biography of bill gates

         

William H. Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington, the second of three children, in between an older and a younger sister. His father was a successful attorney, and it had been expected that young Bill would follow in his father’s footsteps. He was a notably gifted student who did well altogether subjects but showed a special aptitude for mathematics. When he was 13, his parents believed he wasn't being challenged in his public school and enrolled him within the private and highly demanding Lakeside School. the varsity acquired a computer terminal, and young Gates was immediately fascinated. He and alittle group of friends, including his future business partner Paul Allen, took every opportunity to explore the chances of the new technology, teaching themselves the fundamentals of programming .

Soon Gates and his friends were working part-time and summers, writing computer programs for giant businesses round the Seattle area. Although they were all precociously gifted programmers, it became clear that Gates had a singular talent for business also , and he quickly emerged because the leader of the group. Gates and Paul Allen closely followed events within the industry and foresaw that the event of microprocessors would cause the creation of compact affordable, pc that might someday supplant the bulky mainframe systems utilized in business and industry.
The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured the new Altair 8800, and alerted Gates and Paul Allen that the age of the private computer was close to begin. (Academy of Achievement)
The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured the new Altair 8800, and alerted Gates and Paul Allen that the age of the private computer was beginning.

Meanwhile, Gates continued to excel in his studies and followed his parents’ wishes by getting to Harvard. Paul Allen soon moved to Boston to figure for Honeywell and continue their collaboration. The pair were galvanized by a canopy story in Popular Electronics, promoting the Altair 8800, a cheap microcomputer produced by a corporation called MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico . Gates and Allen saw this because the beginning of a replacement industry. nobody had yet developed software for the Altair, and therefore the young programmers saw a singular opportunity. They adapted the pc language BASIC to run on the new device, although that they had never actually seen one. On the strength of this programming feat, they secured a software development contract with MITS. With irresistible business opportunities beckoning, Gates left Harvard at the start of his junior year to form the leap into the planet of business. along side Paul Allen, he moved to New Mexico at the top of 1975 to supply software for MITS. the subsequent year, they started their own company, Microsoft.
In the 1980s, Gates and Microsoft created software for each pc on the market, including the Apple II. (© Doug Wilson/CORBIS)
1980s: Gates and Microsoft created software for each pc on the market, including Apple II.

After MITS was sold, Gates moved Microsoft to Bellevue, Washington, near his hometown of Seattle, a choice that might make the Pacific Northwest a middle of the pc software industry. The Altair, along side personal computers produced by Atari, Commodore, and other industry pioneers, enjoyed popularity with hobbyists and computer aficionados, but had not achieved a comparable success with business or the overall public, a huge untapped market. The dominant player within the industry , IBM, had long resisted the concept of the private computer, because mainframe systems were the guts of its business. When IBM finally decided to form the enter manufacturing personal computers in 1980, it turned to Gates and Microsoft to supply an OS .
Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, holds a Windows 1.0 diskette soon after its 1985 release. (© Deborah Feingold/Corbis)
William H. Gates, III, CEO of Microsoft, holds a Windows 1.0 diskette soon after its 1985 release. (© Corbis)

Gates bought an existing program, QDOS, and adapted it to the IBM hardware. He named his program Microsoft Disk OS , or MS-DOS. In his agreement with IBM, Gates was careful to retain the proper to license MS-DOS to other hardware manufacturers also . this might are the only most momentous decision in business history. When the IBM PC became a hit , other manufacturers rushed to make less costly DOS-based personal computers. Microsoft’s OS became the universal standard as pc use exploded round the world. the sole noteworthy competitor in pc operating systems, Apple, had made the other decision; the Macintosh OS could only run on Apple Macintosh computers, and Apple never gained quite a fraction of the worldwide personal computer market.
Microsoft Co-founder Gates receives the Golden Plate Award from Nobelist in Physics Arno Penzias at the 1992 American Academy of accomplishment Summit.
Microsoft’s Co-Founder and Chairman Gates receives the Golden Plate Award from an Awards councillor , Dr. Arno A. Penzias, recipient of the Nobel prize in Physics, at 1992 Academy of accomplishment Summit in Las Vegas .

