Bill Gates On October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington a boy was born. This child would grow up to be one of the most successful people in the history of man. His name, William (Bill) Henry Gates. Bill a. k. a. Trey was a different child from the beginning of his life. His first five years were normal just like most kids. Once he turned six his parents would almost go crazy. He declared war on his mother and always talked back to her as in this example; She would call him up to dinner from his basement bedroom and he would not respond.
“What are you doing? ” she once demanded over the intercom. I’m thinking,” he shouted back. “You’re thinking? ” “Yes, Mom, I’m thinking,” he said fiercely. “Have you ever tried thinking? ” His mother sent him to a psychologist, after a year of tests and studies the doctor came up with a solution. His answer was, “There is nothing you can do. Just give up and live with it. ” Bill attended Lakeside School. It was a very nice private school. There he learned how to use a computer. His friend, Paul Allen and he would start their computer programming there. The first programs they made were a math program and tic-tac- toe.
Bill and three other friends joined forces to make the Lakeside Programmers Group. Bill then went out to a store, which just received a new IBM. He convinced the boss to let him and his friends use the computer. In exchange, he would have to debug the computer. Bill got so obsessed in it that he went to the store late at night and worked on the computer! A little later that year, Bill attended Harvard. To most people there he was considered a snob and idiot. He would order pizza every day and go to many bars. In 1974, Bill and Paul Allen created BASIC, a computer language.
MITS then bought a license to have the product. At the age of twenty-one, Bill dropped out of Harvard to work on Microsoft all the time. Within three months, MITS ripped up the contract. Bill found a person in Japan who would help him. Bill and Paul then set up a building in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They then renamed their company Microsoft. The original name was Allen&Gates. Bill loved New Mexico. He had his favorite Porsche, which he called Sand Buggy. He would go for a ride in the night. Many times Paul would have to pick up Bill from jail. Bill and Paul talked to IBM for many weeks.
They finally convinced IBM to let them have their operating systems on IBM’s computers. Bill then bought Q-DOS, revised it, and called it MS-DOS. In 1982, Paul Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. He decided to leave Microsoft. Bill, working with a small group, invented the mouse. A little box with a wheel at the base, it was a huge success. In addition, that same year, 1983, Bill launched Word 1 Microsoft’s first application. Within a month, Bill had a big thing. He announced to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) to create Interface Manager. It was later renamed Windows.
Then in 1986 Microsoft went public. Bill and Allen became instant millionaires. If a person had bought a hundred stocks in 1986, it would have been 11 million dollars today. It was that day when Bill Gates made his promise. “At Microsoft, our long-held vision of a computer on every desk and in every home continues to be at the core of everything we do. We are committed to the belief that software is the tool that empowers people both at work and at home. Since our company was founded in 1975, our charter has been to deliver on this vision of the power of personal computing.
As the world’s leading software provider, we strive to continually produce innovative products that meet the evolving needs of our customers. Our extensive commitment to research and development is coupled with dedicated responsiveness to customer feedback. This allows us to explore future technological advancements, while assuring that our customers today receive the highest quality software products. ” * Microsoft had jumped in the software race and they were flying. They became number one and have not lost that spot since. Bill then started to work on Windows 3. 0. Windows 1. 0 was a huge flop.
It was slow compared to Apple and was much harder to use. Apple was clearly winning the race of software. In nineteen ninety, Windows 3. 0 was released. Sales were crazy. As many as 25,000 copies were sold in a month! That was a big number back then. That same year, Microsoft had revenue of 1. 1 billion dollars, the biggest ever in the computer company. Bill Gates was a big media figure after 3. 0. He appeared on four covers of TIME and has been in the press a lot. His boyish figure and his dirty hair caused on uproar. Bill accepted the National Medal of Technology from President George Bush.
In 1992, he also released Windows 3. 1. Windows 3. 1 was the biggest Microsoft product sold until Windows 95 came out. Many computers still have Windows 3. 1 on them. Within a few months, Bill Gates introduced a new operating system called Windows NT. This was for mainly business use. In addition, in 1993, Microsoft introduced five multimedia titles. They were made for education purposes. Microsoft was booming with business, and they would take a big leap in 1993 before companies would be in the race with Microsoft. This year Microsoft would zoom and be nearly impossible to catch up to.
That would also be the year Bill would try to get Microsoft in the Internet race. In 1994, Bill, aged thirty-eight, married one of Microsoft’s marketing managers, Melinda French, on Lanai, Hawaii. Warren Buffet helped by diverting the jet carrying the two to his home. There he gave Bill a ring. That same month, Bill told the press that he would finish the new version of Windows. He gave it the code name Chicago. It would be the most eagerly awaited product in software history. Then on August 24, 1994, Bill Gates introduced Windows 95 to the world! He used the sentence ” Where would you like to go to today? s a marketing plan.
A few days later, Windows 95 was introduced to the rest of the world. Windows 95 was an instant success. Hundreds of companies made the switch. This is where Bill Gates made a lot of money. Then in October of 1995, Bill celebrated his 40th birthday. He had many guests and it was a big party. Then that following month Bill introduced Internet Explorer. The browser wars then were started. Netscape and Microsoft have furious fights and many arguments. In addition, Bill would write a book named “The Road Ahead. ” It was an instant best seller.
Then in April 1996, Bill and Melinda had their first child. She was named Jennifer Katherine Gates. In an interview with TIME, Bill introduced his new plans for Microsoft. He was going to lead Microsoft into a multimedia age and the Internet age as well. Microsoft and Netscape had big fights with the browser wars. Microsoft just has released I. E. 4. 0 now in 1997 Microsoft has released Office 97. That program has brought in 2 billion dollars this quarter. This year, Bill plans to release Windows 97 (Memphis) and Windows NT. Bill has just bought WebTV. His goal now is to rule the multimedia field.
Bill plans to retire in fifteen years. He has a great amount of money in the bank. Precisely $32. 855000 billion it grows 30 million dollars a day. Bill will be moving into his new home in July. It is a 40 million-dollar house, it is about 41,000 square feet, and it has been six years since the start. “I don’t think there’s anything unique about human intelligence. All the neurons in the brain that make up perceptions and emotions operate in a binary fashion. ” Earthly life is carbon-based, he notes, while computers are silicon-based, but he does not see that as a critical distinction.
Eventually we’ll be able to sequence the human gene and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system. “** Bill will try in the next few years to create artificial intelligence. Although Bill is despised by so many, he still has been one of the most important people in the history of the world. Without him life would not be the same, because everytime you switch on a computer you will be using his products, if it’s a Apple, Gateway 2000, IBM, and many more. He is a person we all should be grateful to.
