Table of Contents
WHAT WE WILL STUDY?
• EARLY LIFE
• GENIUS
• BUSINESS LEADER
• RICHEST MAN
• Gates was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. He is the son of
William H. Gates Sr.(b. 1925) and Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994).
• His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for
First Interstate Banc System and the United Way.
• Gates’ maternal grandfather was J.W, Maxwell, a national bank president.
Gates has one older sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and a younger sister, Libby.
He is the fourth of his name in his family, but is known as William Gates III.
CHILDHOOD INSPIRING MOTHER
• His mother was an athletic, outgoing student at the University of Washington, actively involved in student affairs and leadership.
• Bill had a very close relationship with his mother, Mary, who after a brief
career as a teacher devoted her time to helping raise the children and
working on civic affairs and with charities.
• She also served on several corporate boards, including those of the First
Interstate Bank in Seattle (founded by her grandfather), the United
Way and International Business Machines (IBM). She would often take
Bill along when she volunteered in schools and at community
organizations.
CHILDHOOD
• The Gates family atmosphere was warm and close, and all three children
were encouraged to be competitive and strive for excellence. Bill showed
early signs of competitiveness when he coordinated family athletic games
at their summer house on Puget Sound. He also relished in playing
board games (Risk was his favorite) and excelled at Monopoly.
• At 13, he enrolled in the Lakeside School, a private preparatory school.
When Gates was in the eighth grade,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.
YOUNG GATES
• 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.
• He was enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973. Gates did not have
a definite study plan while he was a student at Harvard, and he spent a lot of
time using the school’s computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul
Allen.
GATES AND ALLEN
• The MITS Altair 8800 was released the following year. The new
computer was based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this
as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.
• Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time. He had talked over this
decision with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how
much their son wanted to start his own.
• At Lakeside School Gates met Paul Allen, who was two years his
senior. The pair became fast friends, bonding over their common
enthusiasm for computers, even though they were very different people.
• Allen was more reserved and shy. Bill was feisty and at times combative.
Regardless of their differences, they both spent much of their free time
together working on programs. Occasionally, the two disagreed and would
clash over who was right or who should run the computer lab.
MICROSOFT
• Gates and Allen wanted to start their own company, Allen went to
Washington State University, while Gates went to Harvard, though the pair
stayed in touch. After attending college for two years, Allen dropped out
and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to work for Honeywell.
• The Altair was made by a small company in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. if MITS was interested in someone developing such
software. MITS was, and its president, Ed Roberts, asked the boys for a
demonstration. Gates and Allen scrambled, spending the next two months
writing the software at Harvard’s computer lab.
• It worked perfectly. Allen was hired at MITS, and Gates soon left Harvard
to work with him. Together they founded Microsoft. on November 26,
1976, the trade name “Microsoft” was registered with the Office of the
Secretary of the State of New Mexico. Gates never returned to Harvard
to complete his studies .
MICROSOFT
• Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community
and was being widely copied and distributed.
• In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter in which he asserted that
more than 90 percent of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid
Microsoft for it and by doing so the Altair “hobby market” was in danger of
eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce,
distribute, and maintain high-quality software.
• Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to
develop programming language software for various systems. The
company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue,
Washington, on January 1, 1979.
• During Microsoft’s early years, all employees had broad responsibility for
the company’s business. Gates oversaw the business details, but
continued to write code as well.
MICROSOFT AND IBM
• As the computer industry began to grow, with companies like Apple, Intel
and IBM developing hardware and components, Bill was continuously out
on the road touting the merits of Microsoft software applications.
• He often took his mother with him. Mary was highly respected and
well connected with her membership on several corporate boards,
including IBM’s. It was through Mary that Bill Gates met the CEO of
IBM.
• In November 1980, IBM was looking for software that would operate their
upcoming personal computer (PC) and approached Microsoft Gates did
look very young, but he quickly impressed IBM, convincing them that he
and his company could meet their needs.
MICROSOFT AND IBM
• Gates had to adapt the newly purchased software to work for the IBM
PC. He delivered it for a $50,000 fee, IBM wanted to buy the source
code, which would have given them the information to the operating
system. Gates refused, instead proposing that IBM pay a licensing fee for
copies of the software sold with their computers.
• Doing this allowed Microsoft to license the software they called
MS-DOS to any other PC manufacturer, should other computer companies
clone the IBM PC, which they soon did. Microsoft also released software
called Softcard, which allowed Microsoft BASIC to operate on Apple II
machines.
• By 1983, Microsoft was going global with offices in Great Britain and
Japan, and with 30 percent of the world’s computers running on its
software.
LEGENDARY RIVALRY
• GATES AND STEAVE JOBS RIVALRY is legend, Microsoft and Apple
shared many of their early innovations. In 1981, Apple, at the time led by
Steve Jobs, invited Microsoft to help develop software for Macintosh
computers.
• It was through this knowledge sharing that Microsoft was to develop
Windows, a system that used a mouse to drive a graphic interface,
displaying text and images on the screen.
• Bill Gates quickly recognized the threat this kind of software might pose for
MS-DOS Gates announced in an advertising campaign that a new Microsoft
operating system was about to be developed that would use a graphic
interface. It was to be called “Windows,“.
• November 1985, nearly two years after his announcement, Bill Gates
and Microsoft launched Windows. Visually the Windows system looked
very similar to the Macintosh system Apple Computer Corporation.
BUSINESS LEADER
• 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
difference.
• Bill Gates’ intelligence allowed him to be able to see all sides of the
software industry—product development and corporate strategy. Despite
the success of Microsoft, Bill Gates never felt totally secure.
• Always looking over his shoulder to check on the competition, Gates
developed a white-hot drive and competitive spirit. Gates expected
everyone in the company to have the same dedication. Gates’ assistant
reported coming to work early to find someone sleeping under a desk.
BUSINESS LEADER
• His confrontational management style also became legend, as he would
challenge employees and their ideas to keep the creative process going.
An unprepared presenter could hear, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve
ever heard!” from Gates..
• Outside the company, Bill Gates was gaining a reputation as a ruthless
competitor. Several tech companies, led by IBM, began to develop their
own operating system, called OS/2, to replace MS-DOS. Rather than give
in to the pressure, Gates pushed ahead with the Windows software,
improving its operation and expanding its uses.
• In 1989, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Office, which bundled office
productivity applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel into one
system that was compatible with all Microsoft products. Microsoft’s new
version of Windows sold 100,000 copies in just two weeks, and OS/2
soon faded away.
MONOPOLY
• This left Microsoft with a virtual monopoly on operating systems for PCs.
Soon the Federal Trade Commission began to investigate Microsoft for
unfair marketing practices.
• Throughout the 1990s, Microsoft faced a string of Federal Trade
Commission and Justice Department investigations. Some related
allegations that Microsoft made unfair deals with computer manufacturers
who installed the Windows operating system on their computers.
• Other charges involved Microsoft forcing computer manufactures to sell
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as a condition for selling the Windows
operating system with their computers.
PERSONAL LIFE
• In 1987, a 23-year-old Microsoft product manager named Melinda French
caught the eye of Bill Gates, then 32. The very bright and organized Melinda
was a perfect match for Gates.
• 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-shelter
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.
PHILANTHROPY
• In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby
they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to
philanthropy.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), also known as the Gates
Foundation, is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It
was launched in 2000.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was identified by the Funds for NGOs
company in 2013, as the world’s wealthiest charitable foundation, with
assets reportedly valued at more than $34.6 billion.
WhatsApp