Bill Gates Biography

Microsoft Co-founder, Technology Guru and Business Magnate

Oct 28, 2008
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Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-Founder, Business Magnate - Wikimedia Commons

Brief biography of Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation's co-founder and chairman, philanthropist, business magnate

Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation, and former CEO and chief software architect of Microsoft, is known for his innovative thinking and his aggressive business and marketing tactics.

He is regarded as a visionary and philanthropist on one hand, and fierce business competitor on the other.

Early Life of Bill Gates

Bill (William Henry Ill) Gates was born on October 28,1955, in Seattle, Washington. He is an American businessman, philanthropist, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation, which became the predominant computer software producer in the 1980s. Gates is the son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher.

At 13, Gates wrote his first program. The following year, he became the president of Traf-O-Data, a company that used computers to measure traffic patterns. As a senior in high school, he worked as a computer programmer at the software company TRW. At 19, he joined his childhood friend, Paul Allen, to write the software for Altair 8800, the world's first home computer.

Bill Gates - The Harvard Drop-out Whiz Kid

Gates dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year. This was in 1975. The same year, he and Allen founded Microsoft and began developing a software. IBM, a.k.a. Big Blue, was then building a new personal computer and needed an operating system (one that controls the machine's internal operations). In 1980, Gates and Allen modified a software they purchased from a small Seattle company and licensed it to Big Blue. IBM made the program, MS-DOS, the world standard.

Powerful Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft is unstoppable. In 1978, its 15 staff grew to 125 in 1981, with its sales mushrooming to about $140 million in 1985. In 1995, eight out of 10 of the world's personal computers could not start or "boot up" (in computer jargon) if not for Microsoft's operating-system software. Microsoft also dominates the market for almost every software application program, from word processing and electronic spreadsheets to scheduling. It may have even exceeded IBM at the height of the Watsons.

In 1995, the highly successful Windows 95 software program was launched and Gates at 31 became an overnight billionaire, making him the richest man in America. He also launched his book on the information age, The Road Ahead, which became a top-seller. A year before that, he married Melinda French, a former executive of Microsoft. They have three children.

Bill Gates in the 21st Century

Today, Bill Gates remains one of the world's richest people. He and wife Melinda are working full-time on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Whatever awaits Bill Gates and Microsoft, his road behind has been more than impressive. Microsoft Corporation is easily the world's most influential technological entity.

On the personal note, Bill Gates has in his possession the Codes Leicester, a collection of scientific writings of Leonardo da Vinci that he bought at an auction in 1994, for US$30.8 million. One of his favourite books is F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby. Bill Gates is a friend of another business magnate, Warren Buffet.