Bill Gates Net Worth

introduction

One of the founders of Microsoft, Bill Gates is considered one of the prominent thoughts that encouraged the digital revolution. He still holds 500 million giant technology shares, which made him the richest person in the world until 2017. He retired from his daily business in 2008 and now increasingly devoted himself to charity activities.

Early life

William Henry Gates, the third, saw the light of the day in Seattle and found himself there as a child in a quite rich family. Both William’s father (lawyer) and his mother Mary (teacher) are academics and follow the very progressive care method for that era. In this way, they submit autonomous rights to their offspring at an early age and encourage creative thinking. At the age of 13, Bill first led this to the famous private school “Lakeside”, which followed similar pedagogical principles. With old friends, he lived here for a long time in the computer room and starting his entrepreneurship by designing a system to collect traffic data and sell it for $ 20,000. After graduating from high school in 1973, he moved to Havard. Here the first foundation for the operating system is created, which is then used under the name “Microsoft Basic”.

Career

The tertiary institution somehow prevented the project: Gates came out of the college in 1975 to pour out all day for the garage company, which at that time had 16 employees. The first sales were achieved by the Basic 2.0 programming language for Altair 8800. However, an agreement with the client’s MIT is limited to $ 180,000. The development was slow until 1980. The breakthrough finally came thanks to an exclusive cooperation with IBM, whose device was operated exclusively with MS-DOS since then. Gates joined the Microsoft Supervisory Board in 1983, but remained the main developer at the same time and formed a group into a global brand. In 1986 the company go public with a market capitalization of $ 60 million. Gates took over as CEO at only 30 years old. A year later, the stock price had increased on a large -magnitude, making the youngest Bill billionaire of all time. After many mergers and innovative products, the stars (and thus also Microsoft) began to decline towards the end of the millennium. Since 2000 and so on, he has increasingly withdrawn from his daily business, moved back to the Supervisory Board and finally ended his active career in the summer of 2008.

Career highlights

In a retrospect, an agreement with IBM mentioned represents the biggest success of Bill: Until now, many software start-ups have been operating in the United States. However, all of which are only suppliers for hardware manufacturers and, such as Microsoft, achieve very poor sales. It changed suddenly when Gates IBM did not sell patents to MS-DOS, but only licenses for it. In addition, IBM has been bound by Microsoft products for many years. PCs reach unprecedented sales figures and Microsoft receives commissions for each device sold. In 1995, Gates had expanded its company’s global market share to more than 90 percent. This shows his entrepreneurial skills by recognizing and buying products that are resistant to the future. This affects, among others, office software “office” and further development from the interface of graphics user, designed by Apple competitors in 1983. Responding to the use of internet civilians, the launch of Windows 95 is submitted in the future, which means the next push for Microsoft and Gates . It was revealed in the numbers: in 1994 Bill led in the list of Forbes magazines and then could achieve it 14 more times. The development of Microsoft’s stock market values ​​is even more impressive: at the launch of Windows 95, shares are quoted around $ 2.5. Until the destruction of the “new economy” in 2000, it rose to $ 50 and is now traded on $ 150. This technology giant is one of the few companies worth more than one trillion dollar.

Famous quotes

“I don’t have money. I hold Microsoft’s shares. “

“The most dissatisfied customers are our biggest external source for quality control.”

“The headlines usually take negative developments. So the news does not represent all reality because the improvement reaches a long period of time and is not comparable to the headline. “

“Innovation develops at an increasingly scary speed.”

“The US immigration law is very bad. This is one of the biggest injustices carried out on behalf of the US government. “

Success tips

“If I have formulated a clear career goal, I will surpass it many years ago. However, as a successful entrepreneur, you must be able to react flexibly to market needs. “

“Even if your product is not the best, it must always be served as if it is.”

“People -people exaggerate the changes that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the development of the next decade. Don’t let it make you out of your destination. “

“Success is more fun than failure. But in the end it is the failure that you learn the most and which allows exponential growth. “