gates

Bill Gates Richest Man Alive

Founder of Microsoft Philanthropist

October 28, 1955 Till present

By: Joel Bowman COMP 1631, Winter 2011

Programming Start • First program was one that allowed the user to play tic tac toe against the computer • Bill used the language BASIC (Beginner's AllPurpose Symbolic Instruction Code) in this programing endeavour

• Bill made a program for his high school that did class schedules. He also ensured that he was in female dominated classes.

The MITS Altair- Bill invented a variation of BASIC for this machine

Harvard Bill scored a 1590 out of 2000 on his SAT exams in 1973. He entered Harvard in the fall of 1973, where he continued to work on the school computers. In his time at Harvard he developed an algorithm to solve the pancake sorting problem.

Bill left Harvard after his first year to start Micro-Soft with his friend, Paul Allen.

Microsoft Founded April 4 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They developed a language for the Altair 8800, called Altair BASIC. This code was distributed with the Altair 8800 system, making it Microsoft's first distributed code.

The magazine that caught the attention of Mr. Gates and Mr. Allen. Led to the writing of there Altair BASIC code.

Growth of Microsoft

Microsoft became independent of MITS in 1976. The company moved from Albuquerque to Washington state in 1979 In a joint venture with IBM Microsoft bought an operating system called PC-DOS. Microsoft created there own OS called MSDOS after the PC-DOS system was cloned by other programmers

The IBM-PC that had Microsoft's PC-DOS installed as an OS

Bills position within Microsoft

Percentage of Microsoft owned by Bill Gates

From the 1981 restructuring to 2008, Bill actively managed Microsoft and acted as the CEO. He wrote code as late as 1989, however has not worked on a development team since 1983. In 2006, he announced his transition away form Microsoft to focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has sat as the chairman of the board of directors from 1981 till present

Bill gates Total shares

“The richest man” Bill was number 1 on the Forbes’ “List of the Worlds Richest People” from 1995-2001 and again in 2009. In 1999 Bill Gates Net wealth surpassed 100 billion dollars thus becoming the worlds first and only (to date) “centiBillionaire” Part of Bill’s housing complex worth approximately 250 million.

His wealth has been on the decline since 2000 due to his various donations to charity.

Currently, Bill is the second richest person in the world behind Carlos Sims.

Bill’s current investments net close to 1 million dollars per year.

Current Income

He also receives a salary from Microsoft for acting as their chairperson on the board of directors. Bill has been quoted as saying, “I wish I wasn’t [the world’s richest man].”

He has also pledged to give away 95% of his income before death, which would leave him with a modest worth of approximately 13.5 million.

Graph of Microsoft's stock over the past 5 years.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Formed in 1994 as the William H. Gates Foundation, it became the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999. Current endowment is approximately 33.5 Billion dollars. Warren Buffet (top three richest people perennially) is one of the key contributors, donating shares of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Personal Philanthropy

Bill and Melinda have donated over 28 billion dollars to charity as of 2007. Ranked 3𝑟𝑑 on the list of top philanthropists in the U.S.A. as of 2009.

2005 person of the year

Due to their philanthropic work, Bill and Melinda Gates were named “Persons of the Year” along with the lead singer of U2, Bono.

Investments Bill has invested in company's other then Microsoft: • Cascade Investment group is controlled by Bill and has investments in company's such as CN Rail and Coca Cola. • bgC3, which is a think-tank organization aimed at developing software to end poverty. • Corbis is a company that distributes rights to still images. It is privately owned by Mr. Gates. • TerraPower is a company designing nuclear reactors that do not require refuelling for 100 years.

Awards 1994- CEO of the year in Chief Executive Officers magazine 2005- Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire proclaimed by queen Elisabeth II 2006- Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico’s highest declaration for a forger) 2010- Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute

2010- Silver Buffalo Award (Boy Scouts of America's highest award)

Honorary Degrees Despite never graduating from Harvard, Bill has received the following honorary doctorial degrees:  Nyenrode Business University 2000  Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) 2002  Waseda University 2005  Tsinghua University 2007  Harvard 2007  Karolinska Institutet 2007  University of Cambridge 2009

Author Bill has written two books:

 The Road Ahead (1995)  Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999)

The profits of both books were donated to charity.

References:  "Bill Gates”€ “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .  "Bill Gates Biography." Woopidoo Business Success Motivational Business Quotes. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .  "Bill Gates: Chairman." Microsoft. 26 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .  "Bill Gates." The History of Computing Project. March Mar. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. .