Altair-8080. This was their chance to develop a language for a simple machine that had no software. The competition was great, and it was necessary to be the first to complete this task.
Gates, more than anyone else, understood that it was necessary to “strike while the iron is hot.”
The ability to feel the moment and not miss the chance - useful property For modern man. Taking great risks, the friends promised the program before it was ready. The habit of “plowing” came in handy here too.
The presentation of the program, written in BASIC, was successful, and this was the beginning of their new life. What else, besides high ability to work, helped Bill cope with the task? Let's leave it to Gates himself to answer this question:
After all, the computer tycoon still declares his love for his work:
I can reproduce the source code for the first microcomputer, written back in 1975. My heart belongs to BASIC. If you look into my brain, you will see that it is filled with programs, the magic of programs and faith in programs, and that will not change
Inspiration for what you do arises when you have global goal. “Create a simple and affordable PC,” was how Gates understood his mission, and with this idea he was able to infect many people.
This is what I was obsessed with when I was a teenager, when I was 20, 30, I didn't even get married until that age
In 1975, our hero, together with Allen, founded the company and left Harvard.
Now they like to replicate Gates’s statement:
However, it is Bill, more than anyone else, who understands the value good education. He persuades doubting young people:
The world is becoming more and more ... competitive every year, higher education is now as important as school education used to be
Mr. Gates did manage to don the traditional black graduate hat when he was awarded the academic degree, and he was recognized as the most successful student at Harvard in the class of '77.
At first, things weren't going very well for Microsoft, but Gates didn't give up and worked with his usual persistence:
Sometimes clients came to us, and we were so tired the day before that we simply fell asleep right in front of them
Fortune always finds those who work hard. A contract with IBM in the 80s made Microsoft the leader in the software market.
Now Microsoft is a huge corporation with almost 90,000 employees working in more than 100 countries.
And let them make up jokes on the topic of Microsoft Windows operating systems: “What about Malevich?! Gates’s painting “Blue Screen” evokes much stronger emotions than the notorious “Black Square”; Bill’s dream - a computer in every home - is coming true.
This was facilitated by a group of like-minded people that Gates was able to organize around himself. As a successful business leader, he recognizes the importance of the team: « releasing a major project to the market always requires the joint efforts of hundreds of people»
Mr. Gates was the clear winner in the race he chose for himself:
At 31, Gates became a billionaire, and Forbes magazine declared him the richest person on the planet from 1996 to 2007, and in 2009.
As of November 2011, Gates' fortune was $59 billion, and 56-year-old Gates lost the honorary title of “richest” to only one person - a Mexican businessman.
Bill refutes the popular belief that “money spoils character.” He is not a snob at all, he dresses simply, eats at fast foods and is convinced:
Spending money wisely is just as difficult as earning it.
Through his personal example, Gates shows that money in itself is not the meaning of life; a person must have a more global goal that is useful for society.
Together with his wife, he is the founder of a foundation whose main goal is to improve healthcare. As of 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private charitable organization. During the foundation's existence, the billionaire donated Microsoft shares totaling $35.8 billion to the Gates Foundation.
All lives have equal value - all lives are equal
– you will see this slogan on the official website of the fund.
For his contribution to the fight against poverty, philanthropist Gates received a knighthood, and in 2005 Bill and his wife were recognized Time magazine"people of the year"
And in November 2016, the Gates couple were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the two highest American awards, awarded, among other things, for their contribution to maintaining world peace.
Melinda and Bill Gates receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama
In his wife Melinda, Gates found someone who shares him family values:
The ideal for me has always been the relationship between my parents: they actively communicated all the time, did everything together. This was a real team. And I wanted something just as magical in my life.
Their wedding took place in 1994, and now the couple has three children - daughters Jennifer, Phoebe and son Rory.
Billionaire with his wife Melinda and children Jennifer Catherine (born 1996), Phoebe Adele (born 2002) and Rory John (born 1999)
There is no doubt that Gates will raise his children with dignity, sharing his life principles.
However, Gates does not “rest on his laurels,” knowing full well that:
Success is a bad teacher. He's dizzy. He's unreliable
In 2008, Gates delegated management powers; as of 2019, he owns only 1% of the company's shares. Bill is currently participating in new global projects– launching satellites that provide worldwide telecommunications, developing the world's largest source of visual information.
