essay for school

Chapter 2
in this chapter, titled luck & risk, we learn about bill
gates, and how he got rich. Bill Gates originally went to
Lakeside school, which was, at the time, the only high school
that had a computer. in fact, how the school even got the
computer is even more interesting. Bill Dougall, a WW2 navy
pilot/science and math teacher, believed that studying with
books wasnt sufficient without real world knowledge. (most of
this was recalled by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.)
In the 1960s Dougall asked the Lakeside School Mother's Club
to use the $3000 from its "annual rummage sale" to lease a
Teletype Model 30 computer for computer time-sharing.

Bill Gates was 13 years old (1968) when he met his classmate
Paul Allen, who where both obsessed over the school’s
computer. the computer wasnt part of any curriculum, really.
it was an independent study program. Bill and Paul toyed
around with the computer, slowly becoming experts in
computing. In one of their midnight sessions, Paul remembers
Bill showing him a “Fortune” magazine and asking, “what do you
think it would be like to run a Fortune 500 company?” Paul
said he had no idea. “maybe we’ll have our own computer
company someday,” Bill said. Microsoft is now worth 1.8
trillion dollars.

Bill Gates was one in a billion high school age students that
attended Lakeside High that had the combination of cash and
anticipation to buy a computer. Bill’s friend Kent Evans
experienced a similar amount of risk, luck’s older brother.
Kent was as skilled as Bill and Paul. once Lakeside was
struggling putting together the schools class schedule, so
they got Bill and Kent-both techincally kids- to build
software to automate the task.

Kent, unlike Paul, shared Bill’s buisness mind. they where

always planning on what they would become 5 to 6 years in the
future. would they become CEOs? what impact would there be?
Kent however, didnt become a member of the founding team at
Microsoft. He sadly passed away in a mountaineering accident,
before he even graduated.

Bill had once-in-a-million luck, while Kent had once-in-a-

million risk. “The same force, the same magnitude, working in
opposite
directions.“

some years ago, the author, Morgan Housel, asked the famous
economist Robert Shiller this question: “What do you want to
know about investing that we can’t know?” Robert responded:
“The exact role of luck in successful outcomes.”

as an example, imagine if you have a job as a salesman, and

you need to find a new place to work. there are multiple
risks you must take in order to get a job at those places,
but you also need a fair bit of luck.

cornelious vanderbilt has just finished signing a bunch of

buisness deals for his railroad empire.

however, one of his partners tells him that each of those

buisness deals are illegal. “my god” vanderbilt says, “You
don’t suppose you can run a railroad in accordance with the
statutes of the State of New York, do you?”

vanderbilt says “to hell with it!” and just keeps on chugging
along, almost anticipating the risk. but it can be seen
another way: a young buisness man is sued for trying to do
illegal things with his railroad buisness.