Success Story of Bill Gates – A Life Filled with Successes
By: Ashwathy Nair
Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation and one of the world’s most prominent individuals, who was born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955. Bill Gates is one of the most inspiring figures in history, he has had a life packed with achievements. Have a look here and you will find everything that you’ve ever wanted to know about Bill Gates’ life and achievements!
Bill Gates is an American programmer, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist, co-founder of Microsoft: the premier software company in the world. With an estimated $90.6 billion in net worth, Gates is the world’s, second-richest man. But how did he shaped this wealth, and how did he tackle the obstacles to get there?
Bill Gates’ Early Life
Well, the guy comes from a fairly wealthy background so he doesn’t have a story that rags-to-rich one. Bill Gates had to work hard in order to become what he is today. His father was a prosperous attorney, while his mother was a school teacher who became a member of the First Interstate Bank Board of Directors. Gates was a brilliant student who performed exceptionally well in academics, especially in the subject, Mathematics.
At the early age of 13, a passion for computers and programming was developed by Bill Gates. He also got himself enrolled into a private preparatory school, the Lakeside School at the same age. While at school, seeing Gates’ flare in programming, the school administration decided to buy him a computer from the General Electric Company. The school administration allowed him to pursue his interest by excusing him from classes. Bill Gates, on the GEC machine, built his first ever computer program.
While at school, Bill Gates along with Paul Allen worked together in a system that belonged to Computer Center Corporation, to find bugs in it. Gates and Allen together with two other students wrote a payroll program for Information Sciences in exchange for computer time and royalties. This led the school to become fully aware of Gates’ talent.
In the early age, Gates and Allen continued to build software’s and Bill Gates sold software to optimize traffic for $20,000 in the age of 15. He developed another software, a few years later and earned $30,000 from it. And with this, he started his journey on the way to becoming a successful billionaire.
Setting up Microsoft Corporation
Bill Gates and Paul Allen, in 1975, co-founded a software company that was named as Micro-Soft. In the initial stage, the company was delivering small software products to different firms as they were not able to hire a sales manager. This process was done by Gates’ mother, Mary Maxwell.
Shortly thereafter, the company started to face financial crises that made Gates and Allen realize that Microsoft had dropped to the lowest affordable point. The issue was occurring mainly due to the usage of some pirated software. However, the two owners had the courage not to lose hope and as “Struggling is a Part of the Story”, both of them came up with the launch of MS-BASIC, which helped them in making a profit of $50,000.
In 1979, Microsoft was offered to develop a program by one of the American multinational tech company – IBM who launched (about to launch at that moment) the world’s first personal computer. Unfortunately, at that time, Microsoft didn’t have the resources to develop an Operating Software (OS), so it recommended another company to IBM for its OS.
Soon after a few months, an OS system named ’86-DOS’ was bought by Microsoft and started to enhance it regularly on a wide scale that resulted in the launch of ‘MS-DOS’. Directly after the launch, Microsoft offered IBM to use MS-DOS for their first-ever personal computer that they were about to launch as the key OS. IBM accepted the proposal immediately and Microsoft was able to see-off Digital Research competition-the company Gates and Allen had suggested IBM for developing their OS.
A contract between Microsoft and IBM was signed in 1980 and Microsoft became Microsoft Corporation within a year.
The first-ever personal computer was launched by IBM with MS-DOS along with other Microsoft products like MS-BASIC, MS-COBOL, MS-PASCAL, etc. The company founded by Bill Gates started to pour accomplishments which included the creation of the first mouse for personal computer, and development of the Windows Operating System.
The first Windows OS that got launched was Windows NT, then over the next few years, a series of Windows were followed, including the launch of Window 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Ever since Microsoft has been growing. Microsoft has expanded its product from Window OS, Microsoft Office Suites, Office 365, Xbox, Bing, and Hotmail, it goes on.
Currently
Everything began with the first idea, Microsoft is keeping on dominating the software market. Bill Gates has been successful in keeping up with the pace of change, which led Microsoft to remain #1 software company in the world.
For a few years now, there has been no involvement of Gates in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft. Most of the time has been dedicated to philanthropy and community projects. He has co-founded many foundations, one of them is The Giving Pledge, which is a foundation that focuses on encouraging wealthy people to contribute their majority of wealth towards Philanthropic Causes. More than 80 per cent of Bill Gates’ wealth is pledged to the charity upon death.
Philanthropy
- William H. Gates Foundation
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Gates centre for Computer Science
- Giving Pledge, and more.
Bill Gates is an inspiration to many, there are numerous things to be learnt from his life and success story of Bill Gates, which includes being focused on your goals and to persistently pursue them.
