Bill Gates short biography. Who is Bill Gates: biography and success story of the richest man on Earth

Biography of Bill Gates

In this article I will talk about an entrepreneur, public figure, one of the creators Microsoft. So, William Henry Gates III born October 28, 1955 in Seattle.

Bill at an early age


Grew up in large family with two sisters - Libby and Christy.

Bill Gates and his sisters


The parents were quite business people: Mary Maxwell Gates' mother was on the board of directors of the bank and national council, and his father, William Henry Gates, worked as a lawyer.

Bill Gates's parents


WITH youth Bill was passionate about programming, studying at the most privileged school in Seattle, where he actively developed his skills in this area. Our hero wrote his first program at the age of 13. These were the all-time popular “Tic Tac Toe”, which the boy implemented in the BASIC language.

Gates in childhood


At school, Gates excelled in mathematics, but was indifferent to humanities subjects. The boy was even sent to a psychiatrist, but this did not change anything. Bill was truly obsessed with computers. He devoted all his time to this matter. free time, including weekends. He even skipped some classes and sat in the computer lab until late at night.

Bill in school years


During his school years, the future billionaire met Paul Allen, who was two grades older than him. They often hung out in the classroom, testing the computers provided to them. But when the time allotted for Bill and his friend to work in the computer laboratory expired, they, without thinking twice, stole the passwords and hacked the system, for which they were punished by a ban on working with the PC throughout the summer. During this period the guy was about 15-16 years old. After the conflict was settled, the comrades offered the company to find errors in their software for the opportunity to work on their computers. The organization agreed and their cooperation continued until 1970, when they went bankrupt.


Young Bill Gates

At age 17, Gates, Paul Allen, and Paul Gilbert founded Traf-O-Data. The company's main goal is to create meters for reading road traffic and generating reports for traffic engineers. In 1973, after graduating from school, the young man entered Harvard University, where he met his future companion Steve Ballmer. After 2 years, Bill is expelled. And he decided to devote himself entirely to programming, without being distracted by his studies. In January 1975, the American computer magazine Popular Electronics published an article about the new Altair 8800 personal computer. After reading the article, Gates contacted the president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Ed Roberts, and told him that he and his friends were working on the software. of this computer. But in fact, Gates and Allen had nothing to do with the Altair 8800. The MITS president invited them to his office and within a few weeks they were already working for him. And here it is, that very moment: Gates and Allen create the Micro-Soft company specifically to develop programs for MITS, in Albuquerque. Later the hyphen was removed and a new one was registered on November 26, 1976 trademark"Microsoft".


Corporation logo from 1975

Initially, Microsoft did not have its own OS, so it licensed the 86-DOS (QDOS) system from Seattle Computer Products. Subsequently, Microsoft completely bought the rights to 86-DOS, after which, after working on it, it was completely adapted for IBM personal computers. This is how the MS-DOS operating system appeared and the collaboration between Microsoft and IBM began. In the 80s, their company had already become one of the largest players in the software market, and by the early 90s it had become a huge corporation. By the way, in the early years he actively collaborated with Microsoft.


Bill and Steve Jobs at the conference (05/31/2007)

Next, the corporation is working on a completely new operating system, the idea of ​​which was clearly taken from Xerox and Apple. And already on November 20, 1985 it was published - Microsoft Windows. It was this OS that launched new era V computer technologies. And thanks to her, Bill Gates became the successful and richest man in the world.

Preview: Wikimedia Commons - World Economic Forum
Life Story of Bill Gates- Documentary ("The Biography Channel", still images)
Wikimedia Commons - Joi Ito from Inbamura, Japan
Social media
Bill Gates' personal archive


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(b. 10/28/1955), A

American

entrepreneur, founder of Microsoft Corporation

, richest

man of the planet; currently at the helm of his foundation
does charity work.

short biography

William Henry Gates III

Henry Gates III)

Better known as

Bill Gates.
Born October 28, 1955 in
Seattle, was the only son
famous lawyer, William Gates II
(William H. Gates II), and Mary Maxwell
Gates (Mary Maxwell Gates), Council Member
Directors of First Interstate Bank, Pacific
Northwest Bell and National Council
United Way.

Bill began training in
secondary school Seattle, but
at the age of 12 his parents transferred him to
private school "Lakeside School". This privileged school gave
Gates has excellent knowledge in mathematics and programming, but
Bill was not at all interested in humanitarian subjects. Behavior
young Gates was also not ideal - his parents even showed
to his doctors, suspecting some mental disorders.
Bill was literally obsessed with programming, his first
Gates created the program at the age of 13. It was intended for
giant computers that time.
In college, Bill Gates started his first company, Traf-O-Data.
his classmates worked there. The guys were developing
programs for local authorities, calculated traffic schedules
urban transport.

