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Bill Gates Essay | Essay on Bill Gates for Students and Children in English

February 12, 2024 by sastry

Bill Gates Essay: Everyone wants to be in the shoes of the richest man in the world, whose wealth at one point of time was more than $100 billion!

He has been characterised as the quintessential example of a super-intelligent human being with immense power and wealth. Every minute, every second when you are on your PC, he guides you. Almost Every computer in the world comes with his software pre-installed! With this hint, surely, you can gauge the fact that we are talking about Microsoft and the brain behind it—Bill Gates. – The Billionaire with a ‘Big’ Heart

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Long and Short Essays on Bill Gates for Kids and Students in English

Given below are two essays in English for students and children about the topic of ‘Bill Gates’ in both long and short form. The first essay is a long essay on the Bill Gates of 400-500 words. This long essay about Bill Gates is suitable for students of class 7, 8, 9 and 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants. The second essay is a short essay on Bill Gates of 150-200 words. These are suitable for students and children in class 6 and below.

Long Essay on Bill Gates 500 Words in English

Below we have given a long essay on Bill Gates of 500 words is helpful for classes 7, 8, 9 and 10 and Competitive Exam Aspirants. This long essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 7 to class 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants.

“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it’s more important to heed the lessons of failure.”

His was not a ‘rags-to-riches’ story, but a ‘riches-to-riches’ one. The noteworthy thing is that his parents’ wealth didn’t make him complacent.

The American entrepreneur, philanthropist and the Chairman of Microsoft, was born on 28th October, 1955 into a wealthy Seattle family. His father was a prominent attorney and mother, a bank board member. A story goes that, at his birth, his father set-up a million-dollar fund for him. But, Gates denied it. But one thing that is for sure, is that he had the best of education, including 3 years at Harvard.

As a student, Gates excelled in elementary school, particularly in Mathematics and Sciences. At 13, he was enrolled in the Lakeside School, Seattle’s most exclusive preparatory school. When he was in the eighth grade, the school mothers used proceeds’ from Lakeside’s rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time in a General Electric Computer. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from Maths classes to pursue his interest. After the Mothers’ Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on other systems, including DEC PDP minicomputer. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Centre Corporation, which banned the Lakeside students for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.

At the end of the ban, the Lakeside students offered to find bugs in CCC’s software in Exchange for free computer time. Gates went to CCC’s offices and studied source code for various programmes that ran on the system, not only in BASIC but FORTRAN, LISP and machine language as well. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1 970, then it went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences Inc. hired the Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them not only computer time but royalties as well. At the age of 14, Gates was dexterous enough to form a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on Intel 8.008 processor. That first year, he made $ 20,000, however, when his age was found out, business slowed down.

Since beginning, Bill Gates was on the lookout for opportunities. So, after reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8,800, Gates contacted MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), the creators of the new microcomputer. He informed them that he and others were working on a

BASIC interpreter for the platform. MITS President, Ed Roberts, agreed to meet them for a demo and when Gates demonstrated his work, it was a success.

Paul Allen, Gates’ intimate friend was hired into MITS, and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS, dubbing their partnership ‘Micro-Soft’ in November, 1975. Within a year, the hyphen was dropped and on 26th November, 1976, the trade name “Microsoft” was registered. Microsoft became 1 independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.

Bill Gates Essay

Short Essay on Bill Gates 200 Words in English

Below we have given a short essay on Bill Gates is for Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This short essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 6 and below.

In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to make the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal computer, IBM PC. Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system. After adapting the operating system for PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS. As several companies reverse-engineered the IBM architecture and developed clones, Microsoft was quick to license DOS to other manufacturers, calling it MS-DOS. Keeping pace with time, in the early 1980s, Microsoft released ‘Windows’ as an addition and alternative to their DOS command line, and to compete with other systems in the market. By the early 1 990s, Windows had pushed other DOS-based systems out of the market. The release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 was a tremendous success, selling around 10 million copies in the first two years and cementing Microsoft’s dominance in operating systems’ sales. It gradually became the largest software company in the world.

A portion of Gates popularity can be attributed to his wife Melinda. It is due to her philanthropic mindset, that Gates came out to participate in the ‘real’ world. It was their combined effort that made Warren Buffett channelise much of his fortune to their social welfare institute, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the time of its inception, Gates ‘gifted’ $106 million. It provides scholarships to needy, and efforts are directed for the control of AIDS, polio, diphtheria, measles and yellow fever. It gives away at least 5% of its assets each year, in order to continue as a charitable organisation.

Gates has been continuing to drive the world with his genius. ‘Forbes’ magazine’s list of the ‘The World’s Billionaires’ has ranked him as the richest person in the world l since 1 995, and recent estimates put his net worth near $ 56 billion. But the Gates Foundation and his social work will make us remember him for more than just his business empire. He will inspire us to steadily move towards our higher goals, for he rightly said :

“If you are born poor, it’s not your mistake. But if you die poor, it’s your mistake.”

Bill Gates Essay Word Meanings for Simple Understanding

  • Quintessential – of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of something
  • Gauge – to appraise, estimate or judge
  • Complacent – pleased, especially with oneself or one’s merits, disadvantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect, self-satisfied
  • Philanthropist – a person who practices philanthropy
  • Exclusive – fashionable, stylish, expensive
  • Royalties – payments received by an owner of real property for allowing someone to use it.
  • Rummage – miscellaneous articles
  • Dexterous – having mental skill or adroitness, clever
  • Telemetry – the wireless transmission and reception of measured quantities for the purpose of
  • Remotely monitoring environmental conditions or equipment parameters
  • Inception – beginning, start, commencement
  • Seadily – regularly, continuously
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Bill Gates: Life and Contributions Essay (Biography)

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Bill Gates early life

Bill gates’ donations to africa, educational improvements in the united states, the value of the project, works cited.

Bill Gates is a philanthropist American who was born in 1955. His father, William H. Gates, his mother, Mary Maxwell, and his two sisters, Kristianne and Libby, were great people, who provided him with a suitable atmosphere for exploration. Although the three children strived for excellence, Bill Gates proved to be more brilliant than his sisters were, and he began outshining them in education.

Bill Gates studied at Lakeside school, which was lucky enough to be a beneficiary of a Settle computer company that offered computer classes. The computers marked a new beginning for his career, as Bill Gates spent adequate time working at the computer terminal in his school (Lenkowsky 18).

