Bill Gates Biography
Entrepreneur
Bill Gates founded the world's largest software business, Microsoft, with Paul
Allen, and subsequently became one of the richest men in the world.
Early Life
Bill
Gates was born William Henry Gates III on October 28, 1955, in Seattle,
Washington. Gates began to show an interest in computer programming at the age
of 13 at the Lakeside School. He pursued his passion through college. Striking
out on his own with his friend and business partner Paul Allen, Gates found
himself at the right place at the right time. Through technological innovation,
keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics, he built the world's
largest software business, Microsoft. In the process, Gates became one of the
richest men in the world.
Bill
Gates grew up in an upper middle-class family with two sisters: Kristianne, who
is older, and Libby, who is younger. Their father, William H. Gates Sr., was a
promising, if somewhat shy, law student when he met his future wife, Mary
Maxwell. She was an athletic, outgoing student at the University of Washington,
actively involved in student affairs and leadership. 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.
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.
Bill
was a voracious reader as a child, spending many hours pouring over reference
books such as the encyclopedia. Around the age of 11 or 12, Bill's parents
began to have concerns about his behavior. He was doing well in school, but he
seemed bored and withdrawn at times. His parents worried he might become a
loner. Though they were strong believers in public education, when Bill turned
13, they enrolled him at Seattle's Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory
school. He blossomed in nearly all his subjects, excelling in math and science,
but also doing very well in drama and English.
While
at Lakeside School, 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.
It
was at Lakeside School where Bill met Paul Allen, who was two years his senior.
The two became fast friends, bonding on their common enthusiasm over computers,
even though they were very different. Allen was more reserved and shy. Bill was
feisty and at times combative. They both spent much of their free time together
working on programs. Occasionally, they disagreed and would clash over who was
right or who should run the computer lab. On one occasion, their argument
escalated to the point where Allen banned Gates from the computer lab. On
another occasion, Gates and Allen had their school computer privileges revoked
for taking advantage of software glitches to obtain free computer time from the
company that provided the computers. After their probation, they were allowed
back in the computer lab when they offered to debug the program. During this
time, Gates developed a payroll program for the computer company the boys
hacked into, and a scheduling program for the school.
In
1970, at the age of 15, Bill Gates went into business with his pal, Paul Allen.
They developed "Traf-o-Data," a computer program that monitored
traffic patterns in Seattle, and netted $20,000 for their efforts. Gates and
Allen wanted to start their own company, but Gates's parents wanted him to
finish school and go on to college where they hoped he would work to become a
lawyer.
Bill
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.
Early Career
Gates
enrolled at Harvard University in the fall, originally thinking of a career in
law. But his freshman year saw him spend more of his time in the computer lab
than in class. Gates did not really have a study regimen. Instead, he could get
by on a few hours of sleep, cram for a test, and pass with a reasonable grade.
Gates
remained in contact with Paul Allen, who, after attending Washington State
University for two years, dropped out and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to
work for Honeywell. In the summer of 1974, Gates joined Allen at Honeywell.
During this time, Allen showed Gates an edition of Popular Electronics magazine
featuring an article on the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit. Both boys were
fascinated with the possibilities that this computer could create in the world
of personal computing. The Altair was made by a small company in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). Gates and
Allen contacted the company, proclaiming that they were working on a BASIC
software program that would run the Altair computer. In reality, they didn't
have an Altair to work with or the code to run it. But they wanted to know 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. Allen traveled to Albuquerque for a test run at MITS, never
having tried it out on an Altair computer. It worked perfectly. Allen was hired
at MITS and Gates soon left Harvard to work with him, much to his parents'
dismay. In 1975, Gates and Allen formed a partnership they called Micro-Soft, a
blend of "micro-computer" and "software."
Microsoft
(Gates and Allen dropped the hyphen in less than a year) started off on shaky
footing. Though their BASIC software program for the Altair computer netted the
company a fee and royalties, it wasn't meeting their overhead. Microsoft's
BASIC software was popular with computer hobbyists who obtained pre-market
copies and were reproducing and distributing them for free. According to
Gates's later account, only about 10 percent of the people using BASIC in the
Altair computer had actually paid for it. At this time, much of the personal
computer enthusiasts were people not in it for the money. They felt the ease of
reproduction and distribution allowed them to share software with friends and
fellow computer enthusiasts. Bill Gates thought differently. He saw the free
distribution of software as stealing, especially when it involved software that
was created to be sold.
In
February of 1976, Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists saying that
continued distribution and use of software without paying for it would
"prevent good software from being written." In essence, pirating
software would discourage developers from investing time and money into
creating quality software. The letter was unpopular with computer enthusiasts,
but Gates stuck to his beliefs and would use the threat of innovation as a
defense when faced with charges of unfair business practices.
Gates
had a more acrimonious relationship with MITS president Ed Roberts, often
resulting in shouting matches. The combative Gates clashed with Roberts on
software development and the direction of the business. Roberts considered
Gates spoiled and obnoxious. In 1977, Roberts sold MITS to another computer
company, and went back to Georgia to enter medical school and become a country
doctor. Gates and Allen were on their own. The pair had to sue the new owner of
MITS to retain the software rights they had developed for Altair.
