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If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.
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- His childhood nickname was “Trey”.
- The first computer program that Bill Gates wrote was a tic-tac-toe game.
- As a school student he used to brag that he would be a millionaire by the time he was 30—he actually became one by the time he was 31!
- Gates was once arrested in New Mexico in 1977 for driving without a license.
- He acquired the Codex Leicester—a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci—at an auction for $30.8 million, in 1994.
- Bill Gates’ biggest regret is that he doesn’t know any foreign languages.
- He is not active on Facebook despite being friends with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
- Had Microsoft failed to work out, he would have been a researcher for artificial intelligence.
- Gates says his kids will only inherit $10 million each despite his immense wealth.
- His all-time favorite business book is ‘Business Adventures’ by John Brooks, published in 1969.
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- Born as William Henry “Bill” Gates III on October 28, 1955, he is the son of William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His father was a prominent lawyer while his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. He has two sisters.
- He studied at the Lakeside School where he developed an interest in computing. He was just 13 when he wrote his first software program on the school’s computer and by the time he was in high school he, along with some of his friends, had computerized their school’s payroll system.
- His future business collaborator, Paul Allen, was a senior at Lakeside. At the age of 17, Gates teamed up with Allen to form a venture called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.
- He graduated from high school in 1973. He was a National Merit Scholar and scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT. He enrolled at Harvard College later the same year. As a college student he spent a lot of time on the computers though he was not much interested in studying other subjects. His friend Allen suggested that Bill drop out of college to start a business.
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- In 2002, Bill and Melinda Gates received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged.
- Gates received the Bower Award for Business Leadership from The Franklin Institute in 2010 in recognition of his achievements at Microsoft and his philanthropic work.
- Bill and Melinda Gates jointly received India’s third highest civilian honor Padma Bhushan in 2015 for their foundation’s philanthropic activities in India.
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Bill was a voracious reader as a child, spending many hours poring over reference books such as the encyclopedia. Around the age of 11 or 12, Bill’s parents began to have concerns about his behavior. He was doing well in school, but he seemed bored and withdrawn at times, and his parents worried he might become a loner. Though they were strong believers in public education, when Bill turned 13, they enrolled him at Seattle’s exclusive preparatory Lakeside School. He blossomed in nearly all his subjects, excelling in math and science, but also doing very well in drama and English.
While at Lakeside School, a Seattle computer company offered to provide computer time for the students. The Mother’s Club used proceeds from the school’s rummage sale to purchase a teletype terminal for students to use. Bill Gates became entranced with what a computer could do and spent much of his free time working on the terminal. He wrote a tic-tac-toe program in BASIC computer language that allowed users to play against the computer.
Gates graduated from Lakeside in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the college SAT test, a feat of intellectual achievement that for several years he boasted about when introducing himself to new people.
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- Bill Gates and Paul Allen collaborated to found Microsoft (initially called Micro-Soft) in 1975. In the beginning they adapted BASIC, a popular programming language for use on microcomputers. It proved to be a success and they continued to develop programming language software for various systems.
- In 1980, the duo was approached by International Business Machine (IBM) with a proposal that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter for IBM’s upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC. Microsoft created the PC DOS operating system which they delivered to IBM in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.
- Soon Microsoft’s operating systems became very popular and the company introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS. Over the following years Windows came to dominate the world’s personal computer market acquiring over 90% market share. The company saw phenomenal financial success, and being the company’s largest individual shareholder, Bill Gates amassed a great fortune.
- Microsoft introduced Microsoft Office in 1989. The package integrated several applications like Microsoft Word and Excel into one system that was compatible with all Microsoft products. The success of MS Office gave Microsoft a virtual monopoly on operating systems for PCs.
- In the mid 1990s when the use of the internet spread throughout the globe at an alarming speed, Gates focused Microsoft on the development of consumer and enterprise software solutions for the Internet. Windows CE operating system platform and the Microsoft Network were among the innovative solutions developed during this time.
- In January 2000, Gates stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft though he retained his position as chairman. He created the new position of Chief Software Architect for himself. Over the next few years he gradually transferred his duties to others at Microsoft and started spending more time in philanthropic works. He stepped down as Chairman of Microsoft in February 2014, and currently serves as technology advisor to support CEO Satya Nadella.
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Other names
William H. Gates III, William H Gates, Gates, Bill, William Henry
Father
William H. Gates, Sr.
Siblings
Libby Gates, Kristi Gates
Children
Jennifer Katharine Gates, Phoebe Adele Gates, Rory John Gates
Net worth
$88.5 Billion As Of Jan 2017
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