At the age of 13, he was already doing some elementary computer programming, and he became friends with Paul Allen, who was also interested in programming. The two would spend their free time generating programs, and occasionally, they hacked computer programs to obtain free computer time.

This was very selfish of the two boys, and before long, the computer providers barred their school from using the computers. However, only the mischievous boys could debug the program; therefore, they offered to do it as they generated some useful programs for the affected institutions.

Gates and Allen went into business in 1970, and they earned $20000 for developing a computer program to monitor traffic in Settle. The achievement triggered them to begin their company immediately, but they had to go to university to fulfill the dreams of their parents.

Bill Gates joined Harvard University to study and become a lawyer as his parents wished, but the literary spent more time in the computer lab than he did in class. Fortunately, Bill Gates was a quick learner, who could take some few minutes to study the class notes and outperform his classmates in tests.

On the other hand, Bill Gates’ ally, Paul Allen, joined the Washington State University, but he cut off his stay at the university to follow his passion. He started working for Honeywell Company, and before long, Bill Gates also terminated his studies to join him at the workplace. After learning about an Altair 8800 mini-computer kit, the two boys had wild thoughts of what a computer was capable of doing.

They immediately contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the company that had made the computer Altair. Although they did not have the simplest idea about the Altair, they declared to be working on a program that would run the Altair computer.

Ed Roberts, the president of MITS at that time, believed in the boys, and he ordered them to go ahead and present a demonstration of the program. Although the boys had never operated an Altair, they scrambled to formulate the software, and fortunately, the trial software worked perfectly. MITS hired Gates and Allan to work for the company, and by 1975, the two had already formed a partnership called Microsoft.

In less than a year, the Microsoft Company was blossoming, and Bill Gates became the Chief Executive Officer (Lenkowsky 16). At first, the company distributed its software free, but later on, Microsoft retained the rights for the software that they developed.

Within no time, the company had employed 25 people, who could develop programs and market them to facilitate the success of the company. Microsoft’s growth exploded, where, the number of staffs increased, the revenue shoot, and the founders resolved to incorporate the company.

Bill Gates attributes his philanthropic efforts to his wife, Melinda Gates, and his mother Mary Maxwell. Since Mary Maxwell was a civic leader, Melinda easily influenced Bill Gates to consider giving part of his wealth to charity. To have a clear indication of what the other part of the world needed, the couple toured Africa in 1995, and they resolved to donate part of their wealth to help the poor Africans.

Their tour revealed that poor health, hunger, and poor technological infrastructure were the core problems that Africans encountered. Therefore, the couple resolved to work towards improving the health, agriculture, and innovation infrastructure in Africa.

Bill Gates and his wife reassessed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to incorporate Africans into being beneficiaries of the program that aimed at supporting education, improving health, and helping poor communities across the globe (Gates 6).

GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is a group that aims at saving children’s lives and protecting the health of people living in poor countries. The group achieves its mission by providing immunization and increasing healthcare accessibility in Africa. Poor sanitation in overtly populated slums increases the possibility of spreading diseases, and due to the lack of simple medical procedures, countless African children die frequently.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $957 million to GAVI Alliance to support its operations. The foundation is committed to supporting GAVI Alliance as long as it exists to help the poor Africans. So far, the foundation is delighted, as the prevalence of diseases like polio and measles have reduced significantly in Africa.

The World Child Health Care program also gives tributes to Bill Gates for his continued support for the program that vaccinates children against poverty-related illnesses. Bill Gates’ donations to international AIDS Vaccine Initiative play a great role in ensuring that there are efficient HIV vaccines globally.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is an organization that aims at improving seeds and soil for African farmers. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated more than $264.5 million towards the success of the program (Gates 15). This program might be helpful in enabling Africa to sustain its rapid population growth through the adoption of modern agricultural practices instead of traditional ones.

Moreover, Bill Gates donated $25.5 million to Heifer International, a project that aims at linking farmers, processors, distributors, and consumers. The project works towards protecting the farmers from molestation and improving food security in East Africa.

Currently, the foundation’s efforts in supporting agriculture have proved to offer the greatest opportunity in Africa. New farming technologies are on the rise in Africa, and in the near future, millions of farmers in Africa will earn a better living through improved agricultural practices.

Bill and Melinda have often funded ideas that help students and teachers to improve their learning activities. Bill Gates donated $1.7 million to the UN Population Fund for developing states to facilitate their programs in poor nations. The program promotes computer technology, and the beneficiaries of the program are infinite.

Funds set aside to introduce the life-saving and life-enhancing technologies that were absent in Africa have enabled well-trained health workers to handle their role professionally. Currently, millions of Africans are transiting from poverty into enhanced lifestyles due to improved education, enhanced healthcare, and superior technology achieved from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s donations.

Bill Gates identified a loophole in the education system in the United States, and he resolved to fill it. He discovered that many American classrooms had some deficits in achieving the goal of producing students with a great future. Bill Gates found out that reviewing the teacher evaluation and improvements systems would play a great role in improving education in the United States (Stevenson 241).

Although some teachers would receive negative feedbacks because of the poor performance of their students, Bill Gates discovered that education is a unique experience for every student. Latinos and African Americans, for example, are disadvantaged people, who have a lower ability to grasp things as compared to pure Americans.

Moreover, inappropriate learning environments contribute to the students’ inability to obtain maximum benefits from their teachers. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) did some excellent job in addressing the problem by supporting the opening of small schools, which reduced the student-to-teacher ratio significantly towards the benefit of the students (Hill 46).

The program to open smaller schools than the existing ones facilitated the division of overtly populated schools and the education sector is experiencing positive results from it. According to Bill Gates, the right student-to-teacher ratio in schools eases the process of including multiple measures in evaluating the performance of teachers.

Bill Gates has always insisted on technology as the key aspect of improving education it the United States. He has employed major efforts to ensure that students can access computer education with ease. Bill Gates assures the ministry of education that new technological innovations can enable instructors to teach the most difficult concepts enjoyably.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found it worthwhile to support Game Science at the University of Washington to enable students to understand the concept of refraction. Moreover, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation constantly funds higher learning education institutions to construct information science buildings. Cornell University was lucky enough to be one of the beneficiaries of the Gates Foundation.

The university received about $60 million to construct an information science building, and it named the building after the funders.

The Gates Tower in Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an information technology center that the Gates Foundation funded, and Carnegie Mellon University received $20 million to construct the Gates Centre for Computer sciences (Gates 19). The information science buildings would offer students the chance to interact with computers and make new inventions and innovations.