The billionaire still loves to invent. Since 2017, Gates has been an Instagram user ( Bill Gates account). On the occasion of the 45th anniversary of graduation, in June 2018, the billionaire posted a photo on his profile with the comment:
“A lot has changed since 1973: I have three children, two dogs and a wonderful wife. However, I still love learning new things.”
Gates leads healthy image In his life, he admits, playing with Roger Federer, a professional Swiss tennis player, was one of the most pleasant memories 2017.
Bill Gates with Grand Slam champion tennis player Roger Federer
Gates continues to invest in healthcare, investing in the fight against malaria by breeding genetically modified mosquitoes.
At the end of 2016, Gates announced the opening of the Breakthrough Energy investment fund, which brought together both large companies(, General Electric, Virgin, etc.), and individual individuals (, Michael Bloomberg, etc.). The purpose of the foundation is nothing less than “providing for humanity better life": providing those in need with healthy food, comfortable living conditions, convenient transportation that would not change the Earth's climate.
At a technology exhibition in China in 2018, he demonstrated another know-how - a “toilet of the future” that works without water. The nanomembrane device, the creation of which cost $710 thousand from the Charitable Fund, allows saving humanity up to $233 billion per year.
The founder of Microsoft in 2018 stood near a jar of feces during the presentation of a nano-toilet.
Gates refused the offer from the US President in 2018 to take the post of Science Advisor, according to Statnews, citing “it would not be best use of my time." In the same year, the billionaire found free time and starred in an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
The billionaire continues to break the patterns of behavior of “moneybags”. In 2018, a photograph of the founder of Microsoft appeared on the Internet, where he was captured in line for fast food. The democratic behavior of the businessman attracted the attention of netizens.
The ability not to stop there, but to move on, is worth learning. And, perhaps, our descendants will already be called homo informativus, “information man,” thanks to the speed of exchange and availability of information that Gates dreamed of.
(b. 10/28/1955), A
American
entrepreneur, founder of Microsoft Corporation
, richest
man of the planet; currently at the helm of his foundation
does charity work.
Brief biography
William Henry Gates III
Henry Gates III)
Better known as
Bill Gates (English) Bill Gates).
Born October 28, 1955 in
Seattle, was only son
famous lawyer, William Gates II
(William H. Gates II), and Mary Maxwell
Gates (Mary Maxwell Gates), Council Member
Directors of First Interstate Bank, Pacific
Northwest Bell and national council
United Way.
Bill began training in
Seattle Public School, but
at the age of 12 his parents transferred him to
private school Lakeside School. This privileged school gave
Gates has excellent knowledge in mathematics and programming, but
Bill was not at all interested in humanitarian subjects. Behavior
young Gates was also not ideal - his parents even showed
his doctors, suspecting some mental disorders.
Bill was literally obsessed with programming, his first
Gates created the program at the age of 13. It was intended for
giant computers of that time.
In college, Bill Gates started his first company, Traf-O-Data.
his classmates worked there. The guys were developing
programs for local authorities, calculated traffic schedules
urban transport.
In 1970, Bill wrote a program - a traffic controller,
earning $20,000 from this project. And two years later I received
proposal for the development of a distribution software package
energy from the Bonneville Dam.
Entering Harvard as a lawyer in 1973, Gates
absolutely did not correspond to his chosen profession - he was withdrawn,
unsociable, avoided noisy parties. However, I found a friend there -
Steve Ballmer (future president of Microsoft).
In December 1974, Gates saw a simple computer, the only thing
What this machine lacked was software. Bill Gates and his
friend Paul Allen was suggested to representatives of the company that owned the computer
(M.I.T.S.) develop software. Soon they received
contract for writing programming languages. First translator
Gates and Alain wrote BASIC for Altair 8800 in parallel with their studies at
university in the mid-70s. Friends moved to live in New Mexico. IN
In 1975, Gates and Allen founded Micro-Soft.
(later the dash between the words in the title was removed). From the institute
Gates was expelled for constant absenteeism and poor academic performance.
