Bill Gates (born October 28, 1955, Seattle, Washington, U.S.) American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest personal-computer software company.
Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school’s payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data, a company that sold traffic-counting systems to local governments. In 1975 Gates, then a sophomore at Harvard University, joined his hometown friend Paul G. Allen to develop software for the first microcomputers.
Bill Gates Information
| Born | 28 October 1955 (age 68 years), Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Education | Harvard University (dropped out) |
| Occupations | Businessman investor philanthropist writer |
| Spouse | Melinda French |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents | Bill Gates Sr. Mary Maxwell |
| Height | 1.77 m |
| Organizations founded | Microsoft Corporation |
| Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2005) Padma Bhushan (2015) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016) Hilal-e-Pakistan (2022) |
They began by adapting BASIC, a popular programming language used on large computers, for use on microcomputers. With the success of this project, Gates left Harvard during his junior year and, with Allen, formed Microsoft. Gates’s sway over the infant microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to International Business Machines Corporation—then the world’s biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter—for use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC (personal computer). After the machine’s release in 1981, IBM quickly set the technical standard for the PC industry, and MS-DOS likewise pushed out competing operating systems. While Microsoft’s independence strained relations with IBM, Gates deftly manipulated the larger company so that it became permanently dependent on him for crucial software. Makers of IBM-compatible PCs, or clones, also turned to Microsoft for their basic software. By the start of the 1990s he had become the PC industry’s ultimate kingmaker.
Being the largest individual stakeholder in Microsoft, Gates accumulated a substantial paper wealth mostly due to the company’s success. In 1986, he became a paper billionaire, and ten years later, his net worth had climbed into the tens of billions of dollars, making him, by some accounts, the richest private person in the world. Originally content to keep out of the spotlight and manage humanitarian and civic activities through one of his foundations, Gates had few interests outside of software and the promise of information technology. Nevertheless, Gates reluctantly became more well-known as Microsoft’s influence and standing increased, particularly as it caught the interest of the antitrust section of the US Justice Department. Competitors depicted him as, especially those at Silicon Valley rival companies.
motivated, cunning, and committed to making money off of almost every electronic transaction ever made. Conversely, his admirers praised his extraordinary commercial sense, adaptability, and insatiable curiosity about discovering novel approaches to enhance the functionality of computers and other electronics via software.
Early Life And Education
William Henry Gates III, the sole child of William H. Gates Sr. (1925–2020) and his first wife Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994), was born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955. He has German, Irish/Scots-Irish, and English ancestry. His mother was on the boards of United Way of America and First Interstate BancSystem, and his father was a well-known attorney. J. W. Maxwell was the president of a big bank and Gates’ maternal grandfather. He also has a younger sister named Libby and an elder sister named Kristi (Kristianne). Despite being the fourth person in his family with that name, he goes by William Gates III or “Trey” (i.e., three) because his father had the suffix “II” added to his name. The family occupied a home in Seattle’s Sand Point neighborhood.
Gates claims that his parents encouraged him to become a lawyer when he was younger. His family belonged to the Protestant Reformed Congregational Christian Churches, which he frequently attended as a child. Gates was teased as a child because he was undersized for his age. The visitors mentioned that “it didn’t matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock; there was always a reward for winning and there was always a penalty for losing” indicating that the family promoted competitiveness.
He started attending the exclusive Lakeside prep school at the age of 13, where he also built his first piece of software. When he was in eighth grade, the school’s Mothers’ Club purchased a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time for the children on a General Electric (GE) computer with the money they raised from a rummage sale at Lakeside School. Gates was allowed to skip math classes in order to pursue his passion in programming the GE system in BASIC. On this system, he built his first computer program, which was an application that let people play games against the computer in the style of tic tac toe. The machine’s flawless execution of software code always captivated Gates. Following the Mothers Club contribution, Weary, Gates and the other students tried to get some more time on computers, such as DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 owned by Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which, upon discovering that Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and his closest friend and first business partner, Kent Evans, were abusing operating system flaws to get free computer time, suspended them for the summer.