In 1970, Bill wrote a program - a traffic controller,
earning $20,000 from this project. And two years later I received
proposal for the development of a distribution software package
energy from the Bonneville Dam.

Entering Harvard as a lawyer in 1973, Gates
absolutely did not correspond to his chosen profession - he was withdrawn,
unsociable, avoided noisy parties. However, I found a friend there -
Steve Ballmer (future president of Microsoft).

In December 1974, Gates saw simple computer, the only thing,
What this machine lacked was software. Bill Gates and his
friend Paul Allen was suggested to representatives of the company that owned the computer
(M.I.T.S.) develop software. Soon they received
contract for writing programming languages. First translator
Gates and Alain wrote BASIC for Altair 8800 in parallel with their studies at
university in the mid-70s. Friends moved to live in New Mexico. IN
In 1975, Gates and Allen founded Micro-Soft.
(later the dash between the words in the title was removed). From the institute
Gates was expelled for constant absenteeism and poor academic performance.
The beginning of their career was unsuccessful - the first customers of their company
went bankrupt, and the friends returned to Seattle. However, failure is not too
upset Bill because he received an offer from IBM to
development of an operating system for the first personal
computer.
Gates purchased the QDOS (Quick and Dirty) system for $50,000
Operating System), changed the name to MS-DOS and sold the license to IBM.
The money received for this project allowed Microsoft to continue to operate
some years.

The presentation of the computer created a real sensation on the market. TO
Microsoft was increasingly approached by various companies for a license.
Applications continue Microsoft's triumphal march
Microsoft Word And Microsoft Excel. In 1986, Microsoft became
joint stock company.

At 31, Bill Gates became a billionaire.
The first version of Windows was introduced by Microsoft in 1987. By 1993
year, total sales of the program exceeded one million. When
The Windows95 operating system was released, in the first two weeks there were
sold seven million copies.

Then Gates' company first came to the attention of the antitrust regulator.
committee. Claims against Microsoft as a monopolist in the software market
the provision has not stopped since then to this day.

On January 1, 1994, Gates married Melinda French.
Microsoft manager. In the same year, Gates acquired the Leicester Code.
(Codex Leicester, collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci). Since 2003 he
on display at the Seattle Art Museum.

In 1995, the company's course changed, and the main theme for development
became the Internet. Today one of the directions of development of Microsoft is
search advertising.

In 1997, Adam Quinn Pletcher, with whom
Gates studied at the university, extorted money from Gates, accusing him of
the theft of a program that he said Gates stole. However, the court
found Pletcher guilty and sentenced him in July 1998 to six years
prisons.
On December 14, 2004, Bill Gates joined the board of Berkshire Hathaway
(a conglomerate that includes automobile insurance, paints,
textile). Gates now invests his money in a variety of
industry.

In 2005, Bill and Melinda Gates were named " The Times»
people of the year.

On July 7, 2007, Gates became a Harvard graduate, according to
decision of the university administration.

January 7, 2008 Gates announces his intention to leave his post
head of the corporation in 2008 and engage in charity work.
On June 27, 2008, Gates resigned as head of the
remaining, however, chairman of the board of directors and being
Microsoft Corporation's largest shareholder is 8.7%.

Bill Gates and Melinda had three children: Jennifer Katharine
Gates (Jennifer Katharine Gates) (born April 26, 1996), Rory John Gates
Rory John Gates (born May 23, 1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates
Gates (born September 14, 2002)

Based on materials: Wikipedia, ru.wikipedia.org

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

The name Bill Gates is familiar to almost everyone, especially those who use Microsoft operating systems, because this man is considered their creator. But, in addition to the fact that Bill Gates is an extraordinary businessman, he also seems to be a very reasonable man who recently surprised the whole world with his approach to raising his own children.

Bill Gates is the richest businessman in the world according to Forbes

In 2015, Forbes magazine again summed up the results of the year and compiled its annual ranking. This list was headed for the 16th time by Bill Gates, the creator of Microsoft Corporation.

More than one touching film could be made based on the life of Bill Gates. He did not do well at school and considered all subjects except mathematics unnecessary. For bad behavior, the boy was even referred to a psychiatrist for consultations.

But the guy had a good understanding of computers and programming. At the age of 13, Bill was already writing the simplest computer programs on his own, and a couple of years later, together with his friends, he managed to hack the program of one large corporation Seattle - Computer Center Corporation.