The beginning of their career was unsuccessful - the first customers of their company
went bankrupt, and the friends returned to Seattle. However, failure is not too
upset Bill because he received an offer from IBM to
development of an operating system for the first personal
computer.
Gates purchased the QDOS (Quick and Dirty) system for $50,000
Operating System), changed the name to MS-DOS and sold the license to IBM.
The money received for this project allowed Microsoft to continue to operate
several years.
The presentation of the computer created a real sensation on the market. TO
Microsoft was increasingly approached by various companies for a license.
Applications continue Microsoft's triumphal march
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. In 1986, Microsoft became
joint stock company.
At 31, Bill Gates became a billionaire.
The first version of Windows was introduced by Microsoft in 1987. By 1993
year, total sales of the program exceeded one million. When
The Windows95 operating system was released, in the first two weeks there were
sold seven million copies.
Then Gates' company first came to the attention of the antitrust regulator.
committee. Claims against Microsoft as a monopolist in the software market
the provision has not stopped since then to this day.
On January 1, 1994, Gates married Melinda French.
Microsoft manager. In the same year, Gates acquired the Leicester Code.
(Codex Leicester, collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci). Since 2003 he
on display at the Seattle Art Museum.
In 1995, the company's course changed, and the main theme for development
became the Internet. Today one of the directions of development of Microsoft is
search advertising.
In 1997, Adam Quinn Pletcher, with whom
Gates studied at the university, extorted money from Gates, accusing him of
the theft of a program that he said Gates stole. However, the court
found Pletcher guilty and sentenced him in July 1998 to six years
prisons.
On December 14, 2004, Bill Gates joined the board of Berkshire Hathaway
(a conglomerate that includes automobile insurance, paints,
textile). Gates now invests his money in a variety of
industry.
In 2005, Bill and Melinda Gates were named " The Times»
people of the year.
On July 7, 2007, Gates became a Harvard graduate, according to
decision of the university administration.
January 7, 2008 Gates announces his intention to leave his post
head of the corporation in 2008 and engage in charity work.
On June 27, 2008, Gates resigned as head of the
remaining, however, chairman of the board of directors and being
largest shareholder Microsoft Corporation — 8,7%.
Bill Gates and Melinda had three children: Jennifer Katharine
Gates (Jennifer Katharine Gates) (born April 26, 1996), Rory John Gates
Rory John Gates (born May 23, 1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates
Gates (born September 14, 2002)
Based on materials: Wikipedia, ru.wikipedia.org
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
0:00 17.12.2012
There is probably no person who has not heard or does not know who Bill Gates is. The name of this legendary man has already gone down in history, and his interviews and speeches are analyzed for quotes. Bill Gates would continue to be the richest man in the world according to Forbes version, if he had not transferred more than 25 billion dollars to a charitable account. And the story of a billionaire is like a fairy tale, in which main character, working hard, achieved success and became one of the richest people on the planet.
Bill Gates success story
Bill Gates' real name is William Henry Gates III. The future billionaire was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle in the family of a lawyer and a teacher. Bill studied at one of the most prestigious schools, and everyone predicted his career as a lawyer. However, the boy “didn’t have a good relationship” with grammar and civics. But most of all, Bill loved mathematics and dreamed of becoming a professor. Already at school, Gates was found to have amazing abilities to programming. At the age of 13, he wrote his first program - a computer game, and together with his school friend (and future co-founder of Microsoft Corporation) Paul Allen, they even hacked into the database of one of the companies. For such an offense they were punished - to spend the entire summer without a computer. However, after the punishment expired, the company ComputerCentreCorporation, whose database was hacked by schoolchildren, invited them to find errors in their software. In exchange, they will use the company's computers for free and at any time. Thanks to this, the boys were able to learn several programming languages. After the company went bankrupt in 1970, high school students were hired by Information Sciences to write payroll software. Bill was never afraid to offer his projects to well-known companies, despite the fact that he was not even 18. So, at the age of 15, he sold a program for optimizing road traffic and reading street traffic for 20 thousand dollars. Another project that Bill came up with while still in school was a scheduling program. Thus, in the 10th grade, Bill himself taught computer science and programming at school.
