Bill Gates(1955 — ?)
Bill Gates
États-Unis
8 min read
Co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates revolutionized personal computing with the Windows operating system. Having become one of the wealthiest people in the world, he went on to dedicate himself to philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.»
« Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.»
Key Facts
- 1955: Born in Seattle, Washington
- 1975: Founded Microsoft with Paul Allen
- 1985: Launch of Windows 1.0
- 2000: Creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- 2008: Stepped back from operational leadership at Microsoft to focus on philanthropy
Works & Achievements
Licensed to IBM to power its PCs, MS-DOS became the most widely used software in the world during the 1980s. Its success established Microsoft's dominance over the computing industry.
Microsoft's first graphical interface, allowing users to click on icons rather than type text commands. It paved the way for computing accessible to the general public.
A productivity suite bundling word processing (Word), spreadsheet (Excel), and presentation (PowerPoint) software, Microsoft Office became the standard work tool for hundreds of millions of businesses and educational institutions.
The operating system that definitively standardized the graphical interface with the Start menu and taskbar. Its launch was a worldwide event, with queues forming outside stores on the night of its release.
A book in which Gates predicted with remarkable accuracy the rise of the internet, e-commerce, and digital communication. Translated into many languages, it became a global bestseller.
A philanthropic organization founded with his wife, today endowed with more than $50 billion. It works to combat poverty, infectious diseases (malaria, polio, tuberculosis), and to improve education.
A global partnership co-founded and largely funded by the Gates Foundation to vaccinate children in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of children have been vaccinated thanks to this initiative.
Anecdotes
At 13, Bill Gates discovered computing thanks to a computer terminal that his private school, Lakeside School in Seattle, had purchased with money raised from a used-clothing sale. He spent his nights programming, to the point where his teachers had to ban him from the machine so he would get some sleep.
In 1980, IBM was looking for an operating system for its upcoming personal computer. Gates didn't have one, but he quickly bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from a small Seattle company for $50,000, licensed it to IBM under the name MS-DOS, and kept the rights for himself. This business move turned out to be one of the most profitable decisions in corporate history.
In 1976, hobbyists were freely sharing the Altair BASIC software Gates had written. He responded by publishing an indignant open letter in several hacker newsletters, demanding that programmers be paid for their work. This text is considered the founding act of the commercial software industry.
Gates had a habit of memorizing his employees' license plates to track what time they arrived and left the office. He boasted that he could recognize every car, and openly challenged employees he felt were leaving too early.
Gates received an honorary degree from Harvard in 2007 — 32 years after dropping out — and delivered a speech in which he joked that he was probably the slowest student in the university's history to earn his diploma.
Primary Sources
As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? Is this fair?
Gates answered questions about Microsoft's strategy regarding the Netscape browser, contesting the terms used by prosecutors and asserting that Microsoft was only seeking to improve its products in the interest of consumers.
We are on the threshold of a revolution that will transform the way we work, learn, and communicate. The information highway will change our culture as profoundly as Gutenberg changed the medieval world.
If the world were just, we would not have to choose between treating wealthy patients and treating poor patients. But the world is not just. It is up to us to make it more just.
Our bet is that if poor countries can improve the health and education of their children, they will be able to break the cycle of poverty within a generation.
Key Places
Bill Gates's hometown, Seattle is also the birthplace of Microsoft. Gates grew up in a wealthy family there and returned after relocating the headquarters from Albuquerque.
A private school where Gates discovered computing at age 13 through a PDP-10 terminal. It was there that he met Paul Allen, who would later co-found Microsoft with him.
Gates enrolled there in 1973 to study law, but dropped out in 1975 to found Microsoft. He received an honorary degree in 2007, 32 years later.
The city where Microsoft was founded in 1975, chosen because Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), Gates's first client, was based there.
Microsoft's global headquarters since 1986, this campus of several dozen buildings housed thousands of engineers who developed Windows, Office, and the company's other flagship products.
A residential town on the shores of Lake Washington where Gates had his high-tech home built in the 1990s, nicknamed Xanadu 2.0. The house is equipped with computer systems that control lighting and temperature according to each visitor's preferences.