The other approach that Bill Gates has used to improve education in the United States is developing ways to reach students who encounter challenges and frustrations while struggling to achieve their dreams. It is noteworthy that poverty is one of the greatest challenges that students from unprivileged families encounter. Bill Gates has employed various approaches to address the needs of the poor through the D.C. Achievers Scholarships.

In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spent $122 million to sponsor poor Columbian students to go to college (Gates 21). Through the Gates Cambridge Scholarships, Gates is able to support brilliant students to pursue the courses of their choice at Cambridge University.

Bill Gates also reaches the high achieving minority students through the Gates Millennium Scholars program. Therefore, poor and brilliant students can always win scholarships in at least one of the programs.

This project is very important to me, as it reveals that heroism is more than giving the surplus monies that one has to the community; it is sacrificing and giving beyond people’s expectations (Byrne et al. 82). Bill Gates happens to be a person who has inspired me throughout his life, where, his early life is a great revelation that I cannot just sit down and wait for miracles to happen.

Bill Gates’ early life is extraordinary, as his adventurous trait enabled him to achieve his dream. The incidence of Paul Allen and Bill Gates hacking a computer program to obtain free computer time is a clear indication that aggressive people have to find all ways and means to obtain what they want. The early life of the philanthropic man plays a great role in inspiring and motivating my academic learning.

Although he spent most of his time in the computer lab while in college, he still scored highly in his exams to impress his parents, who wanted him to become a lawyer. This scenario encourages me to work hard and have exceptional performance in spite of the numerous extracurricular activities that I may be attending to while in school.

The boldness that the two had to convince MITS’s manager that they were working on a program to run the Altair computer drives my cowardice away. The entrepreneurship traits that enabled him to establish and manage the Microsoft Company at a tender age inspire me to conclude that I am the manager of my own life. I believe that I can do much more than people expect of me, as long as I strongly believe in myself.

Bill Gates was such a selfless man, who was able to entrust his college friend, Steve Ballmer, to lead the Microsoft Company while he concentrated in his philanthropic work. Very few people can take such a risk, and that is the major reason as to why this project is important to me. Bill Gates sacrificed his lucrative career for the sake of the helpless people in the world.

He took a tour to Africa, and his sympathetic trait triggered him to donate billions of dollars to charity. The entire scenario inspires me to reconsider every step that I take in life.

I am obligated to ensure that my deeds are beneficial to at least one person, and I intend to keep on stretching a helping hand to the needy according to my ability. Although I may not be as rich as Bill Gates is, I believe that every simple act of generosity will help someone in one way or another.

The most insinuating thing about Bill Gates is that in spite of his numerous grants to charity organizations, he is still one of the richest men in the world. I can, therefore, attest that giving does not make one poor, but it helps in replenishing the sources of income. The philanthropic life of Bill Gates is very important, as it obligates me to work hard, learn from my mistakes, and never give up in anything.

I always feel obligated to give back to the community instead of living luxuriously while other people are suffering. Indeed, I value the entire project as it enables me to streamline my lifestyle and be an ambitious person, who will help in saving people’s lives in the future.

Byrne, John, Julia Cosgrove, Brian Hindo and Adam Dayan. “The New Face of Philanthropy.” Business Week 38.9 (2002): 82. Print.

Gates, Bill. “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: 2012.” African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition & Development 11.7 (2011): 1-25. Print.

Hill, Paul. “Bill and Melinda Gates Shift from Computers in Libraries to Reform in High Schools.” Education Next 6.1 (2006): 44-51. Print.

Lenkowsky, Leslie. “Will Bill Gates Become One Of History’s Great Philanthropists?” Chronicle of Philanthropy 18.1 (2006): 16-19. Print.

Stevenson, Siobhan. “The Political Economy of Andrew Carnegie’s Library Philanthropy, With a Reflection on Its Relevance to the Philanthropic Work of Bill Gates.” Library & Information History 26.4 (2010): 237-257. Print.

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Bill Gates: Here's My Plan to Improve Our World -- And How You Can Help

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But like anyone with a mild obsession, I think mine is entirely justified. Two out of every five people on Earth today owe their lives to the higher crop outputs that fertilizer has made possible. It helped fuel the Green Revolution, an explosion of agricultural productivity that lifted hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty.

These days I get to spend a lot of time trying to advance innovation that improves people's lives in the same way that fertilizer did. Let me reiterate this: A full 40 percent of Earth's population is alive today because, in 1909, a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to make synthetic ammonia. Another example: Polio cases are down more than 99 percent in the past 25 years, not because the disease is going away on its own but because Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk invented polio vaccines and the world rolled out a massive effort to deliver them.

Thanks to inventions like these, life has steadily gotten better. It can be easy to conclude otherwise—as I write this essay, more than 100,000 people have died in a civil war in Syria, and big problems like climate change are bearing down on us with no simple solution in sight. But if you take the long view, by almost any measure of progress we are living in history's greatest era. Wars are becoming less frequent. Life expectancy has more than doubled in the past century. More children than ever are going to primary school. The world is better than it has ever been.

bill gates essay english

But it is still not as good as we wish. If we want to accelerate progress, we need to actively pursue the same kind of breakthroughs achieved by Haber, Sabin, and Salk. It's a simple fact: Innovation makes the world better—and more innovation equals faster progress. That belief drives the work my wife, Melinda, and I are doing through our foundation.

We went on a Safari to see wild animals but ended up getting our first sustained look at extreme poverty. We were shocked.

Of course, not all innovation is the same. We want to give our wealth back to society in a way that has the most impact, and so we look for opportunities to invest for the largest returns. That means tackling the world's biggest problems and funding the most likely solutions. That's an even greater challenge than it sounds. I don't have a magic formula for prioritizing the world's problems. You could make a good case for poverty, disease, hunger, war, poor education, bad governance, political instability, weak trade, or mistreatment of women. Melinda and I have focused on poverty and disease globally, and on education in the US. We picked those issues by starting with an idea we learned from our parents: Everyone's life has equal value. If you begin with that premise, you quickly see where the world acts as though some lives aren't worth as much as others. That's where you can make the greatest difference, where every dollar you spend is liable to have the greatest impact.

