2. BILL GATES
For long the world’s richest man, till he was upstaged by legendary investor Warren Buffett recently, Bill Gates wears many a hat: computer whiz kid, entrepreneur extraordinaire, compassionate capitalist, top management thinker. . .
Born on October 28, 1955, William H Gates III grew up in Seattle with his two sisters.
Their father, William H Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.
Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.
In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
Books that he wrote:
The Road Ahead (1995), held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks.
Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999). Published in 25 languages the book is available in more than 60 countries.
Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January, 2000; remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as a part-time, non-executive chairman.
Gates married Melinda French from Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002).
Bill Gates' house is a 21st century earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington.
Image: Bill Gates was awarded with a honorary doctorate in medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, on January 23, 2008. Bill and Melinda Gates (not present during the conferment ceremony) were honoured for their work with the global health issues through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. | Photograph: Anders Wiklund/SCANPIX/AFP/Getty Images
Also read:
Bill Gates' words of wisdom
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