(XV )

40

M
:Bill Gates

, 2016.

Contents:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Early life and childhood

Early academic and professional years
Microsoft
Leadership style and principles
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Marriage and Family
Summary and conclusions

1. Early life and childhood

William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, into a wealthy and
opulent family. His father (William Henry Gates II) had been a rather famous and
prominent lawyer, currently a chairman on the World Justice Project executive board.
His mother (Mary Maxwell Gates) had been the first woman on the First Interstate Bank
of Washington's board of directors. Bill was born in Seattle, in a rather religious
community. It was a highly competitive enviroment: William and Mary had two other
children: and older sister (Kristianne) and a younger one (Libby). It was mostly during

his early years that his personal and professional attitudes were formed, namely, his
play to win attitude that he would succesfully employ later in his life, which we will
discuss in great detail.
In 1967, Bill enrolled at Lakeside School, at the northern border of Seattle. It
was during this tender teenage period that his love for programming was born: at 13,
before the very concept of sophisticated programming was fully established, Bill had
been given a electromechanical teleprinter, Teletype Model 33. It was this model that
sparked Gates interest in programming and reprogramming machine codes. He
implemented a software that would allow him to play tic-tac-toe on the computer, and
then his first mischief he abused the system in order to gain for himself and his friends
additional time on the school computers. As expected, this didnt go unnoticed.
Gates had a few friends during that period namely Paul Allen, Rick Weiland
and Kent Evans. Allen remained his closest friend during his school years, and would be
of great help to Gates himself down the road. Gates was a bit of a rule breaker in his
youth certainly, he had a rebellious attitude about him but he was also way ahead of
his time. This will come to prominence during his early academic and professional
period. Another famous mischief of his happened during that period he was hired,
along with his friends, to write a database processing program which could be used to
give the school students a payroll. He, of course, put himself in classes with a noticeably
disproportionate number of girls.

2. Early academic and professional years

It was through his resourcefulness that he had been able to modify previously
created database systems. By 1973, it had already been clear which path in life would he
take, so it came as no surprise that he enrolled into Harvard University. While he was a
successful student by all means, he was in no way meticulous enough. Soon enough, he
found that he was interested in computers and computers only therefore, he failed to
graduate.

That didnt stop him, however. He had wanted to start his own company for
some time. The professors were impressed by his brilliance and his powerful deductive
abilities. He dropped out of the University in 1975. in order to form his own company,
alongside his friend, Paul Allen.
It was in 1973. that Bill met his lifelong friend and future CEO of Microsoft,
Steve Balmer. His businesses before 1980. included Traf-o-data, a small business
which lasted for a year and earned Gates and his friends a mediocre sum of 20.000
dollars. Considering they were still underage, the business failed, but it was a beginning.

3. Microsoft

Bill Gates, a college dropout, and his friend, Paul Allen, formed the company
Microsoft in 1975. That same year, the once-popular magazine Popular Electronics (Jan
1, 1975. issue) displayed what was soon to be a very popular invention: MITS Altair
8800 microcomputer, based on an 8080 CPU processor. It would soon become the norm
after which other microcomputers would be built.

Naturally, it had attracted Gates perhaps because it reminded him of the old
Teletype model. He and Allen almost immediately started writing a computer language
for the Altair 8800. MITS (Micro Instrumentations and Telemetry Systems), a company
from Albuquerque, for which Allen and Gates had worked for a time before founding
successful for the period in which it was
created. The picture to the left illustrates
how number outputs were formatted
and

their

discarded.

possible
Courtesy of

redundancies
the

MITS

archive
(https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_mi
tsMITSAl_6669937/MITS_AltairBASI
C_1975#page/n9/mode/1up).

Microsoft. They wrote a programming language for the Altair, and subsequently named
it Altair BASIC. The language was meant to make basic mathermatical operations, such
as addition, subtraction, division and multiplication easier, and also help format number,
therefore making the calculation system much more accessible for everyday use among
hobbyists.

It is necessary to notice that computing systems at that time werent exactly

advanced. It could be noticed that most computer machines since the Manhattan Project 1

1 The project of creating two atomic bombs, nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man, in
1945. The computers required to handle operations such as precise calculus were
extremely large and clumsy, however, when it came to ending the war with Japan, time
was of the essence. Therefore, we could argue that the large electrical bills were simply
necessary in order to make the project function properly.

had been very difficult to handle. The concept of a home computer was almost
entirely unknown at that period.