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I have known since my early thirties that I was going to give my wealth back to society. The success of Microsoft provided me with an enormous fortune, and I felt responsible for using it in a thoughtful way. I had read a lot about how governments underinvest in basic scientific research. I thought, that's a big mistake. If we don't give scientists the room to deepen our fundamental understanding of the world, we won't provide a basis for the next generation of innovations. I figured, therefore, that I could help the most by creating an institute where the best minds would come to do research.

bill gates essay english

There's no single lightbulb moment when I changed my mind about that, but I tend to trace it back to a trip Melinda and I took to Africa in 1993. We went on a safari to see wild animals but ended up getting our first sustained look at extreme poverty. I remember peering out a car window at a long line of women walking down the road with big jerricans of water on their heads. How far away do these women live? we wondered. Who's watching their children while they're away?

That was the beginning of our education in the problems of the world's poorest people. In 1996 my father sent us a New York Times article about the million children who were dying every year from rotavirus, a disease that doesn't kill kids in rich countries. A friend gave me a copy of a World Development Report from the World Bank that spelled out in detail the problems with childhood diseases.

Melinda and I were shocked that more wasn't being done. Although rich-world governments were quietly giving aid, few foundations were doing much. Corporations weren't working on vaccines or drugs for diseases that affected primarily the poor. Newspapers didn't write a lot about these children's deaths.

This realization led me to rethink some of my assumptions about how the world improves. I am a devout fan of capitalism. It is the best system ever devised for making self-interest serve the wider interest. This system is responsible for many of the great advances that have improved the lives of billions—from airplanes to air-conditioning to computers.

But capitalism alone can't address the needs of the very poor. This means market-driven innovation can actually widen the gap between rich and poor. I saw firsthand just how wide that gap was when I visited a slum in Durban, South Africa, in 2009. Seeing the open-pit latrine there was a humbling reminder of just how much I take modern plumbing for granted. Meanwhile, 2.5 billion people worldwide don't have access to proper sanitation, a problem that contributes to the deaths of 1.5 million children a year.

Governments don't do enough to drive innovation either. Although aid from the rich world saves a lot of lives, governments habitually underinvest in research and development, especially for the poor. For one thing, they're averse to risk, given the eagerness of political opponents to exploit failures, so they have a hard time giving money to a bunch of innovators with the knowledge that many of them will fail.

By the late 1990s, I had dropped the idea of starting an institute for basic research. Instead I began seeking out other areas where business and government underinvest. Together Melinda and I found a few areas that cried out for philanthropy—in particular for what I have called catalytic philanthropy.

I have been sharing my idea of catalytic philanthropy for a while now. It works a lot like the private markets: You invest for big returns. But there's a big difference. In philanthropy, the investor doesn't need to get any of the benefit. We take a double-pronged approach: (1) Narrow the gap so that advances for the rich world reach the poor world faster, and (2) turn more of the world's IQ toward devising solutions to problems that only people in the poor world face. Of course, this comes with its own challenges. You're working in a global economy worth tens of trillions of dollars, so any philanthropic effort is relatively small. If you want to have a big impact, you need a leverage point—a way to put in a dollar of funding or an hour of effort and benefit society by a hundred or a thousand times as much.

One way you can find that leverage point is to look for a problem that markets and governments aren't paying much attention to. That's what Melinda and I did when we saw how little notice global health got in the mid-1990s. Children were dying of measles for lack of a vaccine that cost less than 25 cents, which meant there was a big opportunity to save a lot of lives relatively cheaply. The same was true of malaria. When we made our first big grant for malaria research, it nearly doubled the amount of money spent on the disease worldwide—not because our grant was so big, but because malaria research was so underfunded.

But you don't necessarily need to find a problem that's been missed. You can also discover a strategy that has been overlooked. Take our foundation's work in education. Government spends huge sums on schools. The state of California alone budgets roughly $68 billion annually for K-12, more than 100 times what our foundation spends in the entire United States. How could we have an impact on an area where the government spends so much?

We looked for a new approach. To me one of the great tragedies of our education system is that teachers get so little help identifying and learning from those who are most effective. As we talked with instructors about what they needed, it became clear that a smart application of technology could make a big difference. Teachers should be able to watch videos of the best educators in action. And if they want, they should be able to record themselves in the classroom and then review the video with a coach. This was an approach that others had missed. So now we're working with teachers and several school districts around the country to set up systems that give teachers the feedback and support they deserve.

The goal in much of what we do is to provide seed funding for various ideas. Some will fail. We fill a function that government cannot—making a lot of risky bets with the expectation that at least a few of them will succeed. At that point, governments and other backers can help scale up the successful ones, a much more comfortable role for them.

We work to draw in not just governments but also businesses, because that's where most innovation comes from. I've heard some people describe the economy of the future as "post-corporatist and post-capitalist"—one in which large corporations crumble and all innovation happens from the bottom up. What nonsense. People who say things like that never have a convincing explanation for who will make drugs or low-cost carbon-free energy. Catalytic philanthropy doesn't replace businesses. It helps more of their innovations benefit the poor.

Look at what happened to agriculture in the 20th century. For decades, scientists worked to develop hardier crops. But those advances mostly benefited the rich world, leaving the poor behind. Then in the middle of the century, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations stepped in. They funded Norman Borlaug's research on new strains of high-yielding wheat, which sparked the Green Revolution. (As Borlaug said, fertilizer was the fuel that powered the forward thrust of the Green Revolution, but these new crops were the catalysts that sparked it.) No private company had any interest in funding Borlaug. There was no profit in it. But today all the people who have escaped poverty represent a huge market opportunity—and now companies are flocking to serve them.

Or take a more recent example: the advent of Big Data. It's indisputable that the availability of massive amounts of information will revolutionize US health care, manufac­turing, retail, and more. But it can also benefit the poorest 2 billion. Right now researchers are using satellite images to study soil health and help poor farmers plan their harvests more efficiently. We need a lot more of this kind of innovation. Otherwise, Big Data will be a big wasted opportunity to reduce inequity.

People often ask me, "What can I do? How can I help?"

Rich-world governments need to maintain or even increase foreign aid, which has saved millions of lives and helped many more people lift themselves out of poverty. It helps when policymakers hear from voters, especially in tough economic times, when they're looking for ways to cut budgets. I hope people let their representatives know that aid works and that they care about saving lives. Bono's group ONE.org is a great channel for getting your voice heard.

Companies—especially those in the technology sector—can dedicate a percentage of their top innovators' time to issues that could help people who've been left out of the global economy or deprived of opportunity here in the US. If you write great code or are an expert in genomics or know how to develop new seeds, I'd encourage you to learn more about the problems of the poorest and see how you can help.

