Bill Gates
William Henry Gates was born on 28 October 1955, in Seattle, Washington. As the principal founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is one of the most influential and richest people on the planet. Recent estimates of his wealth put it at US$84.2 billion (Jan. 2017); this is the equivalent of the combined GDP of several African economies. In recent years he has retired from working full time at Microsoft, and has instead concentrated on working with his charitable foundation “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Education
Bill Gates, at age 13, enrolled at the Lakeside School, where he learnt the computer programming, BASIC and wrote his first program, tic-tac-toe on the GE system. He graduated from the school in 1973 with National Merit Scholar and scored 1590 out of 1600 on SAT.He then attended the Harvard college in 1973, and chose a pre-law major but took mathematics and graduate level computer science courses. The following year he dropped out of the Harvard to purse his business endeavors.
Bill Gate has a high school degree
Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973, and was a National Merit Scholar. He got a total score of 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and enrolled at Harvard College as a freshman in 1973 and while there he met Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, who lived just down the hall. Gates already had discovered his interest in software, having programmed computers since the age of 13. While at Harvard,Gates helped develop a version of the programming language Basic the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair. .He dropped out of Harvard University in his junior year to work full-time on Microsoft, a company he and his childhood friend Paul Allen founded. So He had a high school degree.
| Born | William Henry Gates III October 28, 1955 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
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| Residence | Medina, Washington, U.S. |
| Years active | 1968–present |
| Net worth | US$91.1 billion |
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| Board member of |
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| Spouse(s) | Melinda French |
| Children | 3 |
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| Relatives | JW Maxwell (Maternal Grandfather) |
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| Siblings | Kristianne Gates
Libby Gates |
| Mother |
Mary Maxwell Gates |
| Father |
William H. Gates Sr. (Lawyer) |
Personal life and family
His father William Gates Sr was a senior lawyer, and his mother, Mary, served as an executive for a major bank. The family were wealthy but, remembering the challenges of the Great Depression, they encouraged their children to work hard and take nothing for granted.Aged 13, Gates attended the private Lakeside school. It was here that Gates had his first introduction to computers. He taught himself to programme in Basic, making a simple ‘Tic-Tac-Toe’ game. Gates enjoyed the process of working with computers and arranged with a company Computer Center Corporation (CCC) to spend time on their computers – learning source code, such as Fortran, Machine Code and Lisp.
In 1973, Gates enrolled at Harvard, where he studied mathematics and computer science. However, Gates was more interested in pursuing his own coding, and when he saw an opportunity to found his own company, he dropped out of Harvard without finishing his course.
Gates married Melinda French on a golf course on the Hawaiian island of Lanai on January 1, 1994; he was 38 and she was 29. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine (b. 1996), Rory John (b. 1999), and Phoebe Adele (b. 2002). The family resides in a modern design mansion, which is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina near Seattle in Washington state, United States. According to 2007 King County public records, the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property taxes are $991,000. The 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m2) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) gym and a 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) dining room.
The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We’ve raised our kids in a religious way; they’ve gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in. I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.
I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill. But the mystery and the beauty of the world is overwhelmingly amazing, and there’s no scientific explanation of how it came about. To say that it was generated by random numbers, that does seem, you know, sort of an uncharitable view [laughs]. I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.
Personal History
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28th, 1955. Bills father Bill Gates Jr. worked for a Seattle law firm and Bills mother Mary, taught school until they started their family. Bills parents were married in 1951 and two years later gave birth to their first child, Bills older sister, Kristanne. Two years after that Bill was born and in 1964 the third and final Gates was born, her name is Libby. As a child Bill enjoyed rocking back and forth, today he still has a habit of rocking when he is thinking about something. Bill was very bored at school and his parents knew it so they were always trying to feed him more information to keep him busy. Bills parents finally decided to put him in a private school where he would be challenged more. The Lakeside private school had just bought a new computer when Bill arrived and he was immediately hooked. Within a week he had surpassed the knowledge of the computer teacher at Lakeside. Learning the BASIC programming language was a breeze for Bill and he was soon writing his own programs. Bills love for computers and math led him to a new place around his neighborhood that was renting computer time. He got an arrangement with the owners that he would get free computer time if he found things that would make the computer crash. During this time Bill met Paul Allen his business partner for the rest of his life. Together they started a small company called Traf-O-Data, they sold a small computer outfitted with their program that could count traffic for the city. This company wasn’t a big success but it did earn the two boys some money as well as good business skills. Bill also wrote a schedule program for his school which he modified a bit to put little Bill Gates in a class full of the prettiest girls in the school. Bill was deemed by his peers and his teachers as the smartest kid on campus. Upon graduating from Lakeside Bill enrolled in Harvard University in 1973, one of the best universities in the country. Bill was also bored here so he spent most of his time programming, playing poker and seeing how little work he could do and still get A’s. He told his teachers that he would be a millionaire by the time he was 30, this was one of the few times he underestimated himself, Bill was a billionaire when he was 31. One of Bills teachers was quoted saying “He was a helluva good programmer, but he’s an obnoxious human being.” The intense lifestyle Bill lived during his first year in Harvard made him ill for most of the summer of 1974. Bill soon left Harvard for business opportunities in programming which turned him into a multi-billionaire. Later he met Melinda French who he married and they now have a little daughter named Jennifer. It’s very interesting that even with all that money Bill drives himself to work in an average family car and he even flies coach. A very interesting man and a very interesting childhood.
The Birth of Microsoft
In January 1975, Paul Allen read an article about the Altair 8800 microcomputer in “Popular Electronics” magazine and showed the article to Gates.Bill Gates called MITS, the makers of the Altair, and offered his and Paul Allen’s services to write a version of the new BASIC programming language for the Altair.In eight weeks, Allen and Gates were able to demonstrate their program to MITS, who agreed to distribute and market the product under the name of Altair BASIC.The Altair deal inspired Gates and Allen to form their own software company. Microsoft was started on April 4, 1975, with Bill Gates as the first CEO.
Bill Gates – Windows
Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985. In August of the following year, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, the partnership deteriorated due to mounting creative differences
In 1990 Microsoft released its first version of Windows. This was a breakthrough in operating software as it replaced text interfaces with graphical interfaces. It soon became a best seller and was able to capture the majority of the operating system market share. In 1995 Windows 95 was released, setting new standards and features for operating systems. This version of Windows has been the backbone of all future releases from Windows 2000 to the latest XP and Vista.
Throughout his time in office, Bill Gates has been keen to diversify the business of Microsoft. For example, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer became the dominant web browser, although this was primarily because it came pre-installed on most new computers. In recent years, Internet Explorer has seen its market share slip.
Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, Xbox, a line of entertainment of games, music and video, and Bing, a line of search engines.
History of Microsoft-Bill Gates 1975-77
History of Microsoft — 1976
History of Microsoft — 1987
History of Microsoft — 1980
History of Microsoft — 1995
In 1980, Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM to bundle Microsoft’s operating system with IBM computers; with that deal, IBM paid Microsoft a royalty for every sale. In 1985, IBM requested Microsoft to develop a new operating system for their computers called OS/2. Microsoft produced that operating system, but also continued to sell their own alternative, which proved to be in direct competition with OS/2. Microsoft Windows eventually overshadowed OS/2 in terms of sales. When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world’s personal computers.
As of June 30, 2015, Microsoft has a global annual revenue of $86.83 Billion USD and 128,076 employees worldwide. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.
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