Bill Gates

Made by Kolodkina Ekaterina, RIMO-203.

William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, business mogul, investor, philanthropist, and widely known as one of the most richest and influential people in the world.

How did he manage to make such an astonishing career? What is the secret of

his great success?

Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.

Gate’s family (From left to right, William Henry Gates, Lillian Elizabeth Gates, Bill Gates Sr. and his only sibling, Merridy Gates).

Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

Gates with classmate and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (left) in the computer room at

Seattle’s Lakeside School (1969)

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.

MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm) floppy disk system.

In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Gates' foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry.

«I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot». 

Bill Gates.

In 1999, Gates wrote "Business @ the Speed of Thought", a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways.

On June 27, 2008, Gates transitioned out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

You can see the last speech of Bill Gates on this page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxKPgcR1oyE&feature=related

Philanthropy is very important to Gates.  He and his wife, Melinda, started a foundation in 2000 to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world. To learn more about the foundation, visit www.gatesfoundation.org

Bill and Melinda Gates, June 2009

«Whether it's Google or Apple or free software, we've got some fantastic

competitors and it keeps us on our toes». 

Bill Gates.

ValuesYou can learn a lot about someone or a company by their values. 

The values of a company reflect the leadership.  Here are the values and guiding principles that can help you see a little more about Bill.

Microsoft Values:

Integrity and honesty.Passion for customers, partners, and technology.Open and respectful with others and dedicated to making them

better.Willingness to take on big challenges and see them through.Self-critical, questioning, and committed to personal excellence

and self-improvement.Accountable for commitments, results, and quality to

customers, shareholders, partners, and employees.

«Science and technology have great potential to improve lives around the world».

Bill Gates.

Bill Gates’ 11 Rules of Life

There is a list of rules for life that you don’t learn in school that often gets attributed to Bill Gates:

Rule 1: Life is not fair, get used to it. Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The

world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working

for one.

«It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of

failure».

Bill Gates.

Passion, intensity, and tenacity.   That’s one way to describe Bill Gates.

Let’s listen to advices of Bill Gates. May be it will help us to turn our lives in the right direction!

«If you see happy people don’t envy them. You don’t  even know how they

fought for their happiness».

Links:http://sourcesofinsight.com/lessons-learne

d-from-bill-gates/

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/billg/

http://sourcesofinsight.com/how-to-think-like-bill-gates/

http://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/http://topics.wsj.com/person/G/bill-gates/6

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