At the age of 17, together with Paul Allen, Gates founded his first company, which within a couple of months had $790 thousand in its account. And in 1975, the first Microsoft BASIC was created.

Personal life of a billionaire

Gates met his future wife, being already a very rich man. He flew to New York for a press briefing and there he met Melinda French, whom he married on January 1, 1994.

Melinda was born in Texas, into a large family of an ordinary engineer. Bill Gates in his interviews is often surprised at how his chosen one was able to force him to marry her, because before meeting this girl he had an ambiguous attitude towards family ties. However, there is nothing strange about what Melinda found with a computer genius mutual language, after all, she once received a bachelor's degree in computer science.

In the 90s, Melinda joined the Microsoft team, and already in 1994 she became his wife wedding ceremony took place in Hawaii, after the wedding Melinda became a housewife. If we talk about how many children Bill Gates had in his marriage to this woman, then there will be three heirs to the multi-billion dollar fortune: two girls and one boy.

She is also widely known for her philanthropic work as the founder of the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation.

Features of raising children

The “seasoned” Bill Gates has very specific children of his own. Providing for them for the rest of your life and even after your death is not the goal of the owner of a multimillion-dollar fortune. On the contrary, he understands that his main task is to teach his offspring to cope with all problems on their own, including financial ones.

Bill Gates' children should have learned the following truths while growing up. Firstly, a person must have adequate self-esteem. It's good to have self-respect and self-respect, but in order for everyone else to respect you, you need to do something worthwhile in your life.

Secondly, nothing happens quickly, and after graduating from school or university you will have to work hard for many more years before you have your own limousine.

Third, bad work can not be. Even working behind the McDonald's counter, you have the chance to make a dizzying career.

Bill Gates's daughters: biography. Jennifer

Little is known about Gates’ children in general and in general, because they are quite young.

In 1996 she was born eldest daughter Bill Gates. What is the name of the billionaire's first child? The parents named their first child Jennifer. On ancient name means something like “white sorceress” or “bright spirit.”

Gates' eldest daughter turned 19 in 2015. But it is almost impossible to find mentions of the girl in the press. However, several years ago there was a very active discussion on the Internet about the fact that the lifestyle of Gates and his children could hardly be called modest (as the media likes to cover this issue). For his daughter, who was only 15 years old at the time, Gates easily rented a luxury house in Florida worth $600,000 a month.

It turned out that Jennifer was seriously involved in equestrian sports, and she wanted to take part in the festival, which was to be held in Palm Beach. To make Jen feel comfortable during this entire time, her father rented her a “royal” mansion. So Gates's strictness in raising children is most likely exaggerated.

Is Rachel Leigh Cook the daughter of Bill Gates?

IN Lately in different in social networks They post a photo of a pretty girl, captioned with a joke: they say that Gates’ daughter has become the best “product” that Microsoft has ever released. However, the real appearance of Bill Gates' daughter is far from the appearance of the pretty person whose image is being circulated on the Internet.

In fact, the photo shows Rachel Leigh Cook - star of the films "Texas Rangers" and "Dawson's Creek." And it’s not at all clear who guessed to give away the famous American actress for Bill Gates' daughter. Most likely it was a joke. But many Internet regulars still believe that the pretty blonde is real daughter billionaire.

Phoebe Gates: facts from life

Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe - youngest child in family. The girl was born in 2002 and this moment still remains a teenager. As is the case with other children of the billionaire, the girl’s biography is shrouded in a halo of mystery, and even getting her photographs is not an easy task: Bill Gates’ daughters lead a quiet and “closed” lifestyle to prying eyes.

Did Bill Gates really leave his children without an inheritance?

Bill Gates' daughters will not be able to enjoy their father's multimillion-dollar fortune. In 2015, at one of the conferences, Bill stated that his children would receive practically nothing after his death.

Of course, the media inflated this news by releasing a lot of articles under flashy headlines, saying that Gates left his children with nothing, forgetting to clarify one detail: the billionaire recently drew up a new will, according to which Bill Gates’s daughters, as well as his The only son, will still receive something, namely $10 million.

Any person on Earth would be very happy about such an inheritance: 10 million dollars is not a joke, but a very good starting capital. Also, on top of that, Gates will provide his children with the best education, which is also important for successful life. Children must earn all other material goods through their own labor, says Bill Gates. He also noted that multimillion-dollar fortunes bequeathed to people who did not earn them through their own labor become only a “disservice.” His children should know the value of money.

Gates picked up this approach to raising children. And in general, being “hardworking” and “smart” is now fashionable again. Apparently, the “time of fools” is over, since even millionaires want their children to be smart, independent and productive.

