Who Is Bill Gates and 35 Of The Billionaire’s Secret Facts
I want to present you with 35 facts about Bill Gates.
19 facts about his estate worth over 129 million dollars and 16 facts about Bill Gates and why he is the world’s richest man?
Before turning to Bill Gates’ earnings and expenses, I want to tell you who this man is and how he achieved such success.
Table of contents:
· Born and Family
· Computer Familiarization
· Creation of Microsoft
· Birth Of a Billionaire
· Life After Microsoft
· Bill Gates Now
· Most people have heard three facts about Bill Gates:
· However, there are many other curious moments in the biography of Bill Gates, about which few people know:
· 19 Facts About Bill Gates Manor worth over $ 123 million
· Quotes by Bill Gates
Brief biography:
Complete Name: William Henry Gates III
Birthday: October 28, 1955
Place of Birth: Seattle, Washington
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 65 kg
Zodiac Mark: Scorpio (characterization)
Oriental horoscope: Goat
Eye color: blue with a hint of green
Hair color: salt and pepper
Born and Family
Bill was born and raised in a prestigious Seattle neighborhood in a successful and affluent family — his father, William H. Gates, was a successful lawyer. His mother, Mary, was a schoolteacher, philanthropist and a member of the board of directors of United Way of America.
Bill was the second child in the family: he has an older sister, Christie, and a younger sister, Libby. The family lived in a prosperous Sand Pond neighborhood in the south of the city.
The only shock to this quiet neighborhood was the tornado that hit him in September 1962. Eight houses were affected, including the Gates house.
William and Mary raised a future billionaire and philanthropist, but it was not easy. In his early childhood, Bill was quite a naughty child. When his mother tried again unsuccessfully to call him for lunch, she got angry and shouted at him: “What are you doing there?”. “I think. Have you ever tried to think?” her son repressed her.
After that, Bill was taken to a psychologist, and he advised his parents to give his son more freedom: “Some things become for Bill a fixed idea. It is better not to argue with him about these things. It is a waste of time”.
(in those years, personal computers were out of the question) and explore the subject of their interest.
According to Gates, the psychologist helped him too: “He convinced me that it is not good to challenge my own parents, that this way, I do not prove anything. I think that by 14 years, I had completely overcome it”.
The spouses tried to instill in their son’s interest not only in what he did well but also in what turned out badly. So, he didn’t like swimming, soccer, and music, but was engaged in them (except for playing the trombone, he left it rather quickly).
Bill wondered why his parents made him do things that didn’t work out. And they had their own view of things: trying themselves in new areas, the boy developed his thinking and realized that failure is an integral part of life.
Computer Familiarization
In 1967, the boy moved to the prestigious Lakeside High School. He was the first to work on the school’s teletype, which in those years resembled a hybrid typewriter and printer and was deprived of a graphic output device. Bill was so captivated by programming that he spent all of his time in the computer room, often sacrificing other lessons.
In 1968, a teenager met Paul Allen, who studied two classes older and also had a passion for computers. Together, they developed their first program, which automatically made the school schedule unique. The guys received a five hundred dollar bonus from the school director for their work and realized that their hobby could bring a good income. Bill Gates and Paul Allen went to the same school.
The young men were allowed to engage in programming in the computer laboratory of Washington University because school computers could not compete with the arsenal there. “Basically, we did all kinds of nonsense: strategies for Monopoly”, simple programs on punched cards,” Gates recalled. But in 1971, the guys were banned from appearing there for a whole year because of “trust abuse” — they proved that stealing passwords from the security system is easy.
“We were aware of the future of microprocessors and wondered why nobody around us understands it. “
At the age of 17, Gates, a high school student at the time, together with a friend, wrote a program that analyzed traffic. The young people earned $20 thousand, and the next contract — to create an analytical program for the hydroelectric power plant — brought them $30 thousand.