At heart I'm an optimist. Technology is helping us overcome our biggest challenges. Just as important, it's also bringing the world closer together. Today we can sit at our desks and see people thousands of miles away in real time. I think this helps explain the growing interest young people today have in global health and poverty. It's getting harder and harder for those of us in the rich world to ignore poverty and suffering, even if it's happening half a planet away.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings. In the end, that combination—the advances of science together with our emerging global conscience—may be the most powerful tool we have for improving the world.

Think Globally, Act Massively

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on catalytic philanthropy—invest­ments that can yield massive returns. That means finding areas where governments and private businesses aren’t innovating. Here are some of the founda­tion’s major activities over the past 15 years.

Pledged $750 million to help set up the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immuniza­tion (now the GAVI Alliance), supported by leading members of the world health community and experts in international childhood diseases.

Gave $50 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

bill gates essay english

Launched the Gates Millennium Scholars program to provide 1,000 low-income and minority students a year with scholarships and support for select advanced degrees at any college or university.

Officially established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a focus on health, education, and libraries.

Pledged $100 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculo­sis, and Malaria—the first of $1.4 billion in commitments to an organization that has helped save more than 9 million lives.

Announced the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative to fund research that promises to greatly advance work against diseases that disproportionately affect people in the developing world.

bill gates essay english

Created Agricultural Development, beginning with a $150 million joint investment with the Rockefeller Foundation, to establish the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which helps lift poor farmers out of poverty.

bill gates essay english

Launched the Measures of Effective Teaching Project with 3,000 participating teachers to create better feedback and development systems for educators.

bill gates essay english

Called on the global health community to declare this the Decade of Vaccines, with the goal of saving more than 20 million lives by 2020; pledged $10 billion to help develop and deliver vaccines.

Launched the Next Generation Learning Challenges to push innovation that promotes personalized student learning.

bill gates essay english

Hosted the GAVI Alliance pledging conference, which raised $4.3 billion from governments, philan­thropists, and the private sector to help immunize nearly 250 million of the world’s poorest children by 2015.

bill gates essay english

Offered a $42 million reward for the invention of a toilet that can provide safe, affordable sanitation to the developing world while processing the waste into reusable energy, fertilizer, and fresh water.

Joined 13 pharmaceutical companies, the US, UK, and UAE governments, the World Bank, and various global health organizations in a coordinated push to eliminate or control 10 neglected tropical diseases by the end of 2020.

bill gates essay english

Melinda Gates chaired the Landmark London Summit on Family Planning, which united global leaders to provide 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries with access to contraceptives by 2020.

Supported a six-year, $5.5 billion effort to eradicate polio by 2018.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Polestar?

Recent and archived work by Bill Gates for The New York Times

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Bill Gates: How I Invest My Money in a Warming World

Rich individuals, companies and countries must ensure green technologies are affordable for everyone, everywhere.

By Bill Gates

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Bill Gates: ‘I Worry We’re Making the Same Mistakes Again’

“We can’t afford to get caught flat-footed again.”

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Bill Gates: We’re on the Verge of a Remarkable Moment for Congress and the Country

The Inflation Reduction Act may be the single most important piece of climate legislation in American history.

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Bill Gates: How to Develop Life-Saving Drugs Much Faster

We need to accelerate our work on safe medicines that help combat quick-spreading pathogens like the coronavirus.

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How Does Bill Gates Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis?

In “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” the billionaire Microsoft founder lays out his concerns for the earth and some concrete ideas for the future.

By Bill McKibben

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We Were Making Headway on Global Poverty. What’s About to Change?

We’ve made extraordinary strides, but the hardest part is in front of us.

By Bill Gates and Melinda Gates

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What Are the Biggest Problems Facing Us in the 21st Century?

In “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, the historian takes on everything from terrorism to inequality.

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My 10 Favorite Books: Bill Gates

The businessman and philanthropist shares the titles he’d most want with him on a desert island.

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How to Fight the Next Epidemic

We need a global warning and response system for infectious disease outbreaks.

Break the Immigration Impasse

Congress should start by encouraging skilled workers and investors.

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Essay On Bill Gates: The Founder of Microsoft

bill gates essay english

  • Updated on  
  • May 14, 2024

Essay on Bill Gates

Today, we are all connected to technology in one way or another. But did you know how technology has evolved in the past few years? A young boy from Seattle, Washington, aged 13, wrote his first software program, which later gave birth to one of the most advanced computer programmes and software. Bill Gates was the co-founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest private computer software company. Today he is listed as the Forbes Richest Man in the World. Let’s learn more about this great man through an essay on Bill Gates.

Table of Contents

  • 1 Essay On Bill Gates in 400 Words
  • 2 Paragraph on Bill Gates
  • 3 Quotes By Bill Gates
  • 4 Books By Bill Gates

Essay On Bill Gates in 400 Words

Willian Henry Gates III, more commonly known as Bill Gates, is the CEO of Microsoft and is not only a co-founder of the well-known software company but also a noted author and philanthropist. He was born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Gates was a brilliant student who enjoyed maths and reading from a young age. 

Aside from being a bright child, he has a strong interest in computers, which his parents have encouraged and supported. He attended Harvard College as a law student in 1973 but dropped out after two years to start his own software company. He later co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975. Microsoft envisioned “a computer in every desktop and every home.”

After years of hard work, this idea has become a reality. Following Microsoft’s success, he started and invested in several firms, including TerraPower, Gates Venture, BEN, Cascade Investment, and Breakthrough Energy. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his uncompetitive business practices. Gates held various positions at Microsoft, including chairman and chief software architect. In 2000, Bill Gates and his then-wife Melinda founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private charity foundation. 

In 2008, he changed his role at Microsoft to part-time, with a full-time focus on the Gates Foundation. He then stepped down as CEO of Microsoft in 2014 to support Satya Nadella, the newly appointed CEO. In 2020, he left his board position at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic activities for global welfare, including climate change, global development, and education. He has made huge contributions to various charitable organizations and scientific research projects over the years. Since 1987, he has been on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires. According to a Forbes study in 2024, his net worth is $128.7 billion. He also wrote many books, including The Road Ahead and How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

He has committed his life to building the world’s top software company, contributing a large portion of his income to social activities. This shows that, along with his financial wealth, Bill Gates has a great heart too.