Microsoft has become a moderately successful company over the next few years, as
Interior view of MITS Altair 8800. By
the middle of the 70s, it had become
evident that, in order to make them
more accessible and less expensive to
produce and assemble, the dimensions
Battle Chess, as displayed on an
of the box, the board and the wiring had
MS-DOS
operating
system,
to be reduced. Notice the simplicity of
develpoed in 1983. by Interplay
the processor.
Productions.
Source:
http://www.freegameempire.com/g
ames/BattleChess#sthash.UGQZHlC2.dpbs.
evidenced by their partnership with IBM.2 IBM, at that time, produced hardware only,
and, as such, required a competent team in order to write down a programming language
suitable for the hardware. The result came to be known as MS-DOS. 3 It had previously
been bought from a third company, Seattle Computer products, and further adapted to
the

2 International Business Machines Corporations. Founded in 1911, it has since become

one of the largest corporate technology giants worldwide.
3 Microsoft Disk Operating System, abbreviated.

needs of IBM. The partnership with IBM was not meant to last, however: Microsoft
kept selling their own OS version, OS/2 4 which represented direct competition to IBMs
own OS.
The greatest change, as well as the most recongized one, was the introduction of
Microsoft Windows in the end of 1985. By then, interest in GUIs5 had vastly risen, so it
was only expected that Windows 1.0 had one integrated. The main issue was that Gates
and his company were, alongside IMB, entering an industry already dominated by other
large companies, such as Steve Jobs Apple.
By 1990, several new changes occured. Microsoft has become a company of great
renown. The then-latest system, Windows 3.0, was destined to rival Apples Macintosh,
as well as Commodores Amiga 1000, especially in the field of GUIs, which were
postly praised by their respective critics.
The processor on which Windows 3.0 could function on was a new step in a line
dating back to Intel 8008. Intel 80386, as it was named, was the first 32-bit
microprocessor to be globally employed. It was versatile, capable of properly executing
most 16-bit code. It comes as no surprise that Microsoft started dominating the market
in the years to come.

4 Which was deployed on the market in 1987.

5 GUI: Graphical User Interface. Provides a computer user with a method of
communicating with the machine using graphical and visual methods such as icons, as
opposed to strict text communication.

As seen in the picture above,6 Windows 3.0 reporesented an entirely new era in
computer technology. The GUI had completely replaced text interaction and relied
instead on icons on the desktop to launch a stimulus for the machine to respond to. It is
exactly this product that helped Bill Gates and Microsoft take over a large percent of the
market sales in the last decade of the 2nd millenium.
Gates was the mind behind the large, almost exponential growth of the Microsoft sales
and revenue. The 90s were the decade in which Windows as a product was massively
and globally popularized, with tens of millions of users actively employing it in 2000.
However, some of the business Gates conducted didnt go that well: he faced criticism
during the late 80s regarding his stock manipulation violations. Alongside that, some of
his employees (and former ones, too) were highly critical of his personality. Even then,
hes had a very strict succeed of perish policy, which roughly translates into very high
expectation when it comes to his employees and himself both.
6

Image

taken

from

www.theoligarch.com.

http://www.theoligarch.com/microsoft_vs_apple_history.htm.

URL:

In 1981, it became obvious that Microsoft had to restructure in order to adapt to

the new market, as is often the case with new compains that rapidly escalate. The sheer
amount of money generated from the sales is enough to make a company need a
restructuring very badly. The restructuring was brief and almost immediate. Gates
remained the CEO, while Ballmer and Allen remained at their previous positions.
Microsoft had a tendency to collaborate:
1. We have mentioned their very earliest collaboration with IBM, which
ultimately deteriorated.
2. The 1983. collaboration with several other companies (Fujitsu, Pioneer and
Yamaha are some examples) was a necessary step required to globalize
Windoes. The result of this alliance ended up being a somewhat different
OS than the then-popular MS-DOS 1.25: MSX-DOS. IT provided an
additional 256KB of RAM, which, at that time, was quite an astounding
success.
3. DreamWorks Interactive has been formed, and its primary purpose was to
provide multimedia services. This collaboration proved vital to the
devlopment of multimedia software in the following years.
Bills concept of Microsoft was such that it required Microsoft to further evolve
into new areas. It was, thefefore, necessary to adapt. In 1995, Microsoft Encarta was
created in order to provide customers with a first system-encyclopedia: in other words,
the encyclopedia is not located on the system, but stored in the computer memory.
The most famous product of 1995, however, was Windows 95. It was the first OS
to feature the well-known start button. It became the primary OS for most users in the
years to come, and it remained popular right until the initial release of Windows 7.

Gates policy was rather transparent at that time: it was necesarry for him to
infiltrate as many aspects of computer technology as possible. It was exactly during that
period than MSN and Microsoft Passport were made. The former is an umbrella term
covering many Windows features requiring a means of personal identification.

