Bill Gates

William Henry Gates III (Seattle, Washington, October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, author, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of president, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect, as well as being the largest single shareholder as of May 2014. He was a leading entrepreneur in the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.

His fortune is estimated at 96.6 billion dollars (2019) according to Forbes magazine, a fact that placed him as the fourth richest man in the world. dot com, his net worth was $114.1 billion, making him the 10th richest person in all of human history.

He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs to emerge during the early days of personal computers. He has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, a view that in some cases has been upheld by numerous court rulings.

He was married to Melinda Gates, with whom he shares the presidency of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated to rebalancing opportunities in health and education at the local level, although he has also been involved in other countries. For example, in Nigeria with the program to eradicate polio, which is why they have been awarded the 2006 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation.

Biography

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955. He is the son of William H. Gates Sr., a prominent lawyer, and Mary Gates, a professor at the University of Washington and director of First Interstate Bank. With them and his sister, two years older, he lived in the city of Seattle, in the state of Washington. Until sixth grade he was a regular student at a public school.

He studied at the elite Lakeside private school in Seattle, this school already had a computer in 1968, which allowed Gates to get in touch with the machine and become fond of computing. Also at Lakeside he met Paul Allen, with whom he would later found Microsoft.

On April 4, 1975, while still a student at Harvard University, he created the software company Microsoft. In 1976 he dropped out of university and moved to Albuquerque, the headquarters of MITS, to agree with that company to transfer 50% of the Basic computer language. The following year, he heard about the success of the Apple company and that they needed a Basic interpreter.

In 1980, he met with IBM representatives in Seattle. They wanted to have the CP/M operating system. He told them about the existence of an adapted version called QDOS or 86DOS, agreeing to obtain a non-exclusive license in order to adapt it. With this, he managed to sell them the idea of the operating system MS-DOS , without counting on it, buying 86DOS at a very low price from the young programmer Tim Paterson. IBM needed that operating system to compete with Apple, which is why the negotiation was flexible. Microsoft wanted the license rights, maintenance, and even the power to sell DOS to other companies. IBM accepted, considering that what would produce dividends would be the hardware and not the software. A few days later, Microsoft purchased the copyright to QDOS from Tim Paterson, who worked for Seattle Computer Products, for $50,000, which he sold to IBM as MS-DOS (Microsoft DOS). What is striking was that IBM did not buy MS-DOS but decided to pay Microsoft a royalty for each copy that was sold together with an IBM-PC.

Aware of the importance of the graphical environment that Apple had shown (originally the graphical interface and the "mouse" were developed by Xerox PARC) on his Lisa computer, he set out to also get the graphical environment and the & #34;mouse" to operate it. While Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, began development of the Macintosh, Bill Gates visited Apple. He was offering to improve their spreadsheets and other programs. It threatened to sell its computer hardware to IBM, thereby obtaining an Apple-Microsoft alliance.^{[citation needed]} Microsoft legally obtained the mouse and graphical environment technology, and released Microsoft Windows, as a direct competitor to Macintosh.

Since the turn of the century, the Microsoft Windows operating system (in all its versions) has been used on most personal computers on the planet.

Philanthropy

In 2009 Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to donate at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

On June 16, 2006, he made public his intention to leave his daily tasks at the head of Microsoft by 2008 to dedicate himself completely to his foundation. The transition of responsibilities was gradual to avoid affecting the daily development of the company, continuing as Honorary President of the same. On June 27, 2008, he left his job at the helm of Microsoft, ceding control of the company to Steve Ballmer. Bill Gates dedicates 70% of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the other 30% to the company.

In July 2022 Gates announces the donation of 20,000 million USD more in that same month and the subsequent donation of all his assets to the Foundation except for what he spends on himself and his family

Personal donations

In 1999, Gates donated $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the construction of a computer lab called the "William H. Gates Building," designed by architect Frank Gehry. Although Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution, this was the first personal donation received from Gates.

Charity sporting events

On April 29, 2017, Bill Gates teamed up with Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer to participate in Match for Africa 4, a non-competitive tennis match to be played at Key Arena in Seattle with all buy-ins sold out. The event was held in support of the Roger Federer Foundation's charity efforts in Africa. Federer and Gates played against John Isner, America's greatest player for much of this decade, and Mike McCready, Pearl Jam's lead guitarist. Gates and Federer won the match 6-4. The following year, Gates and Federer played again at the Match for Africa 5 on March 5, 2018 at the SAP Center in San José, California. Their opponents were Jack Sock, one of the best American players and a Grand Slam doubles winner, and Savannah Guthrie, co-host of NBC's Today show. Gates and Federer recorded their second match win together 6-3 and the event raised over $2.5 million.

Personal life

Bill and his wife Melinda Gates on June 3, 2009.

In 1985 Gates was named one of the "50 Most Eligible Bachelors" by Good Housekeeping. He married Melinda French on January 1, 1994, and they had three children: Jennifer Katharine (1996), Rory John (1999), and Phoebe Adele (2002). The family resides in his home on a hillside overlooking Lake Washington in Medina. In a March 2014 Rolling Stone magazine interview, Gates noted that, in terms of his faith, “the moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We have raised our children in a religious way." In the same interview, Gates said, "I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know." In another interview in early 2014, Gates stated that if heaven existed he would be "pleasantly surprised". According to other sources, Gates (who was born into a Protestant church), is now strongly agnostic. In November 2022 it was announced that he would become a grandfather for the first time., because his eldest daughter Jennifer was pregnant.

Since 2008, the year he stopped running Microsoft, he has participated in some projects to spread this lifestyle. In this sense, together with Peter Thiel (co-founder of the PayPal company), he has supported the creation of artificial eggs based on easy-to-grow plants. He also assured, on a previous occasion, that "the future of meat is vegan"., which is in line with a proposal he had made to create transgenic seeds that tasted like meat.

Since 2007 Bill Gates ranked second in the annual list of the greatest personal fortunes made by Forbes magazine, behind Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, but due to fluctuations in the assets of these two tycoons, their fortunes stood at $72.7 billion and $72.1 billion respectively, according to the May 2013 Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 1994, he acquired a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript (the Hammer Codex, also called Leicester Codex) for $30 million.

In September 2019 Netflix launched a documentary series entitled "Bill Gates under the magnifying glass", directed by Davis Gunggenheim, which seeks to understand how the brain of the creator of Microsoft works.

On May 3, 2021, he announced the end of his marriage to Melinda French, after 27 years of marriage, through a message posted on his personal Twitter account. Although they end their personal relationship, they will continue to work together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Honors

US Honors

• Presidential Medal of Freedom (22/11/2016)

Foreign Honors

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom) (02/03/2005)
• Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique (Portugal) (07/01/2006)
• Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, degree of plaque (Mexico) (2006)
• Order of the Star of Romania (Romania) (01/02/2007)
• International Peace Prize of the Foundation Goi Peace (2008)
• Padma Bhushan Award (India) (2015)
• Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honour (France) (2017)
• Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation (Spain) (2006)

Properties

Entrepreneur Bill Gates owns five companies, which can be seen in the following list:

• Microsoft
• bgC3
• TerraPower
• Branded Entertainment Network
• Cascade Investment