Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1979, becoming the richest man in the world from 1995 to 2007. Gates excelled in math and science at Lakeside preparatory school, where he was exposed to his first computers. He enrolled at Harvard College in 1973 but left to work with Allen on an operating system for the Altair 8800. In 1980, IBM approached Gates to provide an operating system for a future line of personal computers, leading to the creation of MS-DOS and later Windows. Gates married Melinda Ann French in 1994 and founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.
William Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. He is best known as the co-founder of software giant Microsoft Corporation, a company he and Paul Allen started in 1979. Microsoft’s enormous success has amassed the entrepreneur an incredible fortune, earning him the title of “the richest man in the world”. world” from 1995 to 2007, according to Forbes magazine. As of 2013, Gates’ net worth is estimated at $67 billion United States Dollars (USD).
Bill Gates was born into a wealthy family, his father a successful lawyer and his mother a board member of First Interstate Bank. He has two siblings, Kristianne and Libby. During high school he excelled in math and science and enrolled at Lakeside, an exclusive preparatory school.
At Lakeside, the young man was exposed to his first computers in the form of Teletype terminals networked to a remote server. Using the teletype requires time to purchase from the server. Gates and his Lakeside friends were banned from a system after administrators learned the kids were exploiting flaws in the system to buy free time.
Gates quickly developed a keen interest in computer operating systems, source code, and computer languages, including BASIC, FORTRAN, LISP, and COBOL. He and Allen soon began work finding vulnerabilities in existing systems and writing proprietary programs. At age 14, Gates started a short-lived business with Allen that earned him $20,000 USD in the first year.
Interested in law, Gates enrolled at Harvard College in 1973, but the world would have had different plans for the future software tycoon. Just two years at Harvard, he took a leave of absence to work with Allen writing an operating system (OS) for what is now considered the forerunner of personal computers, the Altair 8800. The two young men formed a partnership they initially called “Micro-soft”, later changing it to “Microsoft” to be registered in November 1976.
Perhaps foreshadowing things to come, the Altair operating system written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen was widely copied and shared among computer enthusiasts, prompting Gates to write an open letter in February 1976. In his letter, he expressed his anguish for people to use the OS without paying, emphasizing the time and effort involved in programming, and the impossibility of providing quality software without fair compensation.
Four years later, in 1980, IBM approached Gates to provide an operating system for a future line of personal computers. He suggested 86-DOS, an operating system written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP). Gates subsequently negotiated with SCP to make Microsoft the sole licensing agent of 86-DOS and eventually full owner, never mentioning the potential mega-deal with IBM. Microsoft adapted the operating system, renamed it “PC-DOS” and charged IBM a one-time fee, while retaining the copyright. When IBM clones hit the market, as Gates envisioned, each computer required a copy of the Microsoft operating system, licensed directly from the company.
If MS-DOS® opened the door to Gates’ legendary status in the computer world, the Windows® operating system opened it wide. While MS-DOS® was a text-based command-line operating system, Windows® revolutionized the personal computing world, providing a simple, point-and-click graphical interface that made computers accessible to everyone. The market has exploded from a relatively small community of computer geeks to the general public, and companies large and small.
The Windows® operating system created a de facto monopoly for Gates in the IBM PC market. Microsoft often bought up small, up-and-coming companies that were developing popular software packages, absorbing products into the Microsoft line. In many cases, Gates has been criticized for his aggressiveness in forcing competition. This came to a head in the mid-1990s, when Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer® with Windows 95®, essentially “pushing” its browser onto new computer users, usurping market share or rival browser Netscape® . In 1998, the US Justice Department sued Microsoft in an antitrust case, which ultimately resulted in a ruling against the software giant.
In 1994, Bill Gates married Microsoft employee Melinda Ann French. They had three children: Jennifer (born 1996), Rory (born 1999) and Phoebe (born 2002). Gates received honorary degrees from universities in the Netherlands, Sweden, Tokyo and Harvard. In 2000, he and Melinda founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, giving billions to improve global healthcare, fight AIDS, enhance educational opportunities, and provide scholarships. He was also awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 and was named one of the most influential people of the 20th century by Time magazine.
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