Who doesn't know this name? Bill Gates is the head of Microsoft, a leader in the production of computer software. The corporation's income has long exceeded tens of billions of dollars a year, and its branches are located in all countries of the civilized world. Of course, the biography of Bill Gates deserves close attention.

Childhood and youth

William Gates was born in Seattle on October 28, 1955, the son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher. Besides him, the family had two more daughters. William's favorite subject at school was mathematics, but he did not like the humanities, considered them unnecessary and, accordingly, had low grades in these subjects. Gates took up programming at the age of 13 while studying at the private Lakeside School.

The year 1973 was marked by Bill Gates's admission to Harvard University. Here he meets Steve Ballmer, currently Microsoft's vice president of sales and support.

While studying at Harvard, Gates developed BASIC, the programming language for the first Altair 8800 minicomputer. In 1975, together with Paul Allen Bill Gates starts Microsoft- this matter absorbs him so much that he, without regret, quits his studies at Harvard University. The friends were convinced that personal computers had a great future - and today we can say with confidence that their conviction was truly prophetic.

Brilliant Bill

Gates told his Harvard professors, “I will be a millionaire before I turn 30.” Everything turned out much better than he expected - at the age of 31 he became a billionaire.

The genius of Bill Gates was manifested not only in his participation in the development of new products for the PC, but also in his gift as a manager and strategist. He frequently meets with clients and maintains contact with his employees around the world. Microsoft is rapidly gaining momentum, improving its information products designed to make the user's work at the computer as easy as possible.

March 2005 saw Bill Gates awarded a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his significant contributions to UK businesses and work to reduce global poverty.

Bill Gates was considered the richest man on the planet from 1996 to 2007 and in 2009. In September 2009, his fortune reached $50 billion, however, the onset of the global crisis somewhat reduced this figure the following year.

In June 2008, Gates resigned as head of Microsoft, while remaining non-executive chairman of the board of directors. At the moment, he is paying more attention to his foundation - the latest sensations include his proposal to all billionaires to donate 50% of their own wealth to charity. At the same time, Gates is ready to be the first to lead by example.

Bill Gates is a man of varied interests. He is the founder of Corbis Corporation, which develops the world's largest source of visual information - a digital archive of photographs and works of art stored in various collections and different countries. Bill Gates is also a member of the board of Icos Corporation, owner of Darwin Molecular shares, and has invested in the Teledesic company, which is developing a project to launch Earth satellites to provide two-way broadband telecommunications. His versatility is not an obstacle to his hobby: founder of Microsoft loves to play bridge and golf, reads a lot, collects cars and jumps on a trampoline to concentrate his thoughts.

Personal life

Bill Gates' personal life is also prosperous. On January 1, 1994, he married Melinda French Gates, an employee of Microsoft. For the wedding, Gates rented one of the islands of Haiti. The Gates couple have three children: Jennifer Katharine, Rory John and Phoebe Adele. The family lives in a large, spacious house (total area of ​​40 thousand square feet) on the shores of Lake Washington. The house is full of modern electronic systems, being an example of " smart home» XXI century.

Books by Bill Gates

First book "Road to the Future" co-authored with Microsoft Vice President Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rynearson, it was published in 1995. In it, the founder of Microsoft shares his thoughts on how society is changing under the influence of developing information technologies. The book immediately became a bestseller and was published in 20 countries in millions of copies.

In 1996, the book “The Road to the Future” underwent changes and was published in a second edition. This was mainly due to the change in the orientation of Gates’ company towards Internet technologies. Accordingly, the second edition of the book was supplemented with material about the World Wide Web and its role in the history of the development of civilization.

Bill Gates' second book "Business at the speed of thought"– was co-written by Collins Hemingway in 1999. It reflected the idea of ​​how they can information Technology help in solving business problems. Like the previous one, this book also became a bestseller and was released in 60 countries in 25 languages.

Bill Gates transfers all proceeds from book sales to his charitable foundation.

Bill Gates Foundation

The Gates couple are the founders of a charitable foundation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded in 1994 and designed to support philanthropic initiatives in the fields of education and healthcare. It is thanks to this fund that the low-income population of the USA and Canada has the opportunity to work with a PC and access the Internet public libraries. Funds from the Bill Gates Foundation are also allocated to the development of various public projects in other countries, in particular, to activities to overcome poverty, as well as prevention and treatment viral diseases V developing countries Africa and Asia.

It is no exaggeration to say that the biography of Bill Gates is a hymn to human intelligence and genius, inspiring many young people passionate about programming around the world.

Bill Gates is one of the most famous businessmen and representatives of the IT industry, founder of Microsoft, dollar billionaire, which is included in the list richest people on the planet. It is his short biography.

