Great Tech Entrepreneurs:
Bill Gates
Bill Gates (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, investors, author and philanthropist. Together with Paul Allen he co-founded Microsoft in 1975. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been critized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. Today Gates is pursuing a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As a child, Bill was a curious kid. He always wanted to know more, and he had encouragement from his mom and dad. He was always competitive. Whatever he did he wanted to do it well, as good as the other folks that he was with. He enjoyed High Tech exhibits, he had a natural talent for math and science, but was also becoming a loner, showing signs of pre-teen rebelliousness. He was a smart, brilliant kid, lacking direction. His parents had a good economic situation, so he was sent to the best private prep-school in Seattle. He made a lot of friends and relished academic challenge, and he had a wide breadth of interest. In the beginning of the Space Age, his school happened to be one of the first ones to own a computer. Bill Gates became addicted to the computer, and shared his addiction with an upper classman named Paul Allen. They were very different, and engaged in the endeavor of writing Software.
By 1970, when Gates was only 15, him and Paul Allen went into Business together. At the age of 17, Bill went to Washington D.C. to work as a Senate page for the summer, where he acquired exposure to politics and government. Upon return, he got a place in Harvard University, to head for a future in the computer world. He was always very focused and knew what he wanted, but his social life was not a priority. Since he was not the number 1 math student at Harvard, he kept his academic options open and picked up some new skills, outside of class. Meanwhile, Paul Allen had moved to Boston for a job. In December 1974, the announcement of the first mini-computer kit "Altair 8800 Computer" marked the arrival of the day of the Personal Computer. Gates and Allen convinced the owner of the small company that they were the ones that could write the Software to run on his little computers. Gates and Allen worked none stop for 2 months, and came up with the "BASIC programming language" (Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). That moment would change the technology industry forever. At age 19, and together with Paul Allen, they formed: Microsoft. Bill had to drop Harvard to dedicate full time to his new company.
Microsoft specialized in Software and expanded into new Software Languages: BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN and Pascal, and Gates and Allen started to expand by selling their line to other computer languages. At the end of 1978 and surpassing 1 million USD in Sales, they moved to Seattle. Gates was in charge of Marketing and approached the customers himself. By November of 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to talk about them coming up with an operating system, for their new line of personal computers. Despite his youth and his looks, IBM quickly discovered that Bill Gates was no amateur: he convinced them that Microsoft could DELIVER their new Software. First, he purchased an existing Operating system which he then adapted for the IBM personal computers calling it: MS-DOS. IBM wanted to purchase the code, but Microsoft refused to give up the rights over the MS-DOS. By not owning the rights to the Operating System, IBM would now have to pay Microsoft a licensing fee for every copy of DOS installed in it's computers. Microsoft then sold the same operating system to smaller companies.
Microsoft grew so large that by 1983, 30% of all world computers were running Microsoft software. In 1984, Microsoft Windows would become the company's signature program. It bore a resemblance to Apple's Machintosh Operating System. However, Apple was more interested in selling computers that Software. Microsoft took over the Software business by creating an Office package with Applications like Word, Excel, Paint, etc. In 1986, Microsoft was taken public, making Bill Gates a billionaire at the age of 31. In 1990, Microsoft Windows 3.0 was launched, a best seller. Microsoft became almost a Monopoly on Operating Systems for Personal Computers.
The 1990s found a new industry ran mostly for people UNDER 30. Due to a form of cancer, Paul Allen retired from the day to day management at Microsoft. Fortunately, he recovered and continued his career in the Business World. Gates management style was very demanding, were he kept the creative process churning and sometimes set off heated confrontations. He believed that challenging ideas was required to stay on top in an ever changing industry. At the age of 42, Bill Gates became an Icon of the American establishment. The richest man in the World with a personal Net worth of more than 50 billion Dollars and the member of a power elite, which included figures like President Bill Clinton. Gates is committed to giving away the bulk of his fortune to good causes.