This passion for computers forced Bill's parents to remove him from the computer and even show him to a psychiatrist. During the year without a computer, Bill Gates read the life stories of great people and continued to think through new projects in his head. At the age of 17, he received an order for which he earned $30,000.
After graduating from school, Bill entered Harvard University, from which a few years later he was expelled due to poor academic performance. Here he met Steve Ballmer, his future companion. Today, Steve serves as the company's vice president of sales and support.
Development of Microsoft
In 1975, Bill Gates invited his friends to create a company that would develop software for personal computers. Despite the fact that this idea at that time seemed unpromising, and the first few orders did not bring the desired profit, Bill Gates was confident that their company would become the first, and he was right. Initially, their company was called "Micro-Soft", but after a few months the hyphen in the name disappeared, and on November 26, 1976, the new brand "Microsoft" was registered. Within five years, the company becomes a corporation run by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Microsoft also owns such developments as: computer mouse, text editor MS-DOS and, of course, the Windows operating system, which continues to improve and develop. Gates' brainchild occupies a leading position in the software market, and competitors have long recognized Gates' victory in this area. Despite the fact that Bill is no longer a direct leader of Microsoft, he continues to have a significant influence on the development of new products and cooperation with other companies. For example, it was Bill Gates who expressed the idea of buying Skype and proposed exchanging code between the Windows8 and WindowsPhone8 operating systems. At the end of 2008, Bill Gates finally left his company, handing over the reins to Steve Ballmer.
Other achievements of Bill Gates
In 1989, he founded the multimedia company Corbis;
In 1994 he bought full meeting works by Leonardo da Vinci, which is on display at the Museum of Art in his hometown;
He wrote the book “The Road to the Future” in 1995, and in 1999 another one, “Business at the Speed of Thought.” All of Gates' books are recognized as bestsellers in America;
Creation of the WindowsXP operating system in 2001;
In 2004, he connected his interests with Warren Buffett, with whom they founded a common company that combines several funds.
In 2005, the UK announced that Bill would receive the title of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his contribution to reducing global poverty and his participation in British projects.
In June 2007, Harvard awarded Bill a diploma from this university. And he received it not for graduating, but for outstanding services.
At the end of 2008 he registered his third company "bgC3".
Family and charity in the life of Bill Gates.
Bill is not only the father of a huge corporation, but also a wonderful family man. In 1994, he married Melinda French, who previously worked for his company. They have three children. Bill loves to play bridge, reads a lot and loves to travel. His wife fully shares her husband's views. So, they created together charitable foundation and travel to third world countries, helping them not only financially, but also psychologically. As the billionaire himself says, the measure of success of any businessman is lives saved and healthy children. He is sincerely surprised why the world is not trying to help African children in the fight against diseases that have not killed people in other countries for a long time. That is why Bill Gates does not spare money for charity: he allocated more than 6 billion dollars for medical needs and the purchase of vaccines to help Africa to save children already born. Thanks to his investments, new vaccines were invented and millions of lives were saved. Gates is confident that by the end of his life he will definitely achieve a reduction in mortality in such countries by at least 80%. Now in the field of health he continues active struggle with malaria and polio, which we intend to eradicate completely.
In addition, Bill invests huge sums in education and development innovative technologies. And also, together with Warren Buffett, created charitable organization GivingPledge, which encourages millionaires to give away half of their wealth. More than 70 people have already joined this campaign.
Despite the good intentions of the creator of a great corporation, many believe that he is too arrogant and pretends to be God, that he does this in order to avoid paying taxes, and many doctors are outraged that he places great importance on vaccines without solving other problems medicine. And someone calls him a saint and the savior of the world. How many people, so many opinions. And, in the words of the philanthropist himself, I would like to say: “Well, life is unfair - get used to it.” In any case, we must give him his due that, donating a huge part of his fortune to charity, he understood that these amounts would deprive him of the championship on Olympus of the richest people in the world. And he continues to do so. So who is of greater value to the world: the person who occupies all the top positions in the list of the richest and most influential people or the one who does not spare the billions he has earned for the future of the world, even at the expense of his own profits? One thing is for sure: the world will never get along without Bill Gates; the world needs him more than the world needs him.