To earn money, the four students founded the Lakeside Programmers Club. When the prohibition ended, they offered more computer time in exchange for finding vulnerabilities in CCC’s software. Gates went to CCC’s headquarters and studied the source code for different programs that ran on the system, such as Fortran, Lisp, and machine language, instead of utilizing the system remotely via Teletype. The agreement with CCC persisted until the business’s demise in 1970.
The next year, a Lakeside teacher hired Gates and Evans in exchange for computer time and royalties to automate the school’s class scheduling system. The two put a lot of effort into getting the program ready for their senior year. Evans passed away in a mountain climbing accident near the conclusion of their junior year; Gates has called it one of the worst days of his life. Gates turned to Allen at that point, and Allen helped him complete the Lakeside system.
When Gates was seventeen, he and Allen founded Traf-O-Data, a company that produced traffic counters built on the Intel 8008 CPU. He was a congressional page in the House of Representatives during 1972. When he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973, he was named a National Merit Scholar. In the fall of 1973, he entered at Harvard College after receiving a SAT score of 1590 out of 1600.38 Despite taking graduate-level computer science classes and mathematics (including Math 55), he decided to major in pre-law. He made the acquaintance of future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as a student at Harvard. Ballmer continued at Harvard and received a magna cum laude degree, whereas Gates left after two years. Years later, Ballmer took over from Gates as CEO of Microsoft and stayed in that role. from 2000 until his resignation in 2014.
Paul Allen stayed in touch with Gates, who spent the summer of 1974 working with him at Honeywell. When the Intel 8080 CPU-based MITS Altair 8800 was introduced in 1975, Gates and Allen recognized an opportunity to launch their own computer software business. In the same year, Gates left Harvard University. When his parents realized how much he wanted to launch his own business, they became supportive of him. He gave his reasoning for quitting Harvard, saying, “I could have always returned to school if things hadn’t worked out. Officially, I was on leave.
Microsoft Career
Gates’s entire business career has involved Microsoft in some way. The company was co-founded with Steve Ballimer in 1975 when Gates and Ballimer contracted with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems to develop a BASIC emulator for the MITS. Gates and Ballimer programmed the first emulator, but as the company grew, he became the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Despite this, Gates remained intimately involved in the computing programming of the company, programing games as late as 1981.
Microsoft and Gates would next move into the creation of operating systems with IBM, working with the company to program and license 86-DOS, the main operating system for that program. This, eventually, would evolve into Microsoft’s greatest commercial success: The development of Windows, a brand new, graphically-based operating system. The first version of Windows was released in 1985, and the operating system has now become an industry standard and the most popular of computer operating systems.
Microsoft’s success propelled Gates into wealth beyond his wildest dreams. At the age of 31, he was a billionaire. Microsoft would get intimately involved in a variety of other programs, including business programming, internet use, word processing, computer games, entertainment, and more. Gates would step down as CEO of the company in 2000, paving the way for Steve Ballimer to run the company. However, he has remained actively involved with the company, stepping down from its board in March of 2020 to continue to focus on his philanthropy.
IBM Partnership
IBM first contacted Microsoft in 1980 to develop a BASIC interpreter for the IBM PC, the company’s future personal computer. Gates sent IBM’s officials to Digital Research (DRI), the company that created the popular CP/M operating system, when they noted that they needed an operating system. IBM and Digital Research were unable to come to a licensing deal as a result of their bad talks. In a later discussion with Gates, IBM representative Jack Sams brought up the licensing issues and instructed him to obtain a suitable operating system. A few weeks later, Gates suggested running an operating system called 86-DOS (QDOS), which was created for PC-like hardware by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products and was akin to CP/M. In order to become the sole license agency, Microsoft struck a contract with SCP, and 86-DOS’s eventual complete owner, but omitted to name IBM as a possible client.
