Bill Gates

WHY IS BILL GATES FAMOUS?

Bill Gates was one of the most influential computer

magnates of the 20th century, with his company,
Microsoft, helping create the world’s most popular PC
operating system as well as a wide array of popular
workplace software programs. Today, he is head of the
world’s largest charity.

WHEN DID BILL GATES LIVE?

William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 in

Seattle, Washington. Today he lives in the nearby suburb
of Medina, Washington.

WHAT DID BILL GATES DO?

Born to an upper-middle class Seattle family, Gates was

exposed to computers as a teenager and quickly became
a skilled programmer. In 1975, at the age of 19, he and
best friend Paul Allen (b. 1954) founded Microsoft, a
company devoted to making computer technology more user-friendly for ordinary
Americans. In 1975, Allen and Gates developed and sold their first “personal computer”
(PC) operating system, Altair BASIC, which was followed by MS-DOS in 1981, and then
the graphic-based Windows in 1983.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Microsoft’s operating systems quickly became the
preferred choice among America’s largest PC distributors,
including IBM, Dell, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard. As the years progressed,
Microsoft developed a number of popular software programs as well, including the
spreadsheet-maker Excel (1985), the word processor Word (1989), the web
browser Internet Explorer (1995), and the email client Outlook (1997). Controversially,
many of these programs came automatically packaged with Microsoft’s operating
system, and throughout much of the 1990s, Gates was repeatedly sued for breaking
American monopoly laws — though few suits were successful. As personal computers
became a common sight in more American homes Gates became progressively richer,
and in 1995 officially become the world’s wealthiest man. Gates was a strong critic of
piracy and believed his software should always be purchased, rather than shared or
distributed for free. This philosophy was always controversial, and became increasingly
contested by Microsoft’s competitors in the early 2000s,
particularly Google and Facebook, when free, Internet-based alternatives to programs
like Internet Explorer and Outlook became more popular. In 2000, Gates retired as
Microsoft’s CEO, and abandoned most of his remaining corporate responsibilities in
2008. Today he spends much of his time working as the president of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, a charity devoted to using Gates’ enormous fortune to help the
world’s needy find creative solutions to problems like disease and education.

WHAT IS BILL GATES LIKE?

Bill Gates has long been one of America’s most polarizing figures, with the popularity of
his products often overshadowed by his intensely competitive and cutthroat
business strategies. A brilliant businessman but a cold, demanding, and sometimes
cruel boss, Gates’ success at Microsoft is often credited to the harsh tactics he used to
intimidate both competitor and employee alike. Hidden behind a soft-spoken, nerdy
appearance, Gates is said to be quite intense in person, and an extremely pushy,
intimidating, confrontational manager prone to bullying relentlessly until he gets what he
wants. A workaholic, he seems to have a knack for frustrating or exhausting people who
don’t share his energy.

Gates’ corporate philosophy earned many critics; among those who champion the cause
of free, “open-source” software, he’s often seen as a greedy tyrant, someone who
profited greatly from technology he perfected, but rarely invented — yet still jealously
protected. Since his departure from Microsoft, however, Gates’ public image has
improved greatly, and it’s possible his historic reputation will be defined as much by his
charitable giving as his time at Microsoft. Today, he is a common sight on television talk
shows and the public speaking circuit making a passionate, and often witty, case for
causes he believes in — a far cry from his corporate days in which he was considerably
more reclusive.Unlike other multi-billionaires, Gates is not known for having an overly
lavish lifestyle, and is actually said to be quite frugal, reflected by his famously shabby
clothes and hair. His grandest luxuries are a $100-million, specially designed,
technology-infused state-of-the-art mansion — which has never been photographed —
and a collection of ultra-fast racing cars. In 2021 he and his longtime wife and charity
partner Melinda Gates (b. 1964) shocked the world with news they were getting
divorced.