Biography of Bill Gates
In this article I will talk about an entrepreneur, public figure, one of the founders of Microsoft. So, William Henry Gates III born October 28, 1955 in Seattle.Bill at an early age
Grew up in large family with two sisters - Libby and Christy.
Bill Gates and his sisters
The parents were quite business people: mother Mary Maxwell Gates was on the board of directors of the bank and the national council, and father William Henry Gates worked as a lawyer.
Bill Gates's parents
From a young age, Bill was passionate about programming, studying at the most privileged school in Seattle, where he actively developed his skills in this area. Our hero wrote his first program at the age of 13. These were the all-time popular “Tic Tac Toe”, which the boy implemented in the BASIC language.
Gates in childhood
At school, Gates excelled in mathematics, but was indifferent to humanities subjects. The boy was even sent to a psychiatrist, but this did not change anything. Bill was truly obsessed with computers. He devoted all his free time to this business, including weekends. He even skipped some classes and sat in the computer lab until late at night.
Bill in school years
During his school years, the future billionaire met Paul Allen, who was two grades older than him. They often hung out in the classroom, testing the computers provided to them. But when the time allotted for Bill and his friend to work in the computer laboratory expired, they, without thinking twice, stole passwords and hacked the system, for which they were punished by a ban on working with a PC throughout the summer. During this period the guy was about 15-16 years old. After the conflict was settled, the comrades offered the company to find errors in their software in exchange for the opportunity to work on their computers. The organization agreed and their cooperation continued until 1970, when they went bankrupt.
Young Bill Gates
At age 17, Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert founded Traf-O-Data. The company's main goal is to create meters for reading road traffic and generating reports for traffic engineers. In 1973, after graduating from school, the young man entered Harvard University, where he met his future companion Steve Ballmer. After 2 years, Bill is expelled. And he decided to devote himself entirely to programming, without being distracted by his studies. In January 1975, the American computer magazine Popular Electronics published an article about the new Altair 8800 personal computer. After reading the article, Gates contacted the president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Ed Roberts, and told him that he and his friends were working on software for this computer. But in fact, Gates and Allen had nothing to do with the Altair 8800. The MITS president invited them to his office and within a few weeks they were already working for him. And here it is, that very moment: Gates and Allen create the Micro-Soft company specifically to develop programs for MITS, in Albuquerque. Later the hyphen was removed and a new one was registered on November 26, 1976 trademark"Microsoft".
Corporation logo from 1975
Initially, Microsoft did not have its own OS, so it licensed the 86-DOS (QDOS) system from Seattle Computer Products. Subsequently, Microsoft completely bought the rights to 86-DOS, after which, after working on it, it was completely adapted for IBM personal computers. This is how the MS-DOS operating system appeared and the collaboration between Microsoft and IBM began. In the 80s, their company had already become one of the largest players in the software market, and by the early 90s it had become a huge corporation. By the way, in the early years he actively collaborated with Microsoft.
Bill and Steve Jobs at a conference (05/31/2007)
Next, the corporation is working on a completely new operating system, the idea of which was clearly taken from Xerox and Apple. And already on November 20, 1985 it was published - Microsoft Windows. It was this OS that launched new era V computer technologies. And thanks to her, Bill Gates became successful and richest man peace.
Preview: Wikimedia Commons - World Economic Forum
Life Story of Bill Gates - Documentary ("The Biography Channel", still images)
Wikimedia Commons - Joi Ito from Inbamura, Japan
Social media
Bill Gates' personal archive
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Bill Gates ( full name William Henry Gates is an entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft, creator of the revolutionary MS-DOC operating system. He topped the ranking of the richest people on the planet 18 times.
Childhood and teenage years
Bill was born and raised in a prestigious area of Seattle in a successful and wealthy family - his father was one of the most successful and influential lawyers in the city, while his mother was involved in raising children (Bill has sisters Christy and Libby) and charity work.