Creation of Microsoft
After graduation, Gates went to Harvard University, where he continued his programming studies. In 1974, he saw an article about the first portable computer, “Altair”. Bill and Paul approached the developers with a proposal to create software for the new machine. When they received a positive answer, they immediately started to work. Writing programs had to be at night; also, the guys used university computers, which was not satisfied with Harvard management. After finishing school, Gates entered Harvard University.
But despite the bans and threats, they managed to finish the work and sell the software for “Altair” for three thousand dollars. With this money, Bill and Paul created their own company, which they called Microsoft.
To his parents’ disappointment, Gates dropped out and dedicated himself completely to his favorite cause. Back in Seattle, the guys rented a small office in the suburbs.
In 1978, the company employed only eleven people: Bill was engaged in contracts and negotiations with customers, Paul — technical support.
Birth Of a Billionaire
At twenty-four, Gates signed a contract with IBM, which eventually made him the richest and most influential man on the planet. The world’s largest computer company needed an operating system for new development, and Microsoft took on the task of creating it. The intermediary in this deal was Bill’s mother, who introduced her son to IBM management. This does not detract from the merits of Gates himself, who was able to convince partners to entrust them with this vital task.
So in 1981, the famous MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operation System) text operating system appeared, which became the most advanced operating system globally and made personal computers more accessible to the average user. It was adapted not only for BASIC but also for the most popular programming languages. It should be noted that Gates did not write it from scratch. He moved the “Skeleton” from 86-DOC, the rights to which he bought from Seattle Computer Products for $75 thousand.
In August of the same year, the first IBM computer with an Intel processor based on MS-DOC was released. IBM products occupied the niche of personal computers due to relatively low cost. At the same time, the main competitor, Lisa from Apple (and for some time, Microsoft helped Jobs in development), cost $10 thousand and was available only to a select circle.
Bill did not sell his operating system IBM and agreed on a percentage for each computer sold by the company. Thanks to this smart marketing move, by the age of thirty, he became a billionaire.
In 1995, the operating system Windows 95 was released, which turned out to be so much more powerful than the competition that it cemented the Microsoft championship in the market for many years. In 1996, Forbes recognized Bill Gates as the richest man on the planet. Until 2007, he remained so, again received this title in 2009 and did not give it until 2016. In 2018, the entrepreneur gave up this title to the owner of Amazon — Jeff Bezos.
Life After Microsoft
In June 2008, Gates resigned his position as head of Microsoft and took up charitable and social activities. However, this did not mean that he finally broke off relations with his brainchild. Until 2010, Gates remained Chairman of the Board of Directors, but without executive powers. He also retained a large stake in the corporation, namely, 8.7%.
Already in October 2008, Bill Gates registered his third company called “bgC3”. It is a small research center that provides scientific and technological services.
After leaving Microsoft, Gates began investing in research, buying artwork, and funding political campaigns. For example, in 2003, he exhibited a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s previously purchased works at the Seattle Museum of Art. In 2004, according to Forbes, he founded the George W. Bush presidential campaign.
In early 2005, the British Foreign Office awarded Bill Gates the title of Knight Commander of the British Empire’s Order for his contribution to British enterprises and his struggle to reduce poverty in the world.
In 2010, he and Warren Buffett were the first to sign the Oath of Giving, an agreement of the richest people on the planet who pledged to donate half their fortune to charity while still alive. The document was signed by billionaires who made a fortune on IT (Mark Zuckerberg), trading (Michael Bloomberg), and cinema (George Lucas). In early 2018, Bill Gates announced his intention to invest about $ 12 million in an influenza vaccine. He admitted that he refused to become a science adviser to Donald Trump.
Bill Gates Now
In 2020, Bill Gates’ predictions of the deadliest threat to humanity came true. Over the years, he has repeatedly stated the possibility of a pandemic that could take millions of lives. Ironically, it was Gates who was accused by conspiracy theorists of the global coronavirus epidemic. Apparently, as a supporter of universal vaccination, he was a person interested in the mass disease.