Founder Gary Kildall of DRI allegedly “went flying” at an IBM visit, a charge that Kildall and other DRI staff members would subsequently refute. Gates never understood why DRI had backed out of the transaction. Microsoft supplied PC-DOS to IBM after customizing the operating system for the platform in exchange for a one-time payment. Because Gates thought other hardware makers would replicate IBM’s operating system, he requested that IBM allow Microsoft to preserve the copyright.They did, and Microsoft became a significant participant in the market thanks to the sales of MS-DOS.
What Is Bill Gates Best Known For?
Microsoft Corporation
There is no question that Gates is best known for the founding of Microsoft, now one of the most profitable and impactful corporations in the world. Microsoft is responsible for a slew of computer innovations.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system in the world and standard to most commercially available computers. Its graphical interface has evolved considerably over time, becoming sharper and more intuitive. Windows was first invented in 1985.
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a suite of programs designed for personal and business use. It includes word processing, spreadsheet software, presentations support, communications, and more. The first version of Office came out in 1995, and like most Microsoft products, the program has changed repeatedly over time.
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is one of the first graphics-based internet browsers. Some form of the program has been available since 1994, and its successor remains one of the most popular ways to browse the internet to date.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The foundation was created in 1994 as a way to combat a variety of societal ills that Gates saw. Much of the original money for the foundation came from Gates personally, but other individuals – including Warren Buffet and Bono – donated substantial amounts of money to the Foundation. Its assets grew immediately, and to date, it is believed to have an endowment of $49.8 billion. The money raised by the foundation is invested in a variety of ways, including healthcare, education, and anti-poverty efforts. It has also been involved extensively in a variety of areas related to pandemic reduction.
Bill Gates: Net Worth, Marriage, Children, and Divorce
Net Worth
Gates’ net worth is estimated to be $132.1 billion, although it has ranged over $150 billion at various points, with much of the reduction of Gates’ net worth believed to be associated with his charitable giving to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While it is not a title he currently holds, Gates was once the richest man in the world.
Marriage
Gates married his now ex-wife, Melinda French, in 1994. The two met while they were working together at Microsoft.
Children
Like his father, Bill Gates has three children in his family. All three come from his marriage to Melinda: Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe. Bill and Melinda have both discussed their attempts to ensure that their daughters and son have the most “normal” upbringing possible, which included limiting their screen time when they were kids.
Divorce
In May 2021, Bill and Melinda Gates took to Twitter and announced that they would be looking to divorce. The Twitter announcement took the world by surprise, but later reports indicate that one of the sources of tension in their marriage was Bill Gates’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the American businessman who was arrested and convicted of multiple sex crimes. According to reports, Melinda Gates began speaking with divorce attorneys as early as 2019, with Gates’ relationship with Epstein serving to spur the end of their relationship. The exact nature of Bill Gates’ relationship with Epstein has been speculated on repeatedly both before and after the divorce.
The divorce moved very quickly and was finalized in August 2021. According to its terms, there will be an unknown division of assets. The two will also continue to work together on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates: Awards and Achievements
Turing Award
The Turing Award is given to computer engineers, innovators, and inventors who have “shaped the foundations” of computing. It is named after Alan Turing, the famed mathematician and computer scientist.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the highest civilian honors an individual can win, given to individuals by the President of the United States in recognition of major contributions to the United States. Gates won the award in 2016 and was awarded it by then-President Barack Obama.
Padma Bhushan Award
The Padma Bhushan Award is given by the Indian government to individuals who have made major contributions to India. Bill and Melinda Gates were given this award in 2015 in recognition of their philanthropic work.
Bill Gates: Published Works and Books
Gates has written numerous articles, columns, and speeches during the course of his successful business career. He also maintains an active social media presence, has a Twitter account, and has participated in an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. Gates has written three books.
