Despite his parents’ successful careers, teenaged Bill Gates was physically unimpressive and socially awkward. His father, a towering figure at 6’6″ and a well-known attorney in Seattle, and his mother, involved in charitable work and running the United Way, seemed to have achieved much more than their middle child. However, despite lacking natural leadership skills, young Bill displayed remarkable talent in math and logic, qualities that would later pave the way for his incredible success as a billionaire who revolutionized the American business landscape.
Born in 1955, Gates went to public elementary school before moving on to the private Lakeside School when he was twelve. At the age of thirteen, Gates developed his first computer program, during a time when computers were still large and operated by scientists. Shortly after, he and his friend Paul Allen created a scheduling program for their school, resulting in them being placed in classes with the most attractive girls. While still in high school, Gates and Allen established Traf-O-Data, a company focused on analyzing data related to urban traffic.
Gates went to Harvard University with the intention of becoming a lawyer, following in his father’s footsteps. Despite being shy and awkward, he seldom attended parties unless he was persuaded by his friend Steve Ballmer, who he later thanked by appointing him as the president of Microsoft.
In December 1974, Allen, who worked at Honeywell near Boston, showed Gates a Popular Mechanics cover with the Altair 8800, a $397 computer from M.I.T.S. that hobbyists could build. The computer only needed software, a keyboard, and a monitor. Gates and Allen reached out to the head of M.I.T.S. and offered to provide a version of BASIC for the Altair.
After successfully demonstrating their programming languages at M.I.T.S.’s Albuquerque headquarters, Gates and Allen were contracted by the company. They then relocated to New Mexico and established Micro-soft (later dropping the hyphen). Despite facing bankruptcy from their first five clients, the company persevered and eventually moved to Seattle in 1979. One year later, IBM approached Gates to develop an operating system for their first personal computer. Gates acquired a system called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from another company for $50,000, rebranded it as MS-DOS, and licensed it to IBM. The introduction of the IBM PC in 1981 created a massive impact on the market, resulting in a stream of licensing fees flowing into Microsoft and securing the company’s survival in the following years.
Initially, Microsoft focused on the software market and expanded its offerings to include consumer applications such as Microsoft Word. In 1986, the company went public, making Bill Gates a billionaire at just thirty-one years old. The next year, Microsoft released its first version of Windows, which quickly gained popularity and sold one million copies per month by 1993. The introduction of Windows 95 in August 1995 was highly successful, with seven million copies sold within the first six weeks alone. Due to the widespread adoption of Microsoft’s software, ongoing antitrust investigations were initiated by the U.S. Justice Department, resulting in prolonged legal battles for the company.
Bill Gates made a significant decision in 1995 to prioritize the Internet in Microsoft’s strategy. Despite some failures such as the Microsoft Network and web “shows,” Microsoft swiftly caught up with Netscape due to the triumph of its Internet Explorer browser.
Meanwhile, Gates built an expansive mansion on Lake Washington, covering 40,000 square feet, to showcase his technological prowess. Likewise, on January 1, 1994, Gates married Melinda French Gates, a marketing executive at Microsoft. Together, they had two children: Jennifer Katharine Gates in 1996 and Rory John Gates in 1999.
After working as a marketing executive at Microsoft, she later became the mother of two children. Her daughter Jennifer was born in 1996 and her son Rory was born in 1999.
Bill and Melinda Gates have jointly contributed $17 billion to establish a foundation that supports philanthropic efforts in global health and learning. Their objective is to ensure that advancements in these crucial areas are accessible to all as we enter the 21st century. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already allocated more than $300 million towards organizations dedicated to improving global health, as well as over $300 million for enhancing learning opportunities.
One of the initiatives under this foundation is the Gates Library Initiative, which aims to provide computers, internet access, and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada. In addition, projects within the Pacific Northwest region have received funding exceeding $54 million, while special projects and annual giving campaigns have been granted over $29 million.
Bill Gates has a passion for both computers and biotechnology. He is involved in the Icos Corporation, and he is also a shareholder in Darwin Molecular, a subsidiary of Chiroscience. In addition, Gates founded Corbis Corporation, which aims to develop an extensive digital archive of art and photography from various collections worldwide. Furthermore, Gates has partnered with Craig McCaw to invest in Teledesic, a company working on a plan to launch numerous low-orbit satellites to provide two-way broadband telecommunications service globally.