Of course, this is nothing more than speculation that does not stand up to any criticism. In his turn, Gates studied the coronavirus problem closely, sponsored the vaccine development and made a disappointing forecast that mankind would return to normal life in no more than 1–2 years.
In the fall of 2020 Bill Gates made a public statement about the second wave of coronavirus. He noted that residents of all countries are waiting for the complication of the disease and its consequences. According to the businessman, with the onset of cold weather, people will begin to spend more time indoors, which inexorably will lead to an even more significant increase in morbidity.
Most people have heard three facts about Bill Gates:
- He is one of the wealthiest people in the world.
- He is a co-founder of one of the most successful technology companies of all time — Microsoft.
- He is an incredibly generous philanthropist through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
However, there are many other curious moments in the biography of Bill Gates, about which few people know:
1. As a teenager studying at Lakeside Prep School, Gates wrote his first program on a General Electric computer. This was a version of the game “tic-tac-toe,” where you could play against the computer.
2. As soon as the school noticed Gates’ programming abilities, he was allowed to write the school’s computer program for scheduling classes for students. Gates cheated and changed the code to attend courses with “a disproportionate number of interesting girls.”
3. As a teenager, Gates read the 22-volume World Book Encyclopedia series.
4. Bill Gates almost entirely passed the SAT (Standardized Test for Admission to Higher Education in the United States) with a score of 1,590 out of 1,600 possible.
5. Like many other successful technology entrepreneurs, Gates was expelled from college. He left Harvard University in 1975 to devote himself entirely to Microsoft.
6. Two years after his expulsion from Harvard, Gates was arrested in the state of New Mexico. He was driving a car without a driver’s license and ran a red light.
7. In Microsoft, Gates memorized employee’s car plates to keep records of their arrivals and departures to work.
“In the end, I had to give up this idea because the company’s staff had grown considerably,” Bill Gates recalled in one of his interviews.
8. Speaking of cars, Gates has an impressive Porsche collection. Its highlight is the sports Porsche 959, which Bill purchased 13 years before the car was approved for use on public roads by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
9. Gates often used economy class for his flights. Today he uses an aircraft he has owned since 1997, which he calls one of his most significant purchases.
10. Another major purchase of Gates was the Leicester Code, which contains a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific records from 1506–1510. He purchased it for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.
11. Despite his impressive wealth, Gates says his children will inherit only $10 million — only part of his fortune, which is estimated at $90+ billion in early 2018.
“A huge amount of money will not bring them anything good,” Bill Gates is sure.
12. Despite the fact that Bill devotes a significant part of his time to his foundation, he states that he is still working with Microsoft to develop a “personal agent” that “will remember everything and help you to go back and find things, as well as help you choose what things to pay attention to.
13. Gates says that if Microsoft hadn’t been successful, he might have become a artificial intelligence researcher.
14. Despite his interest in AI, Gates states that he is “in a camp that is concerned about superintelligence. This camp also includes prominent leaders in science and technology, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Mask.
15. Surprisingly, Bill Gates does not know any foreign languages. According to him, he still regrets the most in his life.
16. Bill Gates reads about 50 books a year.
“Reading is the main way I learn about new things and test my understanding,” the entrepreneur believes.
Do you think only Hollywood actors spend millions of dollars on expensive houses and cars? No. IT technologies also do not stand still and people spend their earned money on expensive estates, islands and planes.
19 Facts About Bill Gates Manor worth over $ 123 million
It took seven years and $63 million to build this estate in Medina, Washington State. He named it “Xanadu 2.0” after the fictional house of Carl Foster Kane, the main character of the famous movie “Citizen Kane.”
Today the house costs at least 123 million dollars.
According to the State Evaluation Office of King County, this year the property was estimated at 123.54 million dollars. In 1988, Gates acquired the land for $2 million. It is reported that the annual property tax alone is one million dollars.
The construction took almost 1.2 thousand cubic meters of wood.
The house was built of so-called Oregon pine wood — in the scientific way this tree is called Menzis pseudotsuga; it looks like a fir. We used plants about 500 years old. Over 300 workers, including 100 electricians, worked on the construction.
