Bill Gates is the American Entrepreneur responsible for the Microsoft Corporation; a firm that has been a huge player in online software since the very first days of internet access for the general public. Even now Microsoft are a major firm in the computing sector – but where did Bill gates come from and how did he come to be worth $90 billion? Lets find out.
Gates was born in 1955 to a lawyer and a business woman in Seattle. From his earlier school years he expressed a desire to study computing over other subjects and developed his first software program in basic before he was even 16. It was a program that paved the way for his future developments in software execution. After exploiting a loophole in the Computer Center Corporation’s microcomputer system, he (along with three other students) received a ban on their computer time. In response to this Gates offered to find other bugs in their system if they would only give him his computer time back again. It was this series of unfortunate events that saw him securing a career in the sector before he had even left school!
All four of the banned students worked with CCC up until 1970 when the company folded. Later they would be asked to write a payroll program for the COBOL system. Gates developed several other systems while still in school and graduated in 1973 already in receipt of royalties for his programming work. He passed his SAT with a remarkable 1590/1600 and secured a place at Harvard. While there he broke records by solving algorithms and had papers published, but left after only two years.
In 1975 Gates contacted MITS with a plan to interpret the Altair system. His future partner Allen was hired by MITS and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard. Since Microsoft was registered the following year it is unlikely now that Gates will ever return to complete his degree.
What helped Bill Gates become a billionaire? Other than hard work the expansion of Microsoft into partnership with IBM and then the birth and development of windows, followed by the establishment of Cascade Investment LLC (his own wealth management corporation). Cascade Investments combines most of his assets and business acquisitions. Although he stepped down from CEO of Microsoft in 2014 Gates has shares in the Four Seasons chain and various other high end business that keep him in the money. As one of the richest men in the world, known philanthropist Bill Gates is a founder of the Giving Pledge, which is an agreement by certain billionaires to give 50% or more of their money to charity.
Although Bill Gates is also an author, an actor and the subject of numerous documentaries – the royalties from his software programs (and the future development of new ones) combined with an ability to predict the profound change the internet would have on the global market, is why Bill Gates is famous… and it is also what keeps him one of the richest men alive.