Quick Read: Greatest Writers of All Times

Paragraph on Bill Gates

Bill Gates is a well-known American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and writer. Gates was an intelligent student with a strong interest in computers from a young age. Later, he turned his interest into a real-world venture with his childhood friend Paul Allen, and they started Microsoft. He also established the , the world’s largest private charity foundation, with his then-wife, Melinda Gates. He has invested and held positions in many companies, including and . As a philanthropist, he gave his earnings to global welfare and scientific research programmes. He also wrote several books, including ‘ and . He has been on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires since 1987, showing that he is not just wealthy by finance but also with heart.

Quick Read: Trees Are Our Best Friend Essay

Quotes By Bill Gates

Here are some of the popular quotes by the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.

  • “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organisation and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.”
  • “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
  • “Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world … if you do so, you are insulting yourself.”
  • “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
  • “The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It’s harmful.”
  • “Patience is a key element of success.”
  • “Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast, or a bridge player.”

Books By Bill Gates

  • How To Avoid A Climate Disaster- 2021
  • The Road Ahead-1995
  • Business@The Speed of Thought- 1999
  • How To Prevent the Next Pandemic- 2022
  • Unleashing the Power of Creativity- 2006

Ans: Bill Gates is the CEO of Microsoft and a noted author and philanthropist. He was born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Gates was a brilliant student who enjoyed maths and reading from a young age.  Aside from being a bright child, he has a strong interest in computers, which his parents have encouraged and supported. He attended Harvard College as a law student in 1973 but dropped out after two years to start his own software company. He is listed among the Richest Men in the world.

Ans: Bill Gates is famous for co-founding Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975. He also founded the ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’, the world’s largest private charity foundation, with his then-wife, Melinda Gates.

Ans: According to Forbes, Bill Gates’ net worth is $128.7 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world.

Ans: Bill Gates was admitted to Harvard College as a law student in 1973 but dropped out after two years to start his own software company, Microsoft.

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Essay on Bill Gates

Students are often asked to write an essay on Bill Gates in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Bill Gates

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. He developed an interest in computer programming at a young age.

In 1975, Gates co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen. They developed software for personal computers, transforming the tech industry.

Philanthropy

After retiring from Microsoft, Gates focused on philanthropy. He and his wife, Melinda, established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which works on global issues.

Gates’ impact on technology and philanthropy is significant. His work continues to inspire many around the world.

250 Words Essay on Bill Gates

Early life and education, microsoft: the technology giant.

In 1975, Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft, aiming to develop and sell BASIC interpreters. Gates’ vision of “a computer on every desk and in every home” was pioneering at a time when computers were bulky and expensive. Under his leadership, Microsoft introduced Windows, which became the dominant OS worldwide, solidifying Gates’ position as a titan of the tech industry.

Philanthropy: A Life Beyond Microsoft

In 2000, Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO to focus on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s wealthiest charitable foundations. The foundation’s work in healthcare, education, and poverty alleviation has had global impacts, demonstrating Gates’ commitment to using his wealth for societal good.

Legacy and Influence

Gates’ influence extends beyond technology and philanthropy. He is a thought leader, advising on issues like climate change and public health. His book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” provides insightful solutions to one of the most pressing problems of our time.

In conclusion, Bill Gates’ journey from a computer enthusiast to a globally influential figure is a testament to his vision, leadership, and philanthropic spirit. His life offers invaluable lessons about innovation, resilience, and the power of technology to transform societies.

500 Words Essay on Bill Gates

Introduction.

Bill Gates, born William Henry Gates III, is a name that resonates profoundly within the realm of technology, philanthropy, and global health. As the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, he revolutionized the world of personal computing, creating a legacy that continues to influence the technological landscape.

The Birth of Microsoft

In 1975, Gates and Allen established Microsoft, a blend of “microcomputer” and “software.” Their first significant breakthrough came with the development of the MS-DOS operating system for IBM in 1981. This marked the beginning of Microsoft’s dominance in the personal computer operating system market.

Leadership and Innovation at Microsoft

As CEO, Gates led Microsoft through a series of innovations, including the launch of Windows in 1985, a graphical operating system shell that became a household name. Gates’ leadership style was characterized by his relentless pursuit of new ideas and his ability to inspire his team to turn visions into reality.

Philanthropic Endeavors

Global health advocacy.

Gates has been a vocal advocate for global health, investing billions in research and treatment for diseases like malaria and HIV. His foundation’s efforts have significantly contributed to the eradication of polio. Recently, Gates has been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, funding research, and vaccine distribution.

Gates’ influence extends beyond Microsoft and his philanthropic endeavors. His thoughts on technology, global health, and climate change shape public discourse and policy. His book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” offers practical solutions to the climate crisis, demonstrating his commitment to a sustainable future.

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The Contributions of Bill Gates

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Technological innovations, business leadership, philanthropic endeavors.

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When was Bill Gates born?

How did bill gates become famous, where did bill gates go to college, what are bill gates’s major accomplishments.

Bill Gates (born October 28, 1955, Seattle , Washington , U.S.) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation , the world’s largest personal-computer software company.

Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school’s payroll system and founded Traf-O-Data, a company that sold traffic -counting systems to local governments. In 1975 Gates, then a sophomore at Harvard University , joined his hometown friend Paul G. Allen to develop software for the first microcomputers . They began by adapting BASIC , a popular programming language used on large computers, for use on microcomputers. With the success of this project, Gates left Harvard during his junior year and, with Allen, formed Microsoft. Gates’s sway over the infant microcomputer industry greatly increased when Microsoft licensed an operating system called MS-DOS to International Business Machines Corporation —then the world’s biggest computer supplier and industry pacesetter—for use on its first microcomputer, the IBM PC ( personal computer ). After the machine’s release in 1981, IBM quickly set the technical standard for the PC industry, and MS-DOS likewise pushed out competing operating systems. While Microsoft’s independence strained relations with IBM, Gates deftly manipulated the larger company so that it became permanently dependent on him for crucial software. Makers of IBM-compatible PCs, or clones, also turned to Microsoft for their basic software. By the start of the 1990s he had become the PC industry’s ultimate kingmaker.