A sensor system covering the entire estate gives residents the ability to control the climate and lighting in their rooms.
When a new guest enters the house, he is given a special key fob, which is tied to the house sensors. Guests enter their temperature preferences and desired lighting, and when they move from one room to another, these parameters change accordingly. The music that a person began to listen to in one room will follow him to the next room, thanks to a system of speakers installed under the wallpaper.
To reduce heat loss, the terrain features are used.
“Xanadu 2.0” is inscribed in the landscape taking into account the principles of energy efficiency.
Paintings on the walls can be changed at the touch of a button.
A lot of computer screens are mounted throughout the house at a total cost of 80 thousand dollars. Anyone can display their favorite picture or photo; the home storage system costs 150 thousand dollars.
There is a separate underwater music system in the pool.
The 18-meter swimming pool itself is located in a separate room of 360 m² — in the photo above this is a large brown building. If you bungee under a glass wall, you can find yourself on the outside terrace.
The building also has a dressing room with four showers and two baths.
For trampoline, there is a separate room with a six-meter ceiling.
The size of the trampoline is not reported, but obviously, it is more fun than usual simulators.
However, gyms with a total area of 230 m² are also available, as well as sauna, steam room and separate men’s and women’s locker rooms.
The vast reception hall can accommodate up to 200 guests.
Its area is more than 200 m², and it can accommodate up to 150 people for lunch — or 200 during a buffet. An almost two-meter limestone fireplace adjoins a seven-meter screen on another wall.
The house has 24 bathrooms, 10 of which have a bathtub.
Of course, if you regularly collect huge parties, they may come in handy, otherwise they look redundant. Although, as they say, everyone chooses what he likes.
There are six kitchens.
Kitchens are located in different parts of the house to serve any event if necessary.
The house has a huge library, which, among other things, is home to a manuscript for which Gates has given more than $30 million.
A dome rises above the library with an area of almost 200 m². Two secret cabinets, one of which is a bar, are installed here. On the ceiling, you can read a quote from the “Great Gatsby”: “The Dologue was the path that led him to these velvety lawns, and it probably seemed to him that now that his dream was so close, he should stretch out his hand — and he will catch it.
This is where the Leicester Codex, a XIV century manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, was bought by Gates at an auction in 1994 for $30.8 million.
The home theater with velvet seats can accommodate 20 guests.
It is decorated in Art Deco style, there are comfortable chairs and sofas and even a popcorn machine.
The old house was taken away on a barge to make room for a new building.
The building occupies 83 m² and is located next to a sports court, a golf practice lawn and a boat marina.
According to Us News, the guest house of 170 m² was the first completed. It has its own living room and bathroom, and the technology later used in the main building was tried out here. Here too, Gates wrote most of the book “The Road to the Future”.
The garages can accommodate a total of 23 cars.
In different parts of the site are several garages. The most interesting of them is the cave, made of steel and concrete. This garage alone can accommodate up to 10 cars. Somewhere, the concrete surface is broken, as if by accident, which gives the room a rough, “deconstructivist” look.
The owner has a favorite tree, and electronics control his well-being around the clock.
It is said to be a 40-year-old maple growing at the entrance to the house. The computer, for example, monitors the soil moisture, and if it gets too dry, irrigation is automatically activated.
The artificial stream supports the fish population.
The brook and swampy estuary were created to solve the drainage problem in a walled area. The stream is home to trout and salmon.
Sand on Gates beach is imported from the Caribbean Sea.
Every year, a barge from St. Lucia brings new sand to the lake shore.
It is known that to hire it on one flight costs from 35 thousand dollars.
Every year Microsoft holds a charity auction, lots for which are provided by employees. The collected money goes to the charity fund of the company.
Quotes by Bill Gates
I can write a lot of information about this person. I tried to write to you about the facts that I think you will be interested in. Of course, these are public facts. These facts are collected from public sources.
Comment on this article to write about the facts that you know. It will be very interesting!
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