Parents with early years paid a lot of attention to their son’s education and tried to develop in him a sense of purpose and leadership qualities. The boy often played cards with his father and board games and always strived to win. Unlike his classmates who raced through the streets, Bill spent his free time reading the 20-volume encyclopedia, carefully studying page after page. Teachers from the prestigious Lakeside School with primary classes noted his outstanding abilities, unique photographic memory and unusual high level IQ. At the age of 12, the boy became “sick” with computers. Bill was so captivated by programming that he spent all his time in the computer class, often sacrificing other lessons for this. For bad behavior and his constant absenteeism even sent him to the school psychiatrist.
In 1968, the teenager met Paul Allen, who was two grades older and, like him, interested in computers. Together they developed their first program, which automatically created a school schedule and was unique for that time.
For their work, the boys received a bonus of five hundred dollars from the school principal and realized that their hobby could bring in a good income. However, Bill's parents considered their son's hobby a whim and did not really encourage him to take up programming. The father dreamed that his son would follow in his footsteps and go into law, but Bill was not going to turn away from his chosen path.
Creation of Microsoft
After graduating from school, Gates entered Harvard University, where he continued to study programming. In 1974, he came across an article about the first portable computer, Altair. Bill and Paul approached developers with a proposal to create software for the new machine. Having received a positive response, they immediately began work. They had to write programs at night, and besides, the guys used university computers, which did not suit the Harvard leadership.
But despite the bans and threats, they managed to complete the work and sell the software for Altair for three thousand dollars. With this money, Bill and Paul created their own own company, which was called Microsoft. To the disappointment of his parents, Gates dropped out of school and devoted himself entirely to his favorite business. Returning to Seattle, the guys rented a small office in the suburbs. In 1978, the company employed only eleven people: Bill was involved in contracts and negotiations with clients, Paul - technical support. THE BIRTH OF A BILLIONAIRE At twenty-four, Gates signed a contract with IBM that ultimately made him the richest and most powerful person on the planet. The largest computer company in the world needed an operating system to new development, and Microsoft set about creating it. The mediator in this deal was Bill's mother, who introduced her son to IBM management. This does not in any way detract from the merits of Gates himself, who was able to convince his partners to entrust them with this important task.
Thus, in 1981, the famous text-based operating system MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operation System) appeared, which at that time became the most advanced OS in the world and made personal computers more accessible to the average user.
Bill did not sell his OS to IBM, but agreed on a percentage of each computer sold by the company. Thanks to this brilliant marketing move, he became a billionaire by the age of thirty, and the richest man in the world by the age of forty. Computers became a mass commodity, and Microsoft provided itself with jobs and a stable income for many years.
Life after microsoft
In June 2008, Gates resigned as head of the company and became involved in charitable and social activities. However, this did not mean that he completely broke ties with Microsoft. Until 2010, Gates remained Chairman of the Board of Directors, but without executive powers. He also retained a large stake in the corporation, namely 8.7%.
Already in October 2008, Bill Gates registered his third company called “bgC3”. It's small research center, which provides scientific and technological services.
After leaving Microsoft Gates began to invest money in scientific research, buy art and finance political campaigns. For example, in 2003, he exhibited a collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci that he had previously purchased at the Seattle Art Museum, and in 2004, according to Forbes, financed George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
In early 2005, the British Foreign Office awarded Bill Gates the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to British businesses and the fight to reduce global poverty.
Personal life
Since 1994, Bill has been married to a former employee of his company, Melinda French, with whom he has a son and two daughters. The family lives in huge mansion located on the shore picturesque lake Washington. This house can rightfully be called the house of the future - it is equipped with high-tech equipment, with the help of which it is fully controlled.
In 1999, Gates renamed his charitable foundation the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports health care in developing countries and education in the United States. In 2005, the couple were recognized as People of the Year by Time.
Bill Gates now
By 2016, Gates's fortune exceeded $90 billion - he was again the richest person in the world. However, in 2018, the entrepreneur lost this title to the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. At the same time, Gates is one of the record holders for the amount of funds donated to charity. To date, he has donated to various projects The fund already exceeds $30 billion.
At the beginning of 2018, Bill Gates announced his intention to invest about $12 million on a flu vaccine and admitted that he refused to become a scientific adviser to Donald Trump.
According to 2018 data, Bill Gates's fortune exceeded $90.5 billion. At the same time, the billionaire excluded his children from his will and plans to leave all the money to his charitable foundation.