Largely on the strength of Microsoft’s success, Gates amassed a huge paper fortune as the company’s largest individual shareholder. He became a paper billionaire in 1986, and within a decade his net worth had reached into the tens of billions of dollars—making him by some estimates the world’s richest private individual. With few interests beyond software and the potential of information technology , Gates at first preferred to stay out of the public eye, handling civic and philanthropic affairs indirectly through one of his foundations. Nevertheless, as Microsoft’s power and reputation grew, and especially as it attracted the attention of the U.S. Justice Department ’s antitrust division, Gates, with some reluctance, became a more public figure. Rivals (particularly in competing companies in Silicon Valley ) portrayed him as driven, duplicitous, and determined to profit from virtually every electronic transaction in the world. His supporters, on the other hand, celebrated his uncanny business acumen, his flexibility, and his boundless appetite for finding new ways to make computers and electronics more useful through software.

computer chip. computer. Hand holding computer chip. Central processing unit (CPU). history and society, science and technology, microchip, microprocessor motherboard computer Circuit Board

All of these qualities were evident in Gates’s nimble response to the sudden public interest in the Internet . Beginning in 1995 and 1996, Gates feverishly refocused Microsoft on the development of consumer and enterprise software solutions for the Internet , developed the Windows CE operating system platform for networking noncomputer devices such as home televisions and personal digital assistants, created the Microsoft Network to compete with America Online and other Internet providers, and, through Gates’s company Corbis, acquired the huge Bettmann photo archives and other collections for use in electronic distribution.

In addition to his work at Microsoft, Gates was also known for his charitable work. With his then wife, Melinda , he launched the William H. Gates Foundation (renamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999) in 1994 to fund global health programs as well as projects in the Pacific Northwest . During the latter part of the 1990s, the couple also funded North American libraries through the Gates Library Foundation (renamed Gates Learning Foundation in 1999) and raised money for minority study grants through the Gates Millennium Scholars program. In June 2006 Warren Buffett announced an ongoing gift to the foundation, which would allow its assets to total roughly $60 billion in the next 20 years. At the beginning of the 21st century, the foundation continued to focus on global health and global development, as well as community and education causes in the United States . After a short transition period, Gates relinquished day-to-day oversight of Microsoft in June 2008—although he remained chairman of the board—in order to devote more time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In February 2014 he stepped down as chairman but continued to serve as a board member until 2020. During this time he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016). The documentary series Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates appeared in 2019. Two years later Gates and his wife divorced.

Bill Gates

It remains to be seen whether Gates’s extraordinary success will guarantee him a lasting place in the pantheon of great Americans. At the very least, historians seem likely to view him as a business figure as important to computers as John D. Rockefeller was to oil. Gates himself displayed an acute awareness of the perils of prosperity in his 1995 best seller , The Road Ahead , where he observed, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

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Bill Gates: 10 Most Important Accomplishments

by World History Edu · March 15, 2021

Bill Gates accomplishments

Bill Gates accomplishments

Bill Gates, the Seattle, Washington-born business and computer programming genius, is often placed in the same league as the likes of John D. Rockefeller and Steve Jobs, both of who were great American business figures and innovators. In the wake of cofounding Microsoft Corporation, a firm that went on to become the largest personal-computer software company in history, Bill Gates amassed an incredible amount of fortune.

However, it is not just his uncanny business acumen and programming genius that make him occupy a place in the elite group of influential Americans of the modern era. Bill Gates continues to have unbridled influence across the globe, bettering the socio-economic lives of millions in not just developed countries like the United States but in poor and impoverished countries.

Quick Facts about Bill Gates

Birthday and Place – October 28, 1955; Seattle, Washington, United States

Born –  William Henry Gates III

Mother –  Mary Maxwell

Father – William H. Gates Sr.

Siblings –  Kristianne, Libby

Education – Harvard University (dropped out in his junior year); Lakeside School

Wife –  Melinda Gates (married on January 1, 1994)

Children –  Jennifer (born in 1996); Rory (born in 1999), Phoebe (born in 2002)

Most famous for – Cofounding Microsoft Corporation; Cofounding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; One of the richest men in history

Notable Awards received – Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016); Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005;

Did you know: Bill Gates quit Harvard in his second year to cofound Microsoft with his long-time friend and later colleague Paul Allen?

Accomplishments of Bill Gates

Why is Bill Gates so important? What are some of his major contributions to the world of personal computers and the internet in general? Worldhistoryedu.com explores 10 remarkable achievements of Bill Gates – America’s King of PC Software.

Bill Gates quotes

Wrote his first computer software at age 13

Due the fact that his parents were worried about how withdrawn he was at his old school, which was a public school, Bill Gates was enrolled at a Seattle private school called Lakeside School. Right off the bat Bill Gates performed tremendously well in all subjects. He also took to spending majority of his free time using the teletype terminal his mother had bought for him. In no time he was able to tap into his programming gifts and write a number of software for his high school.

A leading member of his school’s group of programmers, Gates successfully computerized the payroll system of the school. He also famously wrote a game in BASIC computer language. His crowning achievement as a teenager came when he and fellow computer prodigy Paul Allen established Traf-O-Data – a company that helped local districts effectively manage their traffic-counting systems. The net proceeds from their business endeavor amounted to around $20,000.

Did you know : Bill Gates scored an impressive 1590 on his college SAT test?

bill gates essay english

Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Lakeside School in 1970

Cofounded Microsoft at age 20

Scoring 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT test, it came as no surprise when Gates enrolled at Harvard University to study law. Most likely bored to the brim of how his brain found studies at Harvard extremely easy, Bill Gates quit Harvard in his sophomore year, which was in 1975. He went ahead to join forces with another equally brilliant computer programmer in the person of Paul Allen.

The two computer programming teens set their sights on revolutionizing the microcomputer industry by adapting BASIC – a programming language for large computers. Amazed by all the possibilities of an advanced computer industry in the United States, Gates and Allen applied those programs on microcomputers.

After developing a BASIC software program for the Altair minicomputer, they two young men went on to establish Microsoft in 1975. The name of the firm was originally Micro-Soft. The name was formed from “micro-computer” and “software”.

bill gates essay english

Successfully licensed an operating software to IBM

In 1979, Gates and Allen decided to move Microsoft to Bellevue, Washington, which was a few hours’ drive from Seattle. By this time, the company, which was pulling about $2.5 million in revenues, had about 30 employees handling things from operations, business development to entrepreneurial marketing. Bill Gates made himself the head and spokesperson of Microsoft. His fingerprints were all over the company, o as he painstakingly reviewed every code, and even rewrote some of them, before clearing for shipping.

His mother was of an enormous help since she knew a great number of executives in not just IBM but other computer development companies. Through her, he got to meet up with the CEO of IBM. Quickly, Gates’ Microsoft and IBM went into an agreement to provide the software of IBM’s personal computer.

