Bill Gates Essay

Entrepreneur, business magnate, author, investor, coach, corporate leader, campaigner, philanthropist, pioneer, and probably the best thinker and top achiever of our time, Bill Gates has been effectively defining limits of creative thought and transformation for an entire generation, consistently operating on the extremes of human possibility while expanding it for an entire humanity.

Together with Paul Allen, Bill Gates has founded the world’s largest software corporation, Microsoft. He is also considered to be the richest person in the world with a wealth of staggering 85.9 billion dollars, according to current Bloomberg evaluation. Apart from that, Bill Gates is the founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a social impact nonprofit sponsored by this revolutionary billionaire. Gates has built a stellar portfolio with impressive results and achievements that brought him worldwide recognition and a cult-like status.

Biography of Bill Gates

Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1995, Bill Gates has demonstrated his love and undying passion for coding a tender age of just 13 years. He met his friend, Microsoft co-founder and another computer enthusiast Paul Allen at Lakeside School. Both boys dropped out of university to form a partnership called Micro-Soft. The two inventors were already keen to explore the potential of their innovations that promised to revolutionize personal computing, despite the company starting on a rather wobbly note, especially with financing.  They struggled particularly to save overheads from the royalties earned from their pioneer BASIC software platform, which was sold to operate in the Altair Computer produced by MITS Corporation. BASIC was pirated, reproduced, and redistributed for free, which seriously affected company’s revenues. Things got worse when relationships between MITS founder and Gates got worse and Ed Roberts sold the business, forcing the two entrepreneurs to get a court order to retain their contract with the company’s new owner and management. Lessons were learned, and the company continued to diversify its client base by developing software for other companies and computers.

Foundation of Microsoft

Gates relocated the company to Bellevue, Washington, and made its 25 employees work on all aspects of company's existence, from product development and business operations to marketing. With the young Bill Gates at the helm of the corporation, the company started making considerable headway towards remarkable profits, growth, and operational success. His near perfect blend of technological innovation, smart business positioning, and pragmatic business tactics made Microsoft stand out among other companies. He became the spokesperson for the company and implemented aggressive marketing campaign due to fierce competition and a growing number of new entrants into the industry. Rapid growth of the computer market led by IBM, as well as Apple and Intel spearheading the hardware development opened up new opportunities for Gates. 

Cooperation with IBM

In demonstration of sheer business acumen and ingenuity, Bill Gates secured a contract to provide operating systems for an upcoming IBM personal computer (PC), which changed the outlook of the company forever. What followed was a period of growth in operations, increasing number of products and services, expanding niche of specialty, higher revenue, and growing market, with strategic approach to go global in light of strong globalization tendencies in 1980’s. Soon afterwards, the company established its presence in new world markets with offices in commercial and technology capitals like London and Tokyo. At that time over 30 per cent of all the computers in the world were running on Microsoft software. A new business practice initiated by Gates, even after co-founder Paul Allen had left the company on medical grounds, implied cooperation with rival Apple to share insights into software development and hold joint ventures, keeping Microsoft relevant and aware of new ground breaking developments in the field.

Cooperation with Apple

Cooperation with Apple soon paid off and prompted the development of what later became the most outstanding innovation that has put Microsoft on the way to inevitable success -  the Microsoft Windows operating system. Microsoft Windows was a precursor to modern computing. It incorporated a graphic interface and diversified input devices to include a hand controlled mouse. The company was floated on New York Stock Exchange in 1986 with an IPO of 22 dollars a share. It is currently the third most precious brand in the world and is valued to be worth 290 billion.  As the company's outlook got better with the increase of its influence on computing and entrenchment of daily life and other spheres, the company split shares and grew rapidly. Bill Gates’ competitive nature created a demanding atmosphere of constant evaluation, drive, and improvement, while his intelligence and pragmatism enabled him to develop a dynamic corporate strategy and oversee all operational aspects of the company, helping it achieve profitability and pushing Bill Gates’ net worth to peak at 101 billion in 1999.

Philanthropic Activities

He married Melinda French in 1994 and the couple has three children. Together they embarked on philanthropic donations and in 2000 formed the prestigious personal charitable foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The same year he chose to step down from day to day operation of Microsoft to manage the foundation full time. Since then, the foundation has made considerable contribution to saving lives in the developing world by supporting research, interventions, and campaigns against Polio and Malaria. Other spheres of interest are education, research, and other scientific and social technology initiatives. These charities have had such a massive impact on the world that Bill Gates was named one of the most influential personalities in the 20th century by Times Magazine. He is also a multiple honorary degree holder  for his business achievements as well as philanthropy. Additionally, in 2005 Queen Elizabeth bestowed a title of honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire upon him. Moreover, the Mexican government awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle to Bill and Melinda for their social philanthropy around the world. Furthermore, US President Barack Obama recognized the couple’s efforts by awarding them the Medal of Freedom.

15 Interesting Facts about Bill Gates

It is clear that Bill Gates is a personality who has a huge impact on modern world. Let’s take a look at some interesting facts about the life and achievements of this larger than life personality:

1. Based on current global wealth index by country and Bill Gates’ net worth, he could join the list as the sixty second richest country in the world.
2. Despite wealth inheritance is the fastest and most practical way to become rich in the world today, Bill gates only intends to leave a maximum of $10 million of his vast estate as inheritance to his children, a tiny fraction of his entire colossal wealth.
3. Bill Gates didn't reach his target of becoming a millionaire by the age of 31, as by that age he was already a billionaire.
4. Another incorrect prediction by Bill Gates was that email spam will be completely obliterated by 2004. Email spam is seen in excessive amount even today.
5. Harvard University awarded Bill Gates an honorary degree in 2007, some 32 odd years after his unceremonious dropout of the institution to commit time to then newly founded Microsoft.
6. The stalwart has sad news for auditors, retail salespeople, telemarketers, and accountants, as he predicts their human resources will be completely replaced by robots and robotic technology in roughly 20 years.
7. Despite demonstrating mutual respect and understanding with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the Apple founder had a torrid relationship. Even through the former once deliberately kept the latter waiting for an entire hour out of hatred, Steve Jobs kept a letter from Bill by his bedside in his sickness and eventual death out of respect.
8. Bill Gates is an ardent fan of antique art and spent a whopping 30 million in 1994 to buy Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester.
9. Bill Gates was arrested for running a red light and driving without a license in New Mexico in 1997.
10. Bill Gates considers not knowing any other foreign language to be the greatest regret of his entire life.
11. Bill Gates made his first good money at the age of 17. It was a time-tabling computer system sold to his high school for 4200 dollars.
12. Bill Gates has spent a massive 26 billion dollars to charity.
13. Bill Gates would consider picking up a 100 dollar bill not worth the investment, as his over 80 billion fortune earns him a decent 6 per cent interest, which translates into a guarantee of slightly over 115 dollars every single second in a minute.
14. They say there is no such thing as perfection. On a lighter note, statistics shows that if every Microsoft Windows user claimed a dollar each time the interface hangs, Bill would go bankrupt in around three days!
15. Being an avid tweeter user, Bill Gates is only marginally active on Facebook, despite being close to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that out of control friend requests are the main reason for his limited presence on Facebook.