The Bill Gates Story

The future billionaire had successful relatives: his great-grandfather was a mayor, his grandfather was a vice-president of a national bank, and his father was a sought-after lawyer. It was probably this kind of pedigree that endowed Bill with the necessary personal qualities. Although as a child he was not sociable, did not play with friends in the yard, showed shyness, and did not pretend to be a leader in anything.

The boy's strong point was logical thinking, aptitude for mathematics. He quickly became bored at a regular school, and his parents sent their son to a private school.

The first program is the first step to success

An inquisitive mind and developed logical thinking led to the fact that at the age of 15 Bill was able to create computer program, designed to regulate traffic, and received 20 thousand dollars for it. The young man’s success did not go unnoticed, and at the age of 17 he was approached with a proposal to develop a program for distributing the dam’s energy.

Friendship, education and work

Like his father, Bill entered the prestigious Harvard University. He had to get legal education and become a lawyer. However, a lawyer's career did not attract him, and he did not have the qualities necessary for a future lawyer.

Bill and his old friend Paul Allen were planning to open their own company specializing in computers. But Gates could not decide to quit studying at the university. Everything changed with the purchase of the January issue of Popular Electronics (1975), on the cover of which was printed an image of the first mass-produced computer, the Altair-8800.

The friends realized that they were at the very beginning of the computer market, and understood that the demand for software would only grow. At that moment, Bill Gates decided to take a big risk for the first time in his life. He called MITS, the manufacturer of the Altair, and suggested that they use the BASIC language on their computers. MITS became interested in this proposal.

In fact, aspiring entrepreneurs didn't have anything ready yet, so they had to write code in a hurry. To test it they used computer equipment other manufacturers, which led to concerns about possible incompatibility between BASIC and Altair.

Fortunately, everything worked out and ended successfully, and MITS bought the rights to the program. It was the date of this transaction that Bill Gates subsequently recognized as the date of birth of the market software products(“software”). At the same time, Microsoft appeared. But in those days, the name of this company was still written with a hyphen (Micro-soft), which the company’s founders removed from its name later.

Cunning, risk and success - the birth of Windows

At first, things were not going well for the company. In 1979, Bill was expelled from Harvard for poor academic performance and numerous absenteeism. But all the negativity was smoothed over by a job offer from IBM. Microsoft had to develop an operating system for the first personal computer.

Bill did not write program code, but took a different path. He bought the QDOS operating system from one of his acquaintances, renamed it MS-DOS and introduced it to IBM. IBM bought a license for MS-DOS. This money was subsequently enough for Microsoft to exist and develop quietly for several years. After the successful presentation of the IBM personal computer running on the MS-DOS operating system, the number of Microsoft clients increased sharply. After the release of Word and Excel, Microsoft's share of the global market increased even more.

In 1986 Microsoft issued shares. The demand for them was so great that Bill Gates suddenly became rich. The Windows operating system was released in 1987. It sold over a million copies in its first month of sales. In 1995, Windows 95 was introduced to the world. Within two weeks, sales of the new OS exceeded seven million.

Personal life

In 1994, Gates married a Microsoft employee, Melinda French (she was a manager). She bore Bill three children: two daughters (Jennifer Katharine and Phoebe Adele) and a son (Rory John). The children's father has said more than once that he does not intend to inherit his entire fortune to his children. He decided to limit himself to amounts of $10 million. The children, in his opinion, should achieve the rest themselves.

Bill Gates's net worth and philanthropy

The famous billionaire has topped the Forbes list many times. How much money does Bill Gates have? His fortune exceeds 60 billion dollars. It is clear that for one person and his family this is a lot of money that they could not spend in their entire life. That's why Bill Gates started doing charity work. In particular, in 2010, they, together with Warren Buffett, launched a campaign calling on the richest people in the United States to donate half of their wealth to those in need. Bill and his wife established a charitable foundation, which the billionaire has been involved in recently.

  • Bill Gates made his first big money at the age of 15. He developed a program for regulating traffic.
  • The first version of Windows sold millions of copies in its first month.
  • Despite the fact that Gates was expelled from the university for poor academic performance and absenteeism, in the end, the Harvard administration still recognized him as a graduate and issued a diploma.
  • One of Bill's favorite pastimes is swinging.
    Bill and Melinda's wedding took place on a rented island (in Hawaii).
    Gates became a billionaire at age 31.
  • How much does Bill Gates earn? Approximately 6.5 thousand dollars per minute!
  • In 1998, during an official meeting in Brussels, Bill had a cake thrown in his face by a hooligan named Noel Godin. Gates declined to pursue the case.

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