Microsoft
wrote software in different formats for other computer companies and, at the end
of 1978, Gates moved the company's operations to Bellevue Washington, just east
of Seattle. Bill Gates was glad to be home again in the Pacific Northwest, and
threw himself into his work. All 25 employees of the young company had broad
responsibilities for all aspects of the operation, product development,
business development, and marketing. With his acumen for software development
and a keen business sense, Gates placed himself as the head of Microsoft, which
grossed $2.5 million in 1978. Gates was only 23.
Personal Life
In
1989, a 28-year-old Microsoft executive named Melinda French caught the eye of
Bill Gates, then 37. The very bright and organized Melinda was a perfect match
for Gates. In time, their relationship grew as they discovered an intimate and
intellectual connection. On January 1, 1994, Melinda and Bill were married in
Hawaii. But only a few months later heartbreak struck Bill Gates as his mother
was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died in June 1994. Gates was devastated.
Bill
and Melinda took some time off in 1995 to travel to several countries and get a
new perspective on life and the world. In 1996, their first daughter, Jennifer,
was born. A year later, Gates moved his family into a 55,000 square foot, $54
million house on the shore of Lake Washington. Though the house serves as a
business center, it is said to be a very cozy home for the couple and their
three children.
Five Traits in Bill Gates
a) Visionary
The
popular myth is that Bill Gates is a visionary. He foresaw his MS-DOS operating
system as a goldmine, and he tricked IBM, the biggest computer company on
earth, into letting him retain the copyright. Microsoft software still
dominates the desktop more than 30 years after Gates helped launch the personal
computer revolution.
Gates
took Microsoft to the top by executing brilliantly, and always in service of
other people's visions, never his own. By parlaying his way through a series of
ever-bigger business deals--all with fairly ordinary products--he went from
zero to billions in less than a decade.
b) Failure
is an Option
Its
fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of
failure.
What
makes Bill Gates who he has become is his ability to learn from failure. He
celebrates success but not as much he introspects on the lessons from failure.
It is this that has shaped up his life, from school to his present day mindset.
There
will be people who would want to make fun of your efforts, pull you down and so
on. The stronger you stand the bolder you get the faster these negatives
wither.
When
IBM pulled out of the contract for the operating system to be bundled with the
IBM Clone PCs, Bill Gates stayed on and started focusing on the creating
Windows amidst lots of hiccups that will hamper the company.
In
hindsight, Gates’ early failures seem so miniscule that they are almost
laughable. But, as a struggling entrepreneur, he went through the same
frustration, confusion and despair that others in his situation also face. What
distinguishes Gates from the rest was his ability to rebound from his mistakes
and take whatever lessons he could from them. He then became even more resolute
and determined to see his vision realize.
c)
Open Risk Taker
Bill
Gates is a risk taker. In his junior year, Gates dropped out of Harvard to
devote his energies full-time to Microsoft, a company he had started in 1975
with his boyhood friend Paul Allen development of new products.
Today,
it may seem that billionaires can always take risks since they have money at
their disposal. But he took risks when he merely had a few hundred bucks in his
pocket. Even when his company was a minnow and IBM was a giant, he took on the
latter, dragged them to court and also won a settlement in his favor. That
saved him from a huge financial loss even before his Microsoft became a global
phenomenon. When Bill Gates along with his wife Melinda Gates decided to pledge
their fortune for the welfare of the poor and he consistently took up various
causes such as Polio eradication, education for the poor and basic
infrastructure for the absolutely impoverished; all of those were risks. He did
not know if he would succeed in any of those endeavors but today he has done a
perfect job in all those missions, many of which have been accomplished.
d) Proactive
When
he had several odds again him such as the American Law and several cases
against him, he still consistently took action by developing more software
which the people wanted. This made him a super star overnight.
“Whether
it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and
it keeps us on our toes” – Bill Gates
Bill
Gates took up the responsibility of being the Chief Software Architect, Bill
Gates was nurturing Microsoft by building a broad range of products. This was
not just capitalizing on the knowledge but provide the best by understanding
the need of the people.
Though
dropping out of college to his dreams, Bill Gates has probably read and written
more than most of us ever will. In the process, he has shown the limits of
formal education. Important as formal education is, perhaps it is more
important to realize that learning is a life-long process. Knowledge is
infinite.
Bill
Gates would go to any length to maintain his exiting monopoly. But he has no
qualms. He said that any operating system without a browser would go out of
business. So we improved our product or else we would have gone out of
business, he added For him, success is defined as flattening the competition,
not creating excellence.
e)
Team Oriented
“If
we weren’t still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would
be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company,” says Gates. From
Microsoft’s inception, Gates prioritized his team, bringing in only trusted
friends to help him get the company started. As the company grew, he insisted
that they hire only the most capable young minds and strove to create a small
and creative environment for them to thrive in. Microsoft succeeded not only
because of Gates, but also because of the strong team that stood behind him.