The Road Ahead
Written in 1995, The Road Ahead discusses the future of the internet, personal computer and technology. Many of its predictions came true, particularly in terms of predicting the impact of the internet on information exchange.
Business @ the Speed of Thought
Business @ the Speed of Thought, from 1999, was written by Gates and Collins Hemmingway. It detailed the increasing intersections and integration of business and technology, noting in particular that newer businesses were relying more heavily on booming technological fields.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is Gates’ most recent book. Written in 2021, showcases his increasingly global and philanthropic bent. It reviews the current climate change disaster that is looming and lays out a plan to get to net-zero carbon emissions.
Bill Gates: Quotes
- “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
- “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
- “We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.”
- “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
After studying the works of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, Gates contributed a portion of his Microsoft stock to establish the “William H. Gates Foundation” in 1994. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 through the merger of three family foundations and the donation of $5 billion worth of stock. In 2013, the Funds for NGOs company recognized the Gates Foundation as the largest charitable foundation globally, with assets estimated to be worth over $34.6 billion. Unlike other large charitable organizations like the Wellcome Trust, the foundation lets benefactors see how their money is being spent. Additionally, Gates gave Carnegie Mellon University $20 million through his foundation to construct a new structure that would be known as the Gates Center for Computer Science which opened in 2009.
Gates has credited the generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller as a major influence. He and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and their charity work is partly modeled on the Rockefeller family’s philanthropic focus, whereby they are interested in tackling the global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.
The Global Development Division, Global Health Division, United States Division, and Global Policy & Advocacy Division are the foundation’s five program areas. It provides funding for a variety of public health initiatives, including large-scale vaccination campaigns to end polio and the fight against infectious diseases including AIDS, TB, and malaria. It provides funding for educational institutions, libraries, and university scholarships. In order to offer sustainable sanitation services in developing nations, the foundation launched a program focused on water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Its agriculture branch helps the International Rice Research Institute create Golden Rice, a GM rice variety meant to help prevent vitamin A insufficiency. The foundation wants to give contraception-related information and assistance to women and girls in underdeveloped nations. and, in the end, free and universal access to family planning by consent.In The Los Angeles Times attacked the organization in 2007 for allegedly allocating its funds to businesses that have been linked to increased levels of pollution, poverty, and dismal sales of pharmaceuticals to developing nations. Despite announcing that it will review its investments to evaluate social responsibility, the foundation later discontinued this evaluation and reaffirmed its approach of investing for maximum return while influencing company behavior through voting rights.
In a virtual fireside chat, Gates discussed “Building Infrastructure for Resilience: What the COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About How to Scale Financial Inclusion” on December 8, 2020, at the Singapore FinTech Festival. The conversation was facilitated by journalist and news anchor Shereen Bhan.
The purpose of governments is to plan ahead for potential disasters. Not enough was done in the event of the COVID-19 epidemic. We must remember that there will be another pandemic and that we will need to make the necessary investments to be ready for it. At the same time, we must acknowledge that we were unprepared and that we will need to make the necessary financial investments, much like a fire department, to model potential outcomes and ensure that we are ready for them.
What Is Bill Gates IQ?
From Elon Musk to Warren Buffet, the richest people in the world have always shown exemplary intelligence; and Bill Gates is no different. For 15 consecutive years, i.e., from 1995 to 2010 and later from 2013 to 2017, he topped the Forbes list of the richest people in the world. His main achievement, however, was joining the self-made billionaires’ club at 31, making him the youngest person in the three-comma club at the time.
Many know him as the founder of Microsoft, the company behind several computer solutions, including the Windows operating system, office applications, browsers, gaming consoles, computers, and more. What is interesting is that he supervised the programming of all the products. In fact, he stepped down in 2008 from running the company to being its product’s chief architect.
Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein
According to a 2019 New York Times article, Gates and financier Jeffrey Epstein had a relationship that began in 2011, not too long after Epstein was found guilty of obtaining a child for prostitution. The relationship lasted for a few years, during which time Gates’s wife visited Epstein’s home in the fall of 2013, despite her claims of discomfort. “His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” stated Gates in 2011 in regards to Epstein.
Although Gates frequently remarks, “I met him,” it is unclear how close of a buddy he is to Epstein. I didn’t have a friendship or business relationship with him. Gates did, however, see Epstein “many times, despite [Epstein’s] past” Epstein and Gates “discussed the Gates Foundation and philanthropy,” according to reports. Gates, however, categorically refuted in a 2019 interview any relationship between Epstein and the Gates Foundation or his generosity in general. Though the plan never materialized, Gates stated in August 2021 that he met with Epstein because he believed the latter may provide funds for charitable endeavors. Gates continued, “It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there.” Gates faced additional scrutiny after it became known that he had taken a flight on Epstein’s private jet; nevertheless, additional allegations regarding Gates’s visit to Little St. James were found to be unfounded.
It has also been stated that in March 2013, Epstein and Gates met with Thorbjørn Jagland, the chair of the Nobel Committee, at his home in Strasbourg, France, to talk about the Nobel Prize. Representatives from the International Peace Institute, which has been awarded millions of dollars by the Gates Foundation, including a $2.5 million grant for “community engagement” in October 2013, were also there. According to reports in 2023, Epstein made a threat to reveal Gates’ purported relationship with a Russian bridge player.
Controversies
While serving as Microsoft’s CEO, Gates gave his approval to numerous choices that resulted in antitrust lawsuits regarding the company’s business operations. Gates provided deposition testimony in the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case that a number of journalists described as evasive. He debated the meaning of words like “compete,” “concerned,” and “we” in context with examiner David Boies. When the videotaped deposition was played back in court later that year, the judge could be heard shaking his head and smiling. According to BusinessWeek
During the initial rounds of his deposition, he provided evasive responses and used the phrase “I don’t recall” so frequently that the presiding judge had to laugh. Even worse, prosecutors used fragments of emails that Gates sent and received to explicitly disprove several of the technology chief’s claims of ignorance and denials.
Later, Gates maintained that he had just fought Boies’s attempts to distort his words and deeds. “Have I fenced against Boies? I enter a guilty plea for the first-degree rudeness toward Boies. The judge found that Microsoft had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing, tying, and preventing competition, despite Gates’s denials.
Video and film Clips
- 1983: Steve Jobs hosts Gates and others in the “Macintosh dating game” at the Macintosh pre-launch event (a parody of the television game show The Dating Game)
- 1991: Gates spoke to the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group lively weekly Thursday night meeting with questions and answers in PSL Hall (renamed Pimentel Hall in 1994) at University of California, Berkeley
- 2007: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together at the D5 Conference on YouTube, All Things Digital
- Since 2009, Gates has given numerous TED talks on current concerns such as innovation, education and fighting global diseases.
Bill Gates May Launch Climate Health Initiative At COP28 Summit Today
The health-themed day will draw a cast of headliners, including Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, who is expected to join the United Arab Emirates in launching a climate health initiative.
Dubai: After two days of back-to-back speeches by world leaders, the COP28 climate summit turns its attention on Sunday to the reality of climate change fuelling more sickness and disease. It will be the first time that the annual UN talks feature public health on the agenda. With malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress all on the rise – and threatening to stretch already-struggling health services – countries and businesses both are anxious for more ways to protect people as temperatures continue to climb for decades.
The health-themed day will draw a cast of headliners, including Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, who is expected to join the United Arab Emirates in launching a climate health initiative. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also visit the sprawling COP28 compound, where more than 70,000 people from across the world have gathered for the two-week conference. Clinton was due to take part in an event on women and climate change.
COP28 will also see an appearance from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to increase public knowledge about global warming. On Saturday, current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris sought to promote Washington’s global climate leadership, saying her country had once again become “a global leader in the fight against the climate crisis
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