And even though, Microsoft did not have the software that IBM needed by then, Gates took a bold decision by buying the operating system from a software developer. In the end, Microsoft went on to become the exclusive licensing agent and later the owner of the software.

Made Microsoft the largest personal-computer software company in history

By 1980, Bill Gates had steadily steered Microsoft into colossal software company in the PC industry. The company was raking in remarkable amounts of revenue from its licensing agreement with not just IBM but other PC makers, including Apple. Microsoft’s famously produced Softcard for Apple II machines.

In just two years, between 1979 and 1981, Gates and Allen’s Microsoft had increased their workforce from 25 to 100. Likewise, revenue of the company had jumped from $2.5 million to about $16 million. With offices around the globe, in the UK and Japan, Microsoft was able to use its highly successful MS-DOS to capture a whopping 30% of the global PC market share.

Did you know : Gates and Allen incorporated Microsoft in mid-1981?

Bill Gates

Gates was the brain behind Windows operating software

In the period that Gates’ Microsoft and Steve Jobs ’ Apple maintained an open line of communication, Microsoft was able to develop its trademark Windows system. The system was revolutionary in the sense that it deployed the mouse effectively with its spectacular graphic interface. This was entirely different from its MS-DOS system that was all text-based. With Windows, PC users did not have to hit their keyboards producing codes; instead they used displayed text and images with the help of a mouse.

In a delicately crafted move, he was able to prevent PC users from switching to Macintosh’s VisiCorp software. Perhaps it was at this point in time where the rivalry between two of the greatest tech geniuses of the era – Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – was borne.

By the mid-1980s, Microsoft’s Windows was out and ready to knock VisiCorp off its perch. Although graphically there was not much difference between Windows and Macintosh system, the fact that Gates was able to deploy immense marketing acumen to back the product, Windows started to outperform Apple’s systems. To the PC users back then, Bill Gates’s Windows was simply a breath of fresh air.

Even though many players in the industry started to make their own operating systems, Bill Gates kept his cool and delicately placed his Windows software as the go-to software in the industry, expanding the operating system on a constant basis. Windows flagship Office programs (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) are just some of the reasons why Bill Gates is considered one of the greatest business minds of the modern era.

Billionaire at age 31

Bill Gates’ personal wealth is another aspect of the computer programmer that people often like to bring up. As the largest individual shareholder of Microsoft, Bill Gates became a billionaire when he was just 31. Microsoft had gone public in March 1986 and Bill Gates at the time owned about 45% of the company’s shares.

Owing to Gates’ visionary leadership, Microsoft’s stock continued to rise and rise, even to this day. Microsoft’s successes meant that the personal wealth of Bill Gates exponentially shot up. It is frankly no wonder Forbes magazine constantly place him on the top of the list of richest individuals in America.

In less than two decades after establishing Microsoft, the business guru had amassed several tens of billions of dollars, making him the world’s wealthiest individual between 1995 and 2008.

Cofounded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Desiring to give back a portion of the immense wealth he had accumulated, Bill Gates and his newly wedded wife Melinda Gates established the William H. Gates Foundation. The foundation, which would later be renamed Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999, seeks to be a shining beacon of hope and progress across the globe. Over time, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spread its tentacles from the Pacific Northwest to almost every nook and cranny of the world.

Issues such as education, malaria eradication, and other community health programs are most dear to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In North America, for example, the foundation established numerous libraries to promote the culture of reading among the youth. That initiative was later renamed the Gates Learning Foundation in 1999.

Millions and millions of dollars are spent by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to offer needy but brilliant students study grants and scholarship, especially to minorities living in the United State.

Achievements of Bill Gates

Microsoft cofounder Gates being modest about his life achievements and contributions to our society

Bill Gates has spent billions of dollars on several honorable causes

Over the years, the foundation has also received generous donations from other wealthy individuals, most famously from fellow businessman and prolific investor Warren Buffett in June 2006. Buffett’s on-going contribution to the foundation has made a huge difference in Bill and Melinda Gates charitable initiatives as they work very hard to tackle serious health and education problems, particularly in developing nations (such as sub-Saharan African countries like Malawi, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia).

Did you know : The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established with a $28-billion investment?

A global titan in the fight against HIV and child mortality in developing countries

Bill Gates

Inspired by the long-lasting and life-altering differences racked up by the foundation across the world, Bill Gates stepped down from his chairmanship position in 2014. He made this move in order to focus full time on his numerous charity projects.

This allowed him to spend both time and resources to work on eradicating malnutrition, HIV, child mortality, child illiteracy, gender bias and a host of other 21 st century problems across the world.

Gates has also combined effectively with other philanthropists to fund research works that aim at producing vaccines for diseases that plague our world. For example, in 2018 Gates and Larry Page of Google were able to raise about $12 million to support research works for a universal flu vaccine. A year prior to that, in 2017, he gave a generous amount of $50 million to fund an Alzheimer research project that looks for innovative solutions.

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), Bill Gates and his wife Melinda through their foundation partnered with Wellcome Trust and Mastercard to donate about $125 million to help defeat the scourge that has claimed and upended the lives of millions across the globe.

Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Bill Gates

Bill Gates at a ceremony in the White House to honor him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 2016, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates were honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom – our nation’s highest civilian honor – by the then-U.S. President Barack Obama . The award was in recognition of their immense contributions to virtually every facet of our society.

Other achievements of Bill Gates

Bill Gates quotes

Bill Gates talking about the equalizing power of technology and the internet of our modern era

He has written a number of amazing life-help and business books, including his 1995 best seller The Road Ahead.

In 2005, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates were named Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year.

For his remarkable achievements in business and philanthropy, Bill Gates was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire [by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005].

Bill and Melinda Gates were both given the Legion of Honor – France’s highest national award – in 2017. The honor was bestowed by President François Hollande.

Bill Gates has been honored with honorary doctorates from numerous universities and colleges across the world, including one from Harvard University (in 2007), a school that he dropped out during his sophomore year in order to pursue his dreams.

Tags: Achievements Bill Gates Bill Gates Biography: Early life Business Computer scientists Entrepreneurs Melinda Gates Microsoft Paul Allen Technology

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For all Billy Gates’ billions, he hasn’t actually been able to accomplish a damn thing except throw it away with nothing at all to show for himself. It would have been better if he had spent it on making Windows not bad.

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You’d probably do the same thing bud.

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Bill Gates: A Person To Admire

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  • Topic: Bill Gates , Business Success , Microsoft Corporation

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