Microsoft Passport is a way of identifying oneself when approaching said

services. At the beginning of Gates career, the internet was primarily in use by the
military, and therefore could be employed only by military personnel for long-distance
communication and missile guidance.
Another new era in computer usage wasmainly reporesented by Windows 2000,
released in 2000. Again, the underlying Executive and kernel architecture is
fundamentally the same as in NT 4.0, but new features have been added. The emphasis
in Windows 2000 is the addition of services and functions to support distributed
processing. The central element of Windows 2000's new features is Active Directory,
which is a distributed directory service able to map names of arbitrary objects to any
kind of information about those objects.
In 2001, the latest desktop version of Windows was released, known as
Windows XP. Both home PC and business workstation versions of XP are offered. Also
in 2001, a 64-bit version of XP was introduced. In 2003, Microsoft introduced a new
server version, known as Windows Server 2003; both 32-bit and 64 bit versions are
available. The 64-bit versions of XP and Server 2003 are designed specifically for the
64-bit Intel Itanium hardware.
In other words, the collaboration with IBM continued, at least partially, with
IBM providing the necessary software. It had been a rather turbulent period for the
Microsoft company, not in the least because internet gradually became more and more
popular.
The next phase of the Windows development came only after a six-year-long
pause. It was in 2000. when Bill decided, after accumulating enough money, to devote
his finances, time and effort to charity, which we will speak of later.
Windows Vista, released in early 2007, has been put under a lot of criticism and
scrutiny, main reasons being longer startup time, a very long development time (around
six years), and strict Terms of Use. It remained highly popular, however, until it was
replaced by other, more advanced system with redesigned features, such as Windows 7
and further.

10

4. Leadership style and principles

Bill Gates has often been credited (by various sources) to have said the
following ten rules for students:7
1. Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it.
2. Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as
much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before
you feel good about yourself.
3. Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school.
And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either.
4. Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He
doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you mess up, he's
not going to ask you how you feel about it.
5. Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents
had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity.
6. Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you mess up, youre responsible.
7. Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are
now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and
listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you
save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents'
generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
8. Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life
hasn't.
9. Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all
could.
Whether or not these quotes were actually said by Gates himself is highly debatable.
However, their value is the following: those are the views that Gates endorsed during
(and after!) his tenure as CEO of Microsoft. He strictly adhered to them, and expected
others in his professional environment to adhere to them.

7 Jokingly named

Ten Commandments

for

students

by some.

Source:

https://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/personal/RulesForStudents.html. There are actually 14 rules

taken from the book Dumbing Down America by Charles Sykes.

11

He is, as a leader, rather pragmatic. Even though he is somewhat brash and

impulsive (he is rumored to have once said Thats the stupidest thing Ive ever seen!
to a colleague during a project meeting). As an adolescent, he had a rebellious attitude
about him, which got him arrested for violating traffic laws in 1977.
It seems evident that he hasnt so far lost this rebellious, curious and innovative
attitude. At this point, the author can only make assumptions based on the public
perception of Gates, and the stories that have been circulating in the media.
A mugshot of Bill Gates, taken in
1977. It is presumed that he was
arrested for speeding and driving
without a valid drivers licence. If the
photograph is any indicator, he was
not at discomfort he appears very
happy, even though it could be only
authors own perception.

The picture above8 has been one of his more famous photographs for a while
now, and it definitely reinforces the public perception of Gates as a somewhat rebellious
individual. However, in people such as Gates, it is often associated with curiosity and
intelligence. Even though nobody could call Gates a slave master, he does have very
high expectation. We mentioned that he was born in a rather competitive environment.
This reflects his policy: Microsoft, under his strict guidance, has been able to become
one of the worlds most powerful corporation. It could be argued that, if Gates
personality wasnt the way it is, it never would have made it to the top.
As Rule 1, says, life is not fair, and Gates, evidently, knew this very well. He was born
in what could arguably be called a position of privilege: wealthy parents, safe
neighborhood, Christian upbringing, naturally high intelligence and immense deductive
8

Source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/celebritynews/8523372/Policebooking-photos-mugshots-of-the-rich-and-famous.html?image=1.

12

abilities all played a part. He was very predisponed to great success. But it only
represents a good starting position in life, and the race has to be run to the finish. In
other words, he may have had a head start, but he also had to run very fast.
He did exactly that. His dropping out of Harvard is more an indicator of his
insubmission to the authorities, rather than his unwillingness to earn his grades. One
thing is clear: Bill Gates doesnt lack motivation or dedication. He never did. Microsoft
product diversity and a streak of both short-term and long-term successes proves that
internal motivation is the key. He may have resigned as CEO in 2008, but that doesnt
necessarily mean that he is not involved in anyway.
This is reflected in people around him, which serve as his successors in
Microsoft up to this day. Those people of critical importance are Warren Buffet, Craig
Ozzy and Craig Mundy. It is, therefore implied that he may devote most of his
professional time to his charity foundation today, but still plays an active role in
Microsoft leadership.

5. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

At a certain point in his life, Bill had accumulated quite a large sum of money.
His net worth today is close to 77.9 billion dollars, making him one of the richest people
on Earth. Weve previously discussed his motivation to earn his money and status, but
that doesnt necesarilly imply a negative view on the less fortunate. Quite the contrarty,
as it seems. As such, he and his wife, Melinda created a large charity organization which
serves principially to motivate people with large personal and corporate funds to
distribute a portion of their wealth to those in need.
As stated on their official web site, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations
(abbreviated: B&M) main purpose is supporting initiatives in education, world health
and population, and community giving in the Pacific Northwest.9

9 Source: http://www.gatesfoundation.org.

13

It was launched in 2000. and is said to be the largest transparently operated

private foundation in the world. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to
enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational
opportunities and access to information technology.
The great private corporation is based in Seattle. The main work principle of the
foundation is the division of donation from many corporations and magnates. The
money is being shared, transported and distributed evenly, and such a large operational
scale is, according to Bill himself, extremely tiring and time consuming.
Whatever the motives may be behind Gates suddenly announced resignation
from the CEO chair of Microsoft, the factual data, as shown on the site, implies that Bill
is leading the corporation with the same methods: by instituting a rather firm approach
he used to employ effectively at Microsoft.
The

foundation

has

donated

billions

of

dollars

to

help

sufferers

of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, protecting millions of children from death at the
hands of preventable diseases. However, a 2007 investigation by The Los Angeles
Times claimed there are three major unintended consequences with the foundation's
allocation of aid. First, sub-Saharan Africa already suffered from a shortage of primary
doctors before the arrival of the Gates Foundation, but "by pouring most contributions
into the fight against such high-profile killers as AIDS, Gates grantees have increased
the demand for specially trained, higher-paid clinicians, diverting staff from basic care"
in sub-Saharan Africa. This "brain drain" adds to the existing doctor shortage and pulls
away additional trained staff from children and those suffering from other common
killers. Second, "the focus on a few diseases has shortchanged basic needs such as
nutrition and transportation". Third, "Gates-funded vaccination programs have
instructed caregivers to ignore even discourage patients from discussing ailments
that the vaccinations cannot prevent".

14
Left to right: Melinda Gates, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and a child that had
previously been helped in its further development.

6. Marriage and family

William and Melinda wedded each other in 1994. Both had a predisposition, at
least in a professional sense, towards each other. Both had been in different businesses
for a while before they got married, but, as it seems, it didnt matter much. Little is
actually known about their personal lives, except that they have three children. Melinda
is an active practitioner of the Roman Catholic regligion, while Bill has summed his
both religious and pedagogical views in the following statement:
The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We've raised our
kids in a religious way; they've gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I
participate in. I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity
in the world. And that's kind of a religious belief. I mean, it's at least a moral belief
In other words, for Bill, the main aspect of religion is ethics. From that
perspective, it may be considered a philosophy actively employed both in professional
lives, through their foundation, and in their own personal lives. The assets contributed
by the couple to their foundation exceed 30 billion dollars, without counting the other
corporate sponsors, like Walmart or Televista.

15

This gives the public a closer look into their ethical system: a system mainly
based on sharing, which provides equal opportunity for everyone. However, it does not
guarantee the quality of outcome, which is something a person must accomplish
him/herself. In other words, its a strictly democratic view based on the principles of
ethical philathropy.
The couple has three children: Jennifer Katharine (born 1996), Rory John (born
2002) and Phoebe Adele (born 2004). Not much is known about their lifestyle, although
it is generally assumed that it is rather lavish.

The Gates family. Left to right: Jennifer Katharine, Bill, rory John, Melinda and Phoebe
Adele.

7. Summary and conclusions

16

Bill Gates is, first and foremost, an innovator some might call him
unscrupulous, demanding or even a tyrant what is certain is that his methods are
almost always successful. A lifetime of innovation and effort have clearly paid off it is
not always the case that it does, as there is actually no cosmic justice, according to Bills
own beliefs.
What matters is that a pragrmatic philosophy and a determined mind, combined
with an accurate outlook on life will result in a positive way. There is absolutely no
reason to display Bills life as completely ideal as displayed in previous segments,
hard work and dedication must be, at all times, a constant otherwise, failure will
follow.
This is especially tru in the corporate world, simply because, once a corporation
enters the market, it is not competing alongside other corporations, but against them
for that reason it is important to make your product the very best the market has to offer.
The author believes that Bill Gates was exactly the man for the job, and has therefore
managed to secure himself not only financially, but also as a pioneer in computer
programming.

17

Literatura

1. http://www.theoligarch.com/microsoft_vs_apple_history.htm
2. https://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/personal/RulesForStudents.html
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/celebritynews/8523372
/Police-booking-photos-mugshots-of-the-rich-and-famous.html?
image=1/
4. : http://www.gatesfoundation.org

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 :_______________
:
:_________________
:________________
:_________________

Ko:

:_______(____)

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