William (Bill) H.

Gates III is co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world's leading provider of software for personal computers. Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955. He and his two sisters grew up in Seattle. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Mary Gates, their late mother, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent and chairwoman of United Way International. Gates attended public elementary school before moving on to the private Lakeside School in North Seattle. It was at Lakeside that Gates began his career in personal computer software, programming computers at age 13. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, who is now Microsoft's president. While at Harvard, and G a t e s d e v e l o p e d a v e r s i o n o f t h e p r o g r a m m i n g language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair. BASIC was first developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at DartmouthC o l l e g e i n t h e m i d 1 9 6 0 s . I n h i s j u n i o r y e a r , G a t e s d r o p p e d o u t o f Harvard to devote his energies full-time to Microsoft, a company he had started in 1975 with his boyhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief t h a t t h e p e r s o n a l c o m p u t e r w o u l d b e a v a l u a b l e t o o l o n e v e r y o f f i c e desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personalcomputers.G a t e s ' f o r e s i g h t a n d v i s i o n r e g a r d i n g p e r s o n a l c o m p u t i n g h a v e b e e n central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry. Gates isa c t i v e l y i n v o l v e d i n k e y m a n a g e m e n t a n d s t r a t e g i c d e c i s i o n s a t Microsoft, and plays an important role in the technical development of new products. Much of his time is devoted to meeting with customers and staying in contact with Microsoft employees around the world through e-mail. Facts about Bill Gates 1. Queen Elizabeth gave him the title of 'Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire'. 2. IBM contracted him for the development of their first Personal Computer. 3. He is the Co-Founder and the Chairperson of Microsoft. 4. He is the world's third richest person (As per the survey done in 2008) 5. He is an American Business Magnate. 6. Forbes Magazine listed his name in 'The World's Richest People' from the year 1995 to 2007. 7. Berkshire Hathaway, an investment company, approached him to be the Director of the company. In 2000 Gates resigns as CEO of Microsoft to spend more on software architecture and less with running the company CHARACTERISTICS OF BILL GATESINTELLIGENT He believes that if you are intelligent and know how to apply your i n t e l l i g e n c e , y o u c a n a c h i e v e a n y t h i n g . F r o m childhood Bill was a mbitious, intelligent and competitive. These qualities helped him to attain top position in the profession he chose. VISIONARY Microsoft's vision is "A computer on every desk and Microsoft software on every computer he will continue to stomp out the competition until he dies. Every business and household must have a computer and must run Microsoft software, was the basic guiding vision of Bill Gates. PASSION

When as a student at the Harvard University, every single student would have wanted to be part of the great institute and graduate to be successful, B i l l G a t e s decided to stop studying and pursue his dream of writing softwares for every computer in the worldH e w a s j u s t p a s s i o n a t e a b o u t s o f t w a r e , c o d i n g a n d t e c h n o l o g y t h a t incidentally also made him the richest man in the world INNOVATION Gates and Allen were assisted by a staff of six, which included four programmers. In late 1977, Gates released a version of FOR T R A N language for microcomputers. In 1978, Gates and Allen introduced aversion of COBOL. Around this time, Microsoft emerged as the market leader in microcomputer languages with sales exceeding $1 million. In1979, Microsoft developed a new version of BASIC... He had an early interest in software and began programming computers at the a g e o f thirteen.