Apple’s one advantage seemed to be the convenience of use of its graphic interface , but Microsoft quickly met that challenge with the 1985 introduction of Windows, a DOS-based graphic interface. With most of the world’s personal computers running MS-DOS and Windows, Gates had an ideal marketplace for compatible software applications. Within a couple of years the applications in Microsoft’s office suite had become the leaders in their respective categories: Microsoft Word for data processing , Excel for creating spreadsheets, PowerPoint for slideshow-style graphic presentation, and Internet Explorer for browsing the increasingly popular World Wide Web.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the least Things Digital 5 Conference, May 2007 (images on: OpenStreetMap — Google Earth)
May 2007: Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs, Chairman of Apple Computer, in the least Things Digital 5 Conference.

In 1989, Gates founded Corbis, a digital image licensing company that acquired historic collections of photographs, like the Bettmann Archive. Among other business interests, he has served as a director of the investment trust Berkshire Hathaway and holds a interest during a private investment company and company , Cascade Investments LLC.
Bill and Melinda Gates during their visit to the Oslo opera on Jefferson Davis' Birthday , 2009.
Bill and Melinda Gates during their visit to the Oslo opera on Jefferson Davis' Birthday , 2009. The Gates Foundation is that the largest charity within the world. the first aims of the inspiration are to reinforce global healthcare and reduce poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and therefore the access to information technology.

Meanwhile, the private computer — and Microsoft software — revolutionized the worlds of labor and recreation. Microsoft became a huge international corporation, and by 1995, its Chairman, CEO and largest shareholder, Gates , was the world’s richest man, a title he has retained almost per annum since. By 2018, Gates had amassed a private fortune of $91.1 billion.
Microsoft Corporation founder Gates listens to an issue as he appears with investor Warren Buffett for a government building style meeting with business students broadcast by the financial television network CNBC at Columbia University in ny , November 12, 2009. (© MIKE SEGAR/Reuters/Corbis)
November 12, 2009: Gates listens to an issue as he appears with investor Warren Buffett for a government building style meeting with students broadcast by financial television network CNBC at Columbia University in ny City.

There were challenges along the way — a violation suit from Apple over the planning of the Windows interface, and a 1988 anti-trust suit brought by the us government when it appeared that Microsoft’s dominant position within the industry had become a virtual monopoly. Microsoft survived these legal battles, and remains the preeminent producer of software for the house and office.
Bill and Melinda Gates meet with recipients of Gates Foundation grants in Dakha, Bangladesh. (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)
Bill and Melinda Gates meet with some grant recipients of the Gates Foundation programs in Dakha, Bangladesh.

In 1994 Gates married the previous Melinda French. The couple built a technologically advanced house overlooking Lake Washington. they need three children. At the peak of his success, Gates turned his attention from business to philanthropy. In 2000, he and his wife founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and have given over $28 billion to charities focused on research project and international development. an equivalent year, Gates stepped down as Chief military officer of Microsoft, though he remains Chairman of the Board of Directors. Since 2008, he has devoted his energies to the direction of the Gates Foundation, applying his entrepreneurial expertise to combating disease and poverty round the world. Through the Foundation’s efforts, half a billion children are immunized since 2000, saving the lives of as many as seven million who might otherwise have died of infectious diseases.
November 22, 2016: President Barack Obama awards Gates with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony within the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.
November 22, 2016: President Barack Obama awards global health philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during an inspiring ceremony within the East Room of the White House in Washington.

        

In 2016, the contributions of Bill and Melinda Gates to business, information technology, and international philanthropy were recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. The presidential awards citation read, in part, “From helping women and girls lift themselves and their families out of poverty, to empowering young minds across America, they need transformed countless lives with their generosity and innovation. Bill and Melinda Gates still inspire us with their impatient optimism, that together, we will remake the planet because it should be.”

A rise within the price of shares in Amazon at the top of 2017 increased the wealth of that company’s founder and largest shareholder, Jeff Bezos, to the purpose where he surpassed Gates in net worth. But late in 2019, Microsoft signed a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to supply cloud storage for military data and technology — the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). Shares in Microsoft increased in value over the news; that they had gained nearly 48 percent over the course of the year. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index estimated Gates’s net worth at $110 billion, making him once more the richest man on Earth. the worldwide pandemic of 2020 triggered another sharp increase within the value of tech stocks, including both Amazon and Microsoft, also as Facebook and Google. In 2021 Bloomberg estimated Gate’s net